Being a good guy who is sorry and says he'll do better is not a magic wand that absolves one for helping foster a culture of sexual harassment in your company (and letting it go on and thus tacitly indicating that its okay IS helping foster this sort of garbage behavior). Its nice that Morhaime seems to be a genuine person who wants to do better, and Im sure he will do better in the future, but that doesn't make the culture at Blizzard that festered under his leadership not his responsibility.
On July 26 2021 17:53 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: She said Morhaime was a good guy, so no reason to go after him.While i hope she gets justice in court, reading through her tweets on her account just reminded me why i gave up on Blizzard and other big devs a decade ago and just focus on smaller development companies now.
The writing was on the wall long before War 3 Reforged, Diablo Mobile game and the Hong Kong drama.
Indeed it was. The writing has been on the wall for a long while. I didn't want to admit it, but honestly ever since Cataclysm the writing has been there. Blizzard has gotten progressively worse.
The Blizzard of old would have never released WoL when they did, the way that it was. Do you remember how fucking bad B.NET 2.0 was when it launched? Old blizzard would never have let that happen.
It just got worse and worse as time went on, and that period of getting worse and worse is now at this point nearly 10 years.
Blizzard was poisoned and is dying a slow and painful death. Only now at the end does everyone actually see it.
What? Alex Afrasiabi was hired to Blizzard in fuckin' 2004. Thats the year original World of Warcraft released, let alone all the way to Cata. This isn't a new development, the owner of Blizzard's own Cosby Room had been with the company for more than half of Blizzard's existence.
Also I cant tell if youre bemoaning Blizzard's bad culture as having an impact on their game development, but if so you really can't set the timeline at 2010 when the offenders had been with the company for years at that point.
Old Blizzard was still a company that had sex pests.
On July 26 2021 18:09 Zambrah wrote: Being a good guy who is sorry and says he'll do better is not a magic wand that absolves one for helping foster a culture of sexual harassment in your company (and letting it go on and thus tacitly indicating that its okay IS helping foster this sort of garbage behavior). Its nice that Morhaime seems to be a genuine person who wants to do better, and Im sure he will do better in the future, but that doesn't make the culture at Blizzard that festered under his leadership not his responsibility.
On July 26 2021 17:53 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: She said Morhaime was a good guy, so no reason to go after him.While i hope she gets justice in court, reading through her tweets on her account just reminded me why i gave up on Blizzard and other big devs a decade ago and just focus on smaller development companies now.
The writing was on the wall long before War 3 Reforged, Diablo Mobile game and the Hong Kong drama.
Indeed it was. The writing has been on the wall for a long while. I didn't want to admit it, but honestly ever since Cataclysm the writing has been there. Blizzard has gotten progressively worse.
The Blizzard of old would have never released WoL when they did, the way that it was. Do you remember how fucking bad B.NET 2.0 was when it launched? Old blizzard would never have let that happen.
It just got worse and worse as time went on, and that period of getting worse and worse is now at this point nearly 10 years.
Blizzard was poisoned and is dying a slow and painful death. Only now at the end does everyone actually see it.
What? Alex Afrasiabi was hired to Blizzard in fuckin' 2004. Thats the year original World of Warcraft released, let alone all the way to Cata. This isn't a new development, the owner of Blizzard's own Cosby Room had been with the company for more than half of Blizzard's existence.
Also I cant tell if youre bemoaning Blizzard's bad culture as having an impact on their game development, but if so you really can't set the timeline at 2010 when the offenders had been with the company for years at that point.
Old Blizzard was still a company that had sex pests.
No I'm separating the two in that last post. I don't have any idea how long the harassment culture has been there.
I was bemoaning the lack of quality in their actual game products and by my own anedctotal memory I place the pin back in when Cataclysm launched that I started to notice a decline.
I have no idea how long the toxic culture was there, and since the testimonies are so all over the place in terms of timeline (at least the ones that get quoted off of twitter anyway) I don't think anyone can as of now tell me how far back this goes.
I'm waiting for the findings of discovery (that's legal terminology for when the evidence of the prosecution gets released to the defense, and the court, and possibly the public) to determine with actual certainty how far back the toxic culture goes. Until then it's all heresay, there's a damn large amount of it, so we KNOW that the culture was bad. But until the case proceeds further, no one can make a determinate guess as to how far back this goes. It can go 20 even 30 years back. Making guesses until then is just that, guesses.
Like I said in my previous post. Wait for the evidence. For all we know Alex Afrasiabi was the main culprit, he could also have nothing to do with it. Anyone saying otherwise that wasn't there is just quoting heresay.
