Sexism scandal for Wow developer Blizzard expands

After a lawsuit of a California authority for sexism against Activision Blizzard, the Gaming Studio Blizzard is in criticism. After the action, some former employees of Blizzard reported to speak and told their experiences with the renowned playman (WOW, Overwatch, Diablo, Hearthstone).

This is the prehistory:

• A few days ago, the action of a Californian authority against Activision Blizzard became public. That was a two-year investigation preceded. In the suit you threw Activision Blizzard repeatedly, they would pay women's worse and treat as men. In addition, it came in the company to numerous cases of sexual harassment that had not been properly reacted. Many of the allegations were directed against Blizzard and here concretely against the team around WoW.
• In a first statement, Activision Blizzard dismissed these allegations. They are distorted and wrong. Internally, however, emails that assure the employees, you take these allegations very seriously.
• On Twitter, some former developers and developers were reported by Blizzard, who describe their experiences in the company.

"Hard whom to find that did not see how cocked was"

These say former Employees of Blizzard: On Reddit there is a list of 29 former employees at Blizzard, who have expressed the tweets (via reddit).

An employee, Cher Scarlett, was about a year at Blizzard in 2015 to 2016. It works as a software engineer. Scarlett writes to the allegations:

"That was long overdue. It would be really difficult to find someone who did not witness how it came to sex in the gamer lounge, as cocaine was taken in toilets, during a cube crawl, or who has not seen at least once, like one Woman was sexually harassed.

Blizzard claims that the report of the authority is wrong / misleading / irresponsible. I can tell you: I knew what's in the report before I read it from my time there. And I was only a year there. I saw "all these things". "

Cher Scarlett, Software Engineer, 1 year at Blizzard

The developer says she would have phoned with employees and crying with pleasure that finally everything comes out. At that time she had a complaint from one of her tormentors after she had complained about harassment.

She had to look at how some of her best friends have been traumatized again and again. For them, it had been bad that the "Men in Power" has been rewarded the last few years again and again. Their names now read in the report mean everything.

Meanwhile, the developer works for Apple.

"I've thought up many excuses to stay with Blizzard because it was so cool to work there"

Another employee was 6 years at Blizzard until she left the company in April 2019. She says:

"It is 2.5 years ago and I still wear a lot of pain from my time from Blizzard in me. I stayed too long (7 years) and kept "Blizzard" on the label. Now I'm finally in a company that paid me fairly and fairly treated. "

Nicki Broderick, Producer, 6 years at Blizzard

She says at Blizzard she started with 20 as an intern and thought it was normal that she was treated in so - that would be the same in the gaming industry. When she complained, she would have said by the HR department: "You behave like a gallery".

For a long time she believed she had to endure to meet and be transported. Ultimately, she would have come up with a lot of excuses to continue working at Blizzard because it was so cool to work for Blizzard.

The developer now works as a producer for "Second Dinner", the company of Hearthstone-Guru Ben Brode.

A male ex employee of Blizzard is now at Riot. He says:

"I have seen a lot of these things and more, what happened to my female colleague, during my time at Blizzard: Many cases of discrimination and harassment were swept under the carpet. We were told that the problematic persons are "too far above" to make something about them. Some things never change. "

Bret Forbes, Community Manager, 3 years at Blizzard

The developer says: There are also many great people in the company that fight hard for change. He believes that Blizzard is just in a phase of change.

Great problem: Messages to the staff department brought nothing

What else is the tenor? The tenor in the news is very personal, often twin-columns. Many seem to bother with their time at Blizzard. Some say they admire the courage of women who now go to the public. They themselves are not ready to do so. Others regret it that during their time they have endured Blizzard things to endanger their job. An employee says, for example, they are just dismissed by Blizzard and therefore did not want to speak.

But there are some things that chap out of the postings of just under 30 former employees:

• Many emphasize, there are great people at Blizzard, you love the games there and have loved the job in themselves
• But some people in power positions really behaved
• Again and again it is emphasized that the victims of sexual harassment and discrimination felt helpless because they could not contact the personnel department
• Many of the cases have been reported years ago - but the reports had nothing. They would have fallen negatively to the complaints
• One says, "You only turn to the staff department, if you want the whole company to talk about the topic" (Via Twitter)
• It is also clarified that these complaints would have nothing to do with Activision, the problems did not have started only with the takeover by Activision, but that is actually a "blizzard" problem

In Wow, the players protested against the behavior of some Blizzard employees:

WOW player demonstrates against Blizzard - make sit-ins, slaughter NPC