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Activision Blizzard Inc., the game developer and publisher of mega franchises such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, fostered a toxic work environment plagued by “frat-boy culture” and harassment of female employees, according to a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH).
The suit was filed last month in the Los Angeles Superior Court after a two year investigation by the DFEH revealed a laundry list of shocking allegations against Activision Blizzard including employment discrimination because of sex; retaliation; failure to prevent discrimination and harassment; and unequal pay.
According to the DFEH complaint, the company discriminated against female employees “in the terms and conditions of their employment (including compensation, assignments, promotions and terminations)”. The suit goes on to allege that Company Leadership failed to take action to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against female employees.
DFEH alleges that Activision Blizzard’s discriminatory practices “began at the hire”, offering women lower compensation and less lucrative opportunities than their male counterparts. According to the allegations this discrimination did not end with the hiring process, once they began work, female employees “were steered into the lower levels of [Activision Blizzard’s] hierarchy and often had to work harder and longer to earn equal promotional and other opportunities”.
Female employees were allegedly passed up for promotion over male employees who were less experienced and had been outperformed by their female colleagues.
DFEH also alleges that pregnant employees were discriminated against by management, with one woman alleged being told that “they could not risk promoting her as she might get pregnant and like being a mom too much.”
DFEH allegations of the harassment female employees experienced are even more shocking than the allegations of unequal pay and opportunities. The complaint details a company culture in which Female employees were subjected to a litany of inappropriate workplace behavior, including “cube crawls” where male employees “drink copious amounts of alcohol as they crawl their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees.”
Furthermore, the suit alleges that male employees would regularly “talk openly about female bodies, and make numerous jokes about rape.” Female employees allege that they were subject to sexual comments and advances, groping, and other forms of harassment.
Female employees working on the development team for World of Warcraft alleged that male employees and supervisors would make derogatory comments about rape, hit on them and “otherwise engage in demeaning behavior.” Supervisors allegedly encouraged this behavior, in one instance reportedly telling a male subordinate to “buy a prostitute” to improve his bad mood.
According to the suit’s allegations this behavior went to the very top of company leadership. The former Senior Creative Director of World of Warcraft, Alex Afrabasi, was allegedly permitted to engage in “blatant sexual harassment” with little to no repercussions.
The suit claims that while attending Blizzcon (an annual convention and company event) Afrasiabi hit on female employees, attempted to kiss them, and put his arms around them. This conduct was allegedly in plain view of Afrasiabi’s supervisors, and so blatant that they had to intervene to pull Afrasiabi off female employees.
Furthermore, the suit alleges that Afrasiabi’s hotel room at Blizzcon, was informally known as “The Cosby Suite” named after alleged rapist Bill Cosby. While the suit alleged that the “Cosby Suite” was simply a nickname given to Afrasiabi’s room, information obtained by the website Kotaku, alleges that the suite was a “booze-filled meeting place” and informal networking spot, where Afrasiabi and other employees would pose for pictures with an actual framed portrait of Bill Cosby.
Harassment was allegedly so pervasive within the company that according to the DFEH suit, it led to the death of a female employee. The suit alleges that one female employee committed suicide on a company trip because of a sexual relationship she had been engaged in with her male supervisor. Employees allegedly reported to police that the deceased had been subjected to sexual harassment at work prior to her death, including one instance in which male co-workers were alleged to have been passing around a sexually explicit photo of the deceased at a company holiday party.
The DFEH suit goes on to detail allegations of a human resources department that was ineffective and failed to respond to female employees’ complaints of discrimination and harassment in the workplace. According to the suit, Activision Blizzard’s own internal investigation into their HR department revealed employees did not trust HR and that multiple employees noted their complaints were not kept confidential. This allegedly led to retaliation against employees who filed reports with HR, including involuntary transfer, selection for layoffs, and denial of opportunities.
In the wake of the DFEH lawsuit, Activision Blizzard released a lengthy statement denouncing the allegations against them, stating “The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. . . The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. . . We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation.”
Company leadership also sent out several companywide emails in response to the situation, including one by now-former Blizzard President J. Allen Brack, in which he said he was “angry, sad and a host of other emotions.” Frances Townsend, former Homeland Security Advisor for George W. Bush, and Chief Compliance officer for Activision Blizzard sent her own companywide email and claimed that the suit “presented a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old, and out of context stories – some from more than a decade ago.” Finally, CEO Bobby Kotick sent a letter to employees on July 27, announcing that he had asked the law Firm WilmerHale to conduct a review of Activision Blizzard’s policies and procedures to ensure that the company maintains “best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace.”
Activision Blizzard’s response was met with backlash from employees and fans. Over a thousand employees signed an open letter to the company’s management condemning their response, and others staged a walkout in protest following Kotick’s response. The walkout came with a list of demands from employees, including: “the end of forced arbitration for all employees; worker participation in oversight of hiring and promotion policies; the need for greater pay transparency to ensure equality; and employee selection of a third party to audit HR and other company processes”
Beyond the public backlash, the lawsuit has also begun to affect Activision Blizzard financially.
According to The Washington Post, major sponsors for Activision Blizzard’s esports league “Overwatch League” have decided to distance themselves from the company. The sponsors include Coca Cola, State Farm and Kellogg’s. On August 10, an Activision Blizzard group of investors released a letter demanding changes to the company’s culture and a request to remove law firm WilmerHale from the investigation of the company’s internal policies.
While the allegations against Activision Blizzard are shocking, it is still far too early to predict exactly how this story will unfold. One thing is for certain, if the allegations are true then Activision Blizzard is a company in need of major reform and should be sanctioned for the discriminatory workplace practices it fostered.
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