Alex Afrasiabi is explicitly named as having had a room that the legal documents refer to as “The Cosby Room,” referencing sexual predator Bill Cosby. The state has been investigating this for two years, this is not some fresh thing they’ve just started looking into, they’ve been looking into it for years and Blizzard was given a chance to improve company culture which they did not do to California’s satisfaction.
Given Afrasiabi was hired in 2004 its safe to assume that around 2004 is a period adjacent to or within Blizzard’s culture of sexual abuse, given Afrasiabi is a named sexual predator by the state of California’s legal documentation.
Alex Afrasiabi, the former Senior Creative Director of World of Warcraft at Blizzard Entertainment, was permitted to engage in blatant sexual harassment with little to no repercussions. During a company event (an annual convention called Blizz Con) Afrasiabi would hit on female employees, telling him he wanted to marry them, attempting to kiss them, and putting, his arms around them. This was in plain view of other male employees, including supervisors, who had to intervene and pull him off female employees. Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the “Crosby Suite” after alleged rapist Bill Crosby.
California would not be bringing a colossal corporation like ActiBlizz to court without a very substantial chance of winning their case.
Has their doc if you want to read it, but we’re past the point of this all being rumors, there is a real case here and the likes of JAB and Afrasiabi are firmly in the wrong.
Very soon..so in 5-10 years? That's usually what very soon means in these types of cases, with this many people and evidence involved
If that's how long this takes, that's how long it takes. Do you want this shit done properly? or do you want to hang a man just to say you did something quickly?
This case has developed over the course of years, it might take years to resolve. Are you really surprised about that? What is the fucking alternative?
Dude, calm down with your strawmen please.. and calm down in general too. No one here is out to get you
Why would I be "surprised" by a number I pulled out of my own ass? You were the one who wrote, quote, "VERY soon", 5-10 years is not VERY anything, but that is the amount of time it takes if you want it done properly, as you yourself pointed out. I did not comment on whether that was good, bad, or didn't matter at all. I just commented unemotionally on the fact that cases of this magnitude takes a long time, and we won't be seeing the results of this VERY soon at all
Honestly we've known Alex Afrasiabi was a piece of trash since the Everquest / Fires of Heaven days. Dude was a whiny petulant child back then who absolutely had to "dominate" everyone or he was throwing a fit. For those who don't know, he ran one of the most successful guilds of early Everquest (Fires of Heaven) and always, and i mean always, bitched and moaned on his website about the state of the game to his huge fanbase, which put immense pressure on the developers to change their vision in order to cope with this guy. This'll only be relevant to EQ players but, Wanna know why we had crazy key systems that took weeks *per person* to do when you need 40+ people keyed? Wanna know why Epics were so crazy and difficult? Wanna know why Trakanon was the (absurd) bottleneck to Veeshan's Peak? Not to mention all of what Luclins endgame was ? It was to stop Alex's guild from repeating their cycle of steam rolling content the week it released and going on his website and pressuring people to quit the game. Its well documented that the team behind everquest repeatedly had to push out content that was NOT ready *because* of this guy pressuring them by threatening to quit / influence everyone else to quit. He had power already back then, and he abused the fuck out of it. Blizzard took a chance on him because he seemed to have a good vision of MMO game design [arguable, imo] - but they never stopped to recognize this fuck was abusing his power by harrassing and threatening game devs and he was 100% a liability. Blizzard is reaping the rewards of that now, that guy never deserved to be in any position of power at all, i hold him pretty responsible for having a hand in destroying what made Everquest great and I can't forgive him for that (Seriously, the dude had MASSIVE influence on the direction of the game, particularly end game, look into his story sometime and how he pressured the devs, its disgusting)
On July 26 2021 21:23 BadBorz1 wrote: This is bullshit, they like to attack big companies to steal them (legally) money.
Are you sure?
I'm with Sterling. When this happens to one or two of the big publishers you have a problem with those publishers. When it happens to all of them you have a problem in your industry. And nothing is being or will be done about it. Why bother when the people running the companies are already hated and don't care if they look like a bunch of pricks?
I'm with Sterling. When this happens to one or two of the big publishers you have a problem with those publishers. When it happens to all of them you have a problem in your industry. And nothing is being or will be done about it. Why bother when the people running the companies are already hated and don't care if they look like a bunch of pricks?
On July 26 2021 21:23 BadBorz1 wrote: This is bullshit, they like to attack big companies to steal them (legally) money.
Yes, because there's no possibility that Blizzard might have a culture problem, and there's no possibility that people throughout the company experienced serious harassment and discrimination. It must be bad actors looking to take Blizzard's money. There's no other explanation for a harassment and discrimination lawsuit.
If your angle is to vilify the victims of massive systemic issues at Blizzard and paint them as malicious actors bent on destroying poor innocent Blizzard, you can fuck off with that shit right now.
