• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Report: Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick knew of sexual harassment claims and protected the accused (Employees walking out)

CGiRanger

Banned
Wow. So it's so bad that even the piggies at the trough can't stomach it anymore.
If you read the article, this seems like small-timers trying to exert power:
The letter was also signed by Australian retail fund Future Super, Canada groups NEI Investments and Shareholder Association for Research & Education (SHARE) and an Australian fund for women, Verve Super. Verve Super did not return inquiries about how many Activision Blizzard shares it owns. The Washington, D.C.-based SOC Investment Group communicates with companies on behalf of union pension funds; in this case, those funds own about 3.8 million shares in Activision Blizzard, a small fraction of the firm’s total shares, roughly 779 million. These shareholders are dwarfed by the company’s top investors. Investment management company Vanguard holds over 64 million shares and BlackRock holds 58 million.

Wow, Schrier bringing context into reporting?
That group represents only 0.6% of the shareholders.



He is not going out anytime soon.

And all the other shareholders mentioned in the article are either lesser or some don't even have shares/stakes. So again it's a political power play.
 
Last edited:

Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
That group represents only 0.6% of the shareholders.



He is not going out anytime soon.

disappointed-disappointments.gif
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
If you read the article, this seems like small-timers trying to exert power:


Wow, Schrier bringing context into reporting?

And all the other shareholders mentioned in the article are either lesser or some don't even have shares/stakes. So again it's a political power play.

Aah... that makes a little more sense, to be honest. The idea that the Activision shareholders were en masse trying to get rid of Kotick would have surprised the shit out of me.

No way all the fat cats at places like Black Rock and Vanguard will want to get rid of their shitbag money maker, no matter how many women he threatens, and rapes he covers up.

Business as usual.
 
Last edited:

proandrad

Member
There are 3282908025 million allegations in workplaces every month. It sounds bad, but this is nowhere near enough to judge anyone yet. In the current climate, people go after misconduct with a bazooka.

I’m not calling for criminal charges. I’m calling for the executives to be fired for completely mishandling this situation. Whether the allegations are true are not. People on here are too focused on if any of this is true or not in a court of law and ignoring the fact that competent leadership should have been able to control this before it became a PR nightmare.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Who gives a shit? Do people not have their own problems, or what?

I give a shit because I have several rather fabulous women in my life, and I don’t want them to have to work in a society where this kind of nasty shit is allowed to go on with no consequences. The more these little misogynistic cunts gets fucked up because of their behaviour, the less chance there is that someone I care about will be mistreated the same way.
 

ClosBSAS

Member
lol this is so GAF, while ERA cries and whines about equality GAF is the complete opposite and doesnt give a shit about rapists and racists.
Bobby needs to go if he knew all along, its just wrong. like it or not, knowing about sexual assault is the same as doing it. just as guilty, its fucked how this forum cannot even fathom whats going on out there and calling women out saying they come up with bs like this.
my best friends daughter just told her dad she was abused by an influencer, see if were gonna sit here and do nothing about it. we gonna go beat that fucker up.
 

Bragr

Banned
I’m not calling for criminal charges. I’m calling for the executives to be fired for completely mishandling this situation. Whether the allegations are true are not. People on here are too focused on if any of this is true or not in a court of law and ignoring the fact that competent leadership should have been able to control this before it became a PR nightmare.
How?
 

laynelane

Member
lol this is so GAF, while ERA cries and whines about equality GAF is the complete opposite and doesnt give a shit about rapists and racists.
Bobby needs to go if he knew all along, its just wrong. like it or not, knowing about sexual assault is the same as doing it. just as guilty, its fucked how this forum cannot even fathom whats going on out there and calling women out saying they come up with bs like this.
my best friends daughter just told her dad she was abused by an influencer, see if were gonna sit here and do nothing about it. we gonna go beat that fucker up.

