Rocksteady’s Responses Were Not Good

Warning: The following article speaks about the response to harassment, and links to articles, videos, and first-hand accounts on the matter of harassment. Readers discretion is advised.

Which company gets the metaphorical kicking this week, Rocksteady? Good, they deserve a bit of verbal berating after their behavior. Behavior from not just this past week but these last two years, if reports are to be believed. Since we initially reported on the letter sent to Rocksteady management in 2018, Rocksteady has come forward with two unproductive statements. It is not just Rocksteady that does this either; recently in a conference call with press, Kratos cosplayer, former wrestler, and dad of NXT, Triple H commented on allegations against a contracted wrestler: “we looked into it, didn’t find anything there in the manner of what we were looking for and we moved on.”

Ubisoft is another company marred with (to say the very least) a controversial response to allegations of harassment within the company by top executives for years. Riot Games ended up in a prolonged legal battle that lasted a year and resulted in them paying out $10-million for gender discrimination and sexual harassment. This past summer there was a large Speak Out campaign in June that spanned Twitter, Youtube, Twitch, and wider into other media personalities such as wrestling, causing the likes of Chikara Pro to close down. The fact there is harassment and people are speaking out isn’t something new, what is new to some is addressing it.

While working on our response to the recent news, we received the following unsolicited letter. pic.twitter.com/sozmsp6u3C

— Rocksteady Studios (@RocksteadyGames) August 19, 2020

Take Rocksteady’s first response to claims outside of a brief statement to The Guardian in their initial article as an example. It is a shallow PR disaster wrangled by those that want to save face. I want to make it clear, I’m not stating that there was coercion of any part in the statement, but it was most likely edited and reformatted by someone looking to save as much face as possible. The sad truth is, it comes off as PR drivel fired out of a cannon at a rate of knots that would startle a speed boat. It is a complete and utter mess that pits women against each other in an aim to distract from the fact there is a history of harassment.

The best questions asked of this published letter, that may very well have been unsolicited, are: Why is it on Twitter? Why did Rocksteady disable replies to the tweet? Finally, why is it so poorly constructed to address the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and such? If the women who are still at the studio did write the letter in such a PR statement way for Twitter. The only aim seems to be one that both discredits The Guardian and seemingly makes this look to be an act of aggression against the company and them personally.

I’m not trying to dissuade the idea of those women speaking out on their current experience, I’m questioning Rocksteady’s action to take this letter to social media. Why didn’t the studio take up the umbrage with the nearly 200-year-old newspaper/21-year-old online newspaper? If the company wants to address things privately, handle that privately. I’m not going to comment on the political affiliation that the paper has, but the paper is more reputable than The Sun or The News of the World. It has enough journalistic integrity to correct mistakes or misgivings.

That is why this initial statement feels so off-putting to many. If the issue is with the story by the journalist, then take that up with them. The company shouldn’t be holding up self-published counter-arguments like a child feeling sorry they were caught rather than because they did it in the first place. Once again, the statement may have been written by those currently at the studio. Though, it comes across as if it is trying to attack those who have left the company, whoever provided the letter in the first place, and possibly the writer of it too.

The second statement isn’t much better, though it is far more restrained on statements from the first letter (by those at the studio) published by Rocksteady such as “Continued efforts have been made to ensure that we have a voice within our work and within the studio, ranging from involvement specifically with how our characters are represented[,] to workshops [that] help build self-confidence within male-dominated industries.” The company’s statement is the prepared statement you would expect, it is the statement that should have been published hours after The Guardian’s article, but it wasn’t. It was, in fact, held for days.

Here is our statement: pic.twitter.com/ssyzNWfyhB

— Rocksteady Studios (@RocksteadyGames) August 21, 2020

Though once again, it was dressed up for social media, and once again replies were disabled. I understand any good intention on that, social media is a horrible place where people have a history of attacking women who speak out against harassers. Yet that’s not what people see. Any good intention has a hidden undergrowth, one where there is speculation as to the company’s intentions and attempts to sweep things under the rug. I can’t blame people for thinking that, the statement is simply captioned “Here is our statement:“

The following day after that statement was published, just about everything was adorned with “#GothamKnights,” “#SuicideSquadGame,” and “#DCFanDome,” along with the days before. To find the statement by Rocksteady you need to put in their caption (which will be lost to time) and the studios’ name. That is an act some will see as burying the statement in articles to get it out of the way. I’m not saying it should be tagged with all these PR hype machines, but it should acknowledge what the statement is about.

As for testimonials, there are creditable sources within (and outside of) the company that do and don’t defend the studio. I’m not saying there has outright been no action, nor am I discrediting the voices who were in the studio and didn’t experience harassment or see inaction at work. It is the handling of the public representation by the company before and after. It is the report in The Guardian that there was a mild interest in going through the motions with a seminar, and the writer of the letter in 2018 noting the inaction and lack of compassion by the company. That is what bothers me.

