Activision-Blizz Employees Plan Walk-out

By the time this is published, the news will have reached a total of a week since it dropped. However, we only covered the horrors of it yesterday. The litigation case between the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing and Activision-Blizzard for their part in not preventing harassment and general discrimination is underway. I don’t want to go into the horrible details again, I’ve written more than enough about it. In short, the publishing giant of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and several other game franchises has played host to what the case from the DFEH calls “frat-boy culture.” This includes but is not limited to, groping, talk of sexual encounters with co-workers, delegating activities to female employees to play video games all day, and drinking or coming into work hungover.

For some, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, with the belief that video games were just simpler several years ago, as we didn’t hear about any of this. Some would like to believe that discrimination in pay, sexual harassment and racial discrimination in the workplace, is all a thing of the past. I’ve even seen some defend it, or even outright call into question the validity of the claims made in the lawsuit. The truth of the matter is, hundreds of employees (current or former) have spoken out against the company’s reluctance to make a statement. As we covered yesterday, an open letter was published by employees condemning the apathy from executives of the company through internal emails/memos.

The letter which Eurogamer now counts at over 2,000, and PC Gamer counts as over 3,000 of the total 9,000+ employees signed. At the time of writing, Activision-Blizzard has not published any official comments as requested. We only have the words from a Blizzard spokesperson who provided Jason Scheier with a lengthy claim of innocence on the whole matter. Well, now, it seems the employees are once again pushing their hand. There is a planned walk-out today, Wednesday the 28th of July. In a post made on the blog of World of Warcraft fansite, Blizzard Watch, resolution demands are noted, and the terms of the walk-out are listed.

“Given last week’s statement from Activision-Blizzard, inc. and their legal counsel regarding the DFEH lawsuit, as well as the subsequent internal statement from [Fran] Townsend[. Including] the many stories shared by current and former employees […], we believe that our values as employees are not being accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leadership.” As the notice of the walk-out states. The comments go on to say, “As current Activision-Blizzard employees, we are holding a walk-out to call on the executive leadership team to work with us on the following demands.”

The list of demands from the group includes an end to arbitration clauses in employee contracts, which “protect abusers and limit the ability of victims to seek restitution.” They also demand reform of recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and promotion policies, which would improve the representation among employees of all levels. The publication of data on compensation, promotion rates, salary ranges of all employees is requested as well; The current policies suggest some groups are not paid fairly or promoted equally. Lastly, hire a third party to audit ABK Employee Women’s Network, the HR department, and executive staff. The last of which is aimed to find the root cause of failures to prevent any employee harassment.

Finally, the walk-out details are a little different than you’d expect in normal times. Though some parts of the world open up with vaccines being offered, there is still a pandemic out there, so due to COVID-19 health restrictions and security measures, the walk-out won’t take place on the company campus. Instead, those who are currently working at Blizzard will meet at the front gate from 10 AM to 2 PM PDT. Furthermore, due to the number of employees still working from home, the walk-out notice also asks those who want to support from home to stop work during those four-hours. They will be using the hashtag #ActiBlizzWalkout, with the suggestion for subsidiary studios to customize to the similar “#(yourstudio)Walkout.”

Any community support is welcomed through the #ActiviBlizzWalkout to be accompanied with a blue heart emoji. Further supporters of the walk-out are asked to, if they can, donate to one of several charities: Black Girls Code, Futures without Violence, Girls Who Code, RAINN, Women In Animation, or Women in Games International. The only thing beyond this is to hope that Activision-Blizzard executives actually pull their heads out of the sand and acts upon these demands and those of the open letter.