No, this is not Gaf. I care very much about what's happening and hope all guilty parties are punished. Thing is, unlike Era, people can voice their opinions here - even when there isn't a consensus.
 

chonga

Member
lol this is so GAF, while ERA cries and whines about equality GAF is the complete opposite and doesnt give a shit about rapists and racists.
Bobby needs to go if he knew all along, its just wrong. like it or not, knowing about sexual assault is the same as doing it. just as guilty, its fucked how this forum cannot even fathom whats going on out there and calling women out saying they come up with bs like this.
my best friends daughter just told her dad she was abused by an influencer, see if were gonna sit here and do nothing about it. we gonna go beat that fucker up.
I appreciate the article is paywalled, but there's enough in the non-paywalled link to know what you've said is missing the mark.

The claim is clear. He knew of old cases because he handled their settlement. That does not mean he knows about every single incident that has ever occurred or simply alleged to have occurred.

His prior claim was that he was not aware of many of the specific allegations made. Nothing in this story disputes or counters that claim. One even goes as far as explicitly making that evident.

If you once told me that your first car was blue it doesn't mean I know about every single car you've ever owned, but you could still make the headline that I knew about your car history.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
lol this is so GAF, while ERA cries and whines about equality GAF is the complete opposite and doesnt give a shit about rapists and racists.
Bobby needs to go if he knew all along, its just wrong. like it or not, knowing about sexual assault is the same as doing it. just as guilty, its fucked how this forum cannot even fathom whats going on out there and calling women out saying they come up with bs like this.
my best friends daughter just told her dad she was abused by an influencer, see if were gonna sit here and do nothing about it. we gonna go beat that fucker up.

Are you fucking blind? There are loads of us condemning this shit in no uncertain terms.

Man up and take on the people you disagree with instead of whining about something that isn’t true.
 
Last edited:

tygertrip

Member
I give a shit because I have several rather fabulous women in my life, and I don’t want them to have to work in a society where this kind of nasty shit is allowed to go on with no consequences. The more these little misogynistic cunts gets fucked up because of their behaviour, the less chance there is that someone I care about will be mistreated the same way.
Bravo to you for your virtues, But this is a videogame forum, not a videogame company politics forum.
 

Fuz

Banned
Hm.

On one hand, I dislike that little piece of shit as much as everyone else and I'd like to see him going down. But in any case, even if he gets removed his severance pay would be astronomical. There is no outcome where he will end up "losing".

On the other hand, I kinda want to see no change at all, see gamers cry left and right then all go and buy every CoD game and make him even more rich while complaining, and laugh at the hypocrisy.
 
Last edited:

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
I don't care what he knew or not. But the fact that employees walk out and protest is fucking baffling to me.
In Sweden we have doctrine called 'lojalitetsplikt' (lit. "loyalty duty"). What it does is self explanatory; keep company secrets, don't besmirch your employer publicly etc.
I would fire anyone walking out on pure principle, even if I agree with them.
Dude... Fuck the corporate overlords my friend. Our employers don't deserve our protection from themselves. It is a mutually beneficial agreement in which I provide labor and they provide money. That's the extent of the relationship.
 
Last edited:
Show me the papers.

it sounds like he's "guilty" of negotiating settlements to former employees who claimed they were sexually harassed, claims that had no physical evidence to back or discredit them, sure he could have fired people without evidence, but on the flipside of that coin he could also have told the victims to fuck off. Sounds like he just took the sensible middle-ground.

Also, idiots thinking Bobby would personally make these decisions, please, he's golfing 5 hours a day and not even sweating the small interpersonal problems of his thousands of employees who he doesn't directly manage, Activision has HR legal teams who told him exactly what decision to make and how much it'll cost him.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Edgelord79

Gold Member
He's gotta go. Amid new revelations of allegedly threatening an employee with death (even as a joke as he claims) I don't see how this can be ignored.
 

Hinedorf

Banned
This will go 1 of 2 ways, Kotick steps down asap, or more shit gets exposed on Kotick and he's forced to.

Despite the fact we're already at the point he should step down, I really hope he fights the good fight so we get to hear just now much a heinous fucker he was

Fingers crossed for the bigger wreck!
 
