Activision Blizzards culture of gender-based discrimination and sexual harassment has been subject to more disturbing allegations. This is in response to a large lawsuit that was filed by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing.These stories can be difficult to read so we have prefaced them with a warning about sexual harassment.The New York Times published a story on Thursday about the very distressing stories of Activision's culture. Here's one from Shay Stein (a former customer service employee):Ms. Stein (28), who worked for Activision in a customer service position, helping gamers with glitches and problems, from 2014 to 2017, said that she was consistently paid less than her ex boyfriend, who joined the company around the same time as she was and did the same work. Ms. Stein claimed that she once refused drugs offered by her manager at a holiday party, in 2014 or 2015. This strained their relationship and hindered her career. A manager messaged Ms. Stein on Facebook in 2016, suggesting that she was into strange stuff. She also asked what kind of porn she watched. She also said that she heard male colleagues joke about women having their jobs because they perform sexual favors for their male superiors.Lisa Welch, a former vice president, shared a story about how an exec wanted her to have sex after her boyfriend died several weeks ago.Vice published a disturbing report Friday on the story of Emily Mitchell (security researcher), who approached Blizzards booth during the Black Hat cybersecurity conference 2015 and was harassed.She said that she had asked about the position of penetration tester when she arrived at the table. The industry term for security audit is penetration testing or pentesting. Mitchell claimed she was wearing a T-shirt by cybersecurity company SecureState that had Penetration Expert printed on it. First, one of the Blizzard employees asked Mitchell if her lost. Then another asked if her boyfriend was attending the conference. And the third asked if she knew anything about pentesting. Mitchell answered Waypoint's questions about Mitchell, including when and how often she was penetrated. I felt ashamed and furious, so I accepted the free swag.Vice reports that Mitchell was later the COO of a company called Sagitta HPC (now Terahash). In 2017, when Blizzard sought to hire the company, she reported the incident the founder and CEO JeremiGosney. In March 2017, Gosney posted the redacted email reply to Mitchell on Twitter. He demanded that Blizzard meet several conditions in order to work together. These included a 50% misogyny tax, where proceeds would go to three charities that support women in technology. Blizzard also had to send Mitchell a letter of apology.While I won't name-and-shame anyone, "Don't Be a Dick” is universally applicable. There are consequences. #womenintech #InternationalWomensDay pic.twitter.com/Wcds3a2bnA Jeremi M. Gosney (@jmgosney) March 9, 2017Gosney confirmed Friday, that Blizzard was the redacted name in his email.IGN published a huge feature Friday that highlighted the enormous challenges faced by women at Activision Blizzard. One example is that men would enter breastfeeding rooms without locks on their heads.Blizzard has since lost a source who spoke out about the lack of locks in the breastfeeding room. The breastfeeding room would be open to men. The door was impossible to lock. IGN understood that they would stare at me and then scream at me to get out.IGNs article added more detail to the DFEHs lawsuit alleging that working for the company was like working in a frathouse.Activision Blizzard is full of such stories. This is compounded by a culture that has been drinking to the point of being insane. Because of their reputation, one woman said she avoided campus drinking events. One woman spoke out about the sexuality of Blizzards Irvine main office circa 2015. She said that women were subject to inappropriate touching, sometimes at holiday parties, and sometimes in their chests.Activision Blizzard took steps to address the problem drinking culture. According to IGN, the policy was implemented in 2018. A spokesperson for the company told the publication.Activision Blizzard employees protested the company's handling of the lawsuit on Wednesday. On Monday, employees signed a letter criticizing the initial response of the company. Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzards CEO, attempted to address the concerns and allegations in advance of the planned walkout. He wrote a public letter calling Activision Blizzards response tone dumb. Employees responded to Kotick's letter shortly before the walkout and stated that it failed to address key elements of employee concerns.Activision Blizzard's Overwatch League took a positive step Friday by pledging to donate to worthy causes. This was after the Overwatch League's Washington Justice and Houston Outlaws announced that they would donate to RAINN as well as Big Sister Little Sister.
