TGO Daily | Wednesday August 4, 2021 | More on Activision Blizzard
In the news: The news never ceases with Activision Blizzard.
TGO Daily | Wednesday August 4, 2021
✏️ From the Author
If you have any ideas of what you’d like to see from the newsletter on days where there’s no news, I’m open to suggestions. It makes for a nice break for me, but I do enjoy getting to do something small that’s a bit different to mix things up, like with yesterday’s newsletter.
Apologies for the shortness of this letter, by the way. I’m more exhausted today than I can remember being in a long time. Dozed off many times while writing this one, which never happens to me. Going to try and get some better sleep tonight. ‘Try’ being the keyword.
Until next time,
Brandon
Activision Blizzard | Failures Overshadow Financials
Activision Blizzard had their Q2 financial call, unsurprisingly though, this took a backseat position as they continue to try and convince us that they’re the “…safest, most welcoming workplace for women, and people of any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or background."
With other things still going on over at Activation Blizzard, let’s do a quick breakdown of any new developments:
J Allen Brack, President of Blizzard Entertainment, steps down from his role to ‘pursue other opportunities’. While nothing was explicitly said about why he’s choosing now of all time to step down, it is certainly an odd timeframe to choose. Jesse Meschuk, Blizzard's now-former senior people officer, has also stepped down in similar circumstances to Brack.
Activision Blizzard is now facing another, separate, lawsuit. This one is a a class action suit accusing leadership of misleading investors by not informing them of the DFEH investigations for the past two years.
A coalition of workers across the multiple studios of Activision Blizzard have formed a workers alliance they’re calling the ABK Alliance. The ABK Alliance is denouncing the use of the law firm WilmerHale, as they’re famous for helping keep Amazon workers from unionizing. ABK feels that WilmerHale is being brought in for this skill, rather than the ability to help staff.
It’s exhausting to have to keep hearing about all this, trust me I know. This isn’t solely about Activision Blizzard, though. This is a industry wide problem that needs to be addressed. Being able to point at a big name studio like Activision Blizzard and show how things were done right to try and fix these problems is what people want and need. The problem becomes that they don’t seem to be doing a very good job of actually trying to resolve these problems - instead they continue to use words instead of actions. Hopefully, as time presses on, the DFEH case will develop more and we can continue to see big strides in ridding our industry of inequality and, instead, we can come together as people who just love the art of video games.
🔦 Article Spotlight
Activision Blizzard's nasty frat-boy culture is an industry-wide ailment | Opinion | GamesIndustry
An article covering far more in-depth what I discuss briefly above about this being more than just a Activision or Ubisoft problem.
💡 Read More
A new Call of Duty game is in development at Activision Mobile.
McDonald's designed a hideous PS5 controller, accidentally exposed it to the world. It really is awful looking. I absolutely love it.
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Thanks for the read <3