Last edited:

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
They’ll take action if their stocks keep dropping. They’re a publicly traded company, so their image is everything. They look bad, people won’t want to take stock in Activision anymore.
 

treemk

Banned
What are the actual rape claims and what are they substantiated by?

Id go as far as being pro death penalty for real rape but the definition of these things are wide as hell these days. Blizzard employees also seem emotionally unhinged I have a hard time taking them seriously.
 

The Gamer Triple H

Gold Member
What are the actual rape claims and what are they substantiated by?

Id go as far as being pro death penalty for real rape but the definition of these things are wide as hell these days. Blizzard employees also seem emotionally unhinged I have a hard time taking them seriously.
One claim was made in 2017 or 2018 I can't remember off the top of my head. It was taken to law enforcement but no charges were filed.

Most of the allegations involve heavy drinking by both parties involved so take that into consideration.
 

kyoji

Member

Probably doing this as PR until he himself gets in the crosshairs.
Hopefully that means that Xbox house is in order when it comes to this type of behavior.
Phil Spencer makes a brave tweet hoping to drown out the sound of bones rattling away in his own closet.
When you start saying these kind of things people start digging into your own past, lets hope this guy is as clean as he acts.
 

isual

Member
1. lots of small brains here stating foul about kotick because of the issue at hand. blizzard activision is a company, they have resources on how to deal with this. kotick has proven his value to the company by making lots of $. the HR department/legal likely assisted kotick's decision on what occurred years ago.
2. no evidence, just angry people espousing emotions; especially in this climate of metoo.
3. other execs from other companies evaluating (spencer) or stating that this isn't the message (ryan) are just playing politics. look at the wording; for those of you who are too emotional, its very generically worded, and a political move to at least get some 'good points' from people who are emotionally angry at this.
 

treemk

Banned
1. lots of small brains here stating foul about kotick because of the issue at hand. blizzard activision is a company, they have resources on how to deal with this. kotick has proven his value to the company by making lots of $. the HR department/legal likely assisted kotick's decision on what occurred years ago.
2. no evidence, just angry people espousing emotions; especially in this climate of metoo.
3. other execs from other companies evaluating (spencer) or stating that this isn't the message (ryan) are just playing politics. look at the wording; for those of you who are too emotional, its very generically worded, and a political move to at least get some 'good points' from people who are emotionally angry at this.

Seems like nothing but mob justice towards and easy target because of people not liking Kotick for reasons. Nothing good will come of this but I look forward to Blizzard employees crying about layoffs after they burn their own house down.
 
Last edited:

RiccochetJ

Gold Member
Probably doing this as PR until he himself gets in the crosshairs.
Hopefully that means that Xbox house is in order when it comes to this type of behavior.
Phil Spencer makes a brave tweet hoping to drown out the sound of bones rattling away in his own closet.
When you start saying these kind of things people start digging into your own past, lets hope this guy is as clean as he acts.
Oh good. I was wondering when we were going to start pre-emptively cancelling people before there's even a twitter accusation in the books.
 
Last edited:

tkscz

Member
3. other execs from other companies evaluating (spencer) or stating that this isn't the message (ryan) are just playing politics. look at the wording; for those of you who are too emotional, its very generically worded, and a political move to at least get some 'good points' from people who are emotionally angry at this.
Yeah when I saw that I thought "alright then, drop the newest CoD from your stores along with all other Activision games". Until I see that, yeah this is just to gain brownie points from twitter.
 

Mentat02

Banned
I've been waiting for Blizzard stocks to dip since this whole shit show started. Was looking forward to buying but alas the people crying about fatboy Bobby are still buying games, skins and xp boosters.

This just sounds like a whole lot of fluff that no one outside of nerds on the internet care about.
 

nush

Member
Activision no doubt drive a hard deal with the platform holders, this is just a play to get better terms. Added bonus of good PR, any company with enough employees are going to have some inter gender conflicts an disagreements. All it would take is "One of my colleagues tried to have sex with me at the Christmas party when I was drunk and made me "Uncomfortable" and all the press with run with it.
 
Top Bottom