On July 26 2021 21:23 BadBorz1 wrote: This is bullshit, they like to attack big companies to steal them (legally) money.
Yes, because there's no possibility that Blizzard might have a culture problem, and there's no possibility that people throughout the company experienced serious harassment and discrimination. It must be bad actors looking to take Blizzard's money. There's no other explanation for a harassment and discrimination lawsuit.
If your angle is to vilify the victims of massive systemic issues at Blizzard and paint them as malicious actors bent on destroying poor innocent Blizzard, you can fuck off with that shit right now.
I'm surprised you haven't been warned for that reply just yet but man, some people really do need to be talked to in a more brutal way.
On July 26 2021 21:23 BadBorz1 wrote: This is bullshit, they like to attack big companies to steal them (legally) money.
Yes, because there's no possibility that Blizzard might have a culture problem, and there's no possibility that people throughout the company experienced serious harassment and discrimination. It must be bad actors looking to take Blizzard's money. There's no other explanation for a harassment and discrimination lawsuit.
If your angle is to vilify the victims of massive systemic issues at Blizzard and paint them as malicious actors bent on destroying poor innocent Blizzard, you can fuck off with that shit right now.
I'm surprised you haven't been warned for that reply just yet but man, some people really do need to be talked to in a more brutal way.
I am not apologetic in the least for saying what I have. When it comes to abuse within structures of power, I take Blizzard's company hierarchy at face value: executives have all the power over rank and file employees. I side with the stories of victims because I find it much more believable that someone with no power is abused by someone with power than the other way around. And believe it or not, money is not a motivator for everything.
Well Blizzard sticks guys like Demuslim in the booth when he talks about opponents raping each other... this is all in character.
The video game industry and community has a long history of misogyny and defending those who are misogynistic.
I mean, this is a quote from a longtime moderator of this forum:
Stealing a way better example made later in the topic. Beat clearly has a negative meaning in domestic violence. Wife beating and physical child abuse are more common than rape and are extremely damaging. That does not mean we should stop using beat as a synonym for win.
Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning.
In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger.
And if you say anything about it, you get silenced.
Funny thing is, gaming culture is not in line with how society views this topic. It isn't up to any one person what is offensive and what it isn't, it is up to all of us. It's a democracy. If you choose to be out of line, there are consequences. For some, that means sitting alone in the lunch room, for others, that means sitting alone in jail.
Blizzard is going to lose, so they will settle outside of court.
On July 27 2021 01:26 BronzeKnee wrote: Well Blizzard sticks guys like Demuslim in the booth when he talks about opponents raping each other... this is all in character.
The video game industry and community has a long history of misogyny and defending those who are misogynistic.
I mean, this is a quote from a longtime moderator of this forum:
Stealing a way better example made later in the topic. Beat clearly has a negative meaning in domestic violence. Wife beating and physical child abuse are more common than rape and are extremely damaging. That does not mean we should stop using beat as a synonym for win.
Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning.
In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger.
And if you say anything about it, you get silenced.
When were those said to be fair?
TL is one of the best examples there is out there of a space that largely has done a good job at evolving out of the most negative parts of gaming culture and showing that nothing of particular value has to be lost
*Edit to your edit* I’d disagree that gaming culture is particularly misaligned with wider societal norms, it’s just similar concepts expressed with the filters off.
Literally any comment thread about some kind of sexual abuse case will have a million and one comments embodying all the various aspects of victim blaming, to take one example.
On July 27 2021 01:26 BronzeKnee wrote: Well Blizzard sticks guys like Demuslim in the booth when he talks about opponents raping each other... this is all in character.
The video game industry and community has a long history of misogyny and defending those who are misogynistic.
I mean, this is a quote from a longtime moderator of this forum:
Stealing a way better example made later in the topic. Beat clearly has a negative meaning in domestic violence. Wife beating and physical child abuse are more common than rape and are extremely damaging. That does not mean we should stop using beat as a synonym for win.
Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning.
In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger.
And if you say anything about it, you get silenced.
When were those said to be fair?
Does it matter?
I'd argue it does not, unless they disavowed those comments later. And that is in line with how our society views this topic.
Time is a construct. It is not the movement of the clock that changes a mind, it is the movement of a mind.
Literally any comment thread about some kind of sexual abuse case will have a million and one comments embodying all the various aspects of victim blaming, to take one example.
I'm not sure this has anything to do with anything. The fact people act poorly is not a reason to act poorly. My point was to show that this community was immersed in this, and that was shown with Demuslim's use of the word rape and the large community defense of it. And Blizzard was running the show in many events. It drips down from the top, so if you are shocked Blizzard is in legal hot water now, well this a good lesson for you. Where there is smoke, there is fire. There is years of evidence of Blizzard condoning poor behavior all over.
