Activision Blizzard employees demand CEO Bobby Kotick's removal amid several new abuse allegations

Wall Street Periodical report details new stories of abuse inside company

A report by the Wall Street Journal has brought to light several new examples of alleged misconduct by Activision staff, including rape and sexual harassment. The report also highlights several instances where Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was reportedly aware of the allegations but did not inform the visitor's board of directors and, in one instance, intervened to foreclose an alleged harasser from beingness fired.

In response to the written report, employee group A Better ABK have called for Kotick to be replaced as CEO and are organising a staff walkout.

This latest report past the WSJ (free sign-up required) continues the wave of allegations and several lawsuits which together pigment a motion picture of harassment and corruption inside Activision Blizzard. Activision have reportedly received more than 500 reports from current and former employees alleging "harassment, sexual assault, bullying, pay disparities and other bug" since the State Of California filed accommodate against the visitor dorsum in July.

The WSJ accept also seen memos, emails, and spoken to former employees, which suggest that Bobby Kotick knew more nearly allegations of employee misconduct than he had previously indicated.

I of several stories within the written report details how the co-caput of Activision'due south Treyarch studio was defendant by a female employee of sexual harassment in 2017. An internal investigation conducted in 2019 by the company'due south own HR department and other supervisors recommended that he be fired, but Kotick intervened to keep him.

In some other instance, Activision reached an out-of-court settlement with a former employee of Sledgehammer Games who alleged that she had been raped by her male supervisor, and in another, a erstwhile Blizzard technology chief was fired afterward multiple allegations of sexual harassment of other staff over several years. Employees were asked not to discuss the circumstances of his deviation and an internal email sent by Blizzard's then-CEO upon the technology chief's exit praised "his many contributions" to the company. There are several more previously unreported allegations in the article.

In the hours since its publication, Activision Blizzard have issued a defensive statement which says the Wall Street Periodical's article "presents a misleading view of Activison Blizzard and our CEO." They cite recent improvements fabricated within the company, "including a zero-tolerance policy for inappropriate comport."

Such a policy would seem to prevent Kotick continuing in his role every bit CEO.

"We accept instituted our own Nothing Tolerance Policy," ABetterABK tweeted earlier today. ABetterABK - ABK stands for Activision Blizzard King - are an employee group founded in the wake of this twelvemonth's allegations. "Nosotros will not be silenced until Bobby Kotick has been replaced as CEO, and go along to hold our original demand for 3rd-Political party review by an employee-chosen source," continues the tweet. "We are staging a Walkout today. Nosotros welcome you to join us."

Activision Blizzard'southward board of directors released their own argument, saying that the board "remains confident in Bobby Kotick'southward leadership, delivery and power to achieve" the goals of making Activision Blizzard "the nearly welcoming and inclusive company in the industry."

As well every bit detailing several new instances of abuse within Activision Blizzard, the Wall Street Periodical article as well highlights several instances where Kotick himself has been sued for alleged misconduct. In 2006, one of his assistants "complained that he had harassed her, including by threatening in a voice mail to have her killed." Kotick settled the affair out of court.

The commodity also contains revealing details of Activision Blizzard's response since the public allegations earlier this year.

Subsequently the Land Of California filed arrange confronting the visitor, Activision Blizzard executive Fran Townsend sent an email to staff which categorised the lawsuit as portraying "a distorted and untrue movie" of the visitor, and as "truly meritless and irresponsible." This email prompted an enormous amount of public criticism. The Wall Street Journal reports that this email was drafted by Mr. Kotick, and sent by Townsend - one of the visitor's few female executives - at his request.

The WSJ have also seen an internal email from Jennifer Oneal to Activision's legal team. In the email, Oneal, who was appointed co-lead of Blizzard Entertainment earlier this year simply to pace down within three months, expressed a lack of faith in the visitor's leadership. She writes that she had been sexually harassed before in her career at the company, that she is paid less than the male person co-pb of Blizzard, and that she has been "tokenized, marginalized, and discriminated against."

It is astonishing - and withal somehow not at all surprising - that at this point Activision Blizzard's lath of directors who yet accept any trust in Bobby Kotick's leadership. ABetterABK put information technology well: The board is just equally complicit if they let this slide."

Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/activision-blizzard-employees-demand-ceo-bobby-koticks-removal-amid-several-new-abuse-allegations

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Activision Blizzard employees demand CEO Bobby Kotick's removal amid several new abuse allegations