The hardest part to even look at this PR mess with any objectivity is the recent testimonial by the writer of that 2018 letter, and a long-serving writer of the newly announced Suicide Squad game, Kim MacAskill. MacAskill notes that at the time of the letter being written, she sat down with all 16 women at the studio. She notes 15 of wanted to sign though The Guardian claimed 10 had signed in their publication of the claims, and she backs up everything said by the Guardian. She also claims to have contact with those within the company right now, and that there is still, at least up to the article being created, harassment within the company.

Meanwhile, Kate Harrison, a former recruiter for the company until June this year, is the only other former employee that is being largely vocal about this. Kate is disavowing MacAskill’s entire case as a former senior staff member trying to deal with reported problems within the company. Additionally, she is claiming that the letter, signed by several women at the studio at the time, is based on complete fabrications. Harrison’s response is of the first statement released, the one I said is pitting women against each other. In her 11 tweet-long statement she concludes that the release of the letter to The Guardian was only motivated to harm the studio.

There is something to be said about both testimonials by both women here, and both of which deserve a bit of questioning to clear things up. However, they both note a few things in common. There was a seminar and they both (at some point) believe/believed the company has gotten better over time. Though what seems to be unacknowledged in Harrison’s response is who knew about the letter, with both The Guardian and MacAskill noting the letter wasn’t widely acknowledged until recently. It’s noted in Harrison’s comments that the company had meetings with the women of the company, doing lunches and such to brainstorm ways of improving. Who else knew about that?

This is the issue I have with the claims about companies dealing with this type of situation, while having quiet small meetings with only a select few knowing of the problem. As the article in The Guardian (and MacAskill) notes, and as I’m sure Harrison would agree, 97% or more of the people at the company did nothing wrong and they should not be punished for this. It is when there is nothing acknowledged widely, when there is an internal investigation lacking the compassion that MacAskill notes, that is when there is no direct action.

How to act upon this was not to publish this so-called “unsolicited letter,” which could have been handled by contacting The Guardian and addressing the problems the company and the current employees have with the story directly. According to the second statement and some minor testimonials by those at the studio, there has been a great shift within the company. I and many others can only hope so. However, that doesn’t change the fact that this was (and still is) being poorly handled.

Even with the second statement, the company isn’t acknowledging their part in what had happened. They aren’t acknowledging the general fear culture for coming forward (in general, not just within Rocksteady), and give vague promises on what has and will be done. I’m using this recent example of PR mishaps, attacks, and general social media missteps to highlight that this is just one case of many issues when highlighting sexual harassment and sexism. I said it at the start, WWE’s handling of the Velveteen Dream case is another example of a complete mess.

At the very least, don’t release a statement or make one by saying “we looked into it,” without noting what was being looked into. On top of that “we’re taking no further action because we found nothing internally.”doesn’t help either. I’m sure most don’t want to speculate or have speculation cast upon those around them for something the company isn’t acknowledging. WWE alone have had previous cases of abuse, As Bill DeMott was released after several cases of coercing people into doing dangerous warm-up drills. There were also cases of physical assault, bullying trainees, use of homophobic, racial, and other derogatory terms, as well as allowing trainees to train while naked, condoning sexual harassment, and so on.

DeMott was one of WWE’s lead trainers at the time, and the company received complaints about DeMott in 2012, 2013, 2014, and throughout 2015. It was only once the company was being called to action that anything was done and DeMott handed in his notice and was released. It was just the other week I wrote about Aeon Must Die!, which is finally being investigated by the publisher, despite claims to those who complained in the first place that they already had before the game was announced. The only way to get around being blamed for “all of a sudden,” (as Harrison puts it) bringing the problems that may persist in a company to light is the anonymous release of details to the press.

The sad truth about allegations coming to light, companies claiming action has been taken, and us moving on is the fact that we move on. We went through all of this in the early 1990s with Anita Hill. 1992 was so-called the “Year of the Woman” following a record number of women being elected. What is sad about that is, in 2018 it was once again prompted on the year, following two years of many accusations made public and women were set to be elected in record numbers. The 1993 Oscars feature Liza Minnelli singing “Ladies’ Day,” and the 2018 edition featured Time’s Up.

All the while companies paid out multi-million dollar sums in 1999, with a change in culture to come. Once again in 2017 the same company paid out $10-million, promising to change the culture, and move forward. So it is a hard pill to swallow that as a result of Rocksteady releasing a disastrous statement and a more professional one stating change has happened and will continue to improve, that suddenly we’re in the clear. It will sound out of turn for the rest of the article, but “when do we stop?” I mean it in both senses. When does the harassment stop, and when can we stop claiming to support women yet fail to do so?

I hope sincerely hope the people at Rocksteady are dealing with the harassment appropriately. I hope something is being done to curb the behavior by those in the studio that has been abhorrent. However, the truth about these claims and the possible persistence of misconduct don’t come to light in the shadows. It’s simple, address these cases directly. Don’t harbor a workplace where this lives on, and give compassion to those bringing claims forward. While we’re at it, don’t create a PR catastrophe.