So it wasn't just some random guy on a thread.
It doesn't seem like you're here to deny what I said either. Just trying to deflect, but people are losing their job for offensive material they posted years ago on Facebook. And that is because most of us have realized, time is not a defense.
On July 26 2021 21:23 BadBorz1 wrote: This is bullshit, they like to attack big companies to steal them (legally) money.
Yes, because there's no possibility that Blizzard might have a culture problem, and there's no possibility that people throughout the company experienced serious harassment and discrimination. It must be bad actors looking to take Blizzard's money. There's no other explanation for a harassment and discrimination lawsuit.
If your angle is to vilify the victims of massive systemic issues at Blizzard and paint them as malicious actors bent on destroying poor innocent Blizzard, you can fuck off with that shit right now.
I'm surprised you haven't been warned for that reply just yet but man, some people really do need to be talked to in a more brutal way.
I remember a time when people were warned for even the most vanilla negative comments towards Blizzard. How times change eh?
On July 26 2021 22:06 TentativePanda wrote: Nerds don’t know how to be around women
Sorry if I missed a joke or sarcasm, but this isn't a "nerd" problem as it is a toxic culture problem
Stereotypically "un-nerdy" organizations (like sports teams) have also had similar scandals of sexual harassment / abuse as well. Once an organization lets the first "bad apple" or incident slide, it sets a precedent and message to the entire group to keep doing stuff like that
On July 27 2021 01:26 BronzeKnee wrote: Well Blizzard sticks guys like Demuslim in the booth when he talks about opponents raping each other... this is all in character.
The video game industry and community has a long history of misogyny and defending those who are misogynistic.
I mean, this is a quote from a longtime moderator of this forum:
Stealing a way better example made later in the topic. Beat clearly has a negative meaning in domestic violence. Wife beating and physical child abuse are more common than rape and are extremely damaging. That does not mean we should stop using beat as a synonym for win.
Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning.
In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger.
And if you say anything about it, you get silenced.
Funny thing is, gaming culture is not in line with how society views this topic. It isn't up to any one person what is offensive and what it isn't, it is up to all of us. It's a democracy. If you choose to be out of line, there are consequences. For some, that means sitting alone in the lunch room, for others, that means sitting alone in jail.
Blizzard is going to lose, so they will settle outside of court.
I don't think this is the best example of misogyny, like, how did talking about 2 (presumably) men "raping" each other has anything to do with misogyny? People might even think it's promotion of homosexuality. People also use "rape" in sport, at least in football I know, so this is no way a gaming culture exclusive problem.
On July 22 2021 18:30 MockHamill wrote: This is one of the reasons I why I prefer a work environment where the male/female ratio is even. Eighty percent men often leads to a dysfunctional work environment.
Ultimately it the leaders that create the culture though. If the top is rotten the rest of the company will follow.
Unless you force women to do the work there won't be any. Basically all the western IT companies are trying to hire more women and there aren't enough of them. There's a reason for the ratio being shifted in many jobs and it's because some are more attracted to it than the other.
On July 27 2021 01:26 BronzeKnee wrote: Well Blizzard sticks guys like Demuslim in the booth when he talks about opponents raping each other... this is all in character.
The video game industry and community has a long history of misogyny and defending those who are misogynistic.
I mean, this is a quote from a longtime moderator of this forum:
Stealing a way better example made later in the topic. Beat clearly has a negative meaning in domestic violence. Wife beating and physical child abuse are more common than rape and are extremely damaging. That does not mean we should stop using beat as a synonym for win.
Words have meanings. In gaming to rape does not mean to sexually assault the unit or player in question. If anyone was in any way unclear about that then I can see why they might be shocked until the matter was cleared up. But I cannot understand why a word, which at this point is simply a homonym, should be banned because a tiny minority of people associate it with something other than the intended meaning.
In gaming culture rape is not an offensive word. I don't use it but this is almost as bad as people who claim the word niggardly is racist because it sounds kinda like nigger.
And if you say anything about it, you get silenced.
Funny thing is, gaming culture is not in line with how society views this topic. It isn't up to any one person what is offensive and what it isn't, it is up to all of us. It's a democracy. If you choose to be out of line, there are consequences. For some, that means sitting alone in the lunch room, for others, that means sitting alone in jail.
Blizzard is going to lose, so they will settle outside of court.
I don't think this is the best example of misogyny, like, how did talking about 2 (presumably) men "raping" each other has anything to do with misogyny? People might even think it's promotion of homosexuality. People also use "rape" in sport, at least in football I know, so this is no way a gaming culture exclusive problem.
Especially when it happens to males as well. There's a reason why all the soap jokes in the US movies and series exist...
EPT
