• 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.

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick Tells Colleagues He Would Consider Leaving if He Can’t Quickly Fix Problems

Thaedolus

Gold Member
The only failure of leadership on his part was allowing this woke culture to grow in Blizzard. Probably unavoidable outside of moving it out of California. You all talk a lot of shit about Kotick but you don't have receipts for any of it.

Did you not read the WSJ report on how he knew about allegations of women being pressured to overconsume alcohol at