Activision Blizzard CEO says response to harassment lawsuit was ‘tone deaf’ | Engadget

Following almost per week of inside unrest, Activision Blizzard has revealed a letter from CEO Bobby Kotick addressing the corporate’s authentic response to the sexual harassment lawsuit introduced in opposition to it by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) on July twentieth. “Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” Kotick says within the letter addressed to Activision Blizzard employees. “It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.”

Kotick claims Blizzard Activision is taking “swift action” to make sure a secure, respectful and inclusive working setting for ladies and different minority teams. The firm has employed regulation agency WilmerHale to evaluation its insurance policies, and Kotick says Activision Blizzard will implement modifications to its hiring practices. It additionally plans to make personnel tweaks and take away content material from its video games staff and gamers have stated is “inappropriate” in mild of the allegations in opposition to the corporate. On Tuesday, the World of Warcraft growth group stated it could take away particular references from the MMO. While the group didn’t elaborate, these references could contain gadgets and non-playable characters named after Alex Afrasiabi, one of many former Blizzard staff singled out within the DFEH lawsuit for repeated inappropriate conduct.

Notably, the letter doesn’t make point out of pressured arbitration, saying solely the corporate “will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action,” nor does it promise better transparency relating to worker compensation. Those are two points Activision Blizzard staff who’re staging a walkout to protest for higher working circumstances highlighted in a press release of intent they shared on Tuesday.

In its preliminary public response to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard stated the allegations from DFEH included “distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.” In a separate e-mail to staff, Frances Townsend, government vice chairman of company affairs on the firm, claimed the lawsuit presents “a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old and out of context stories — some from more than a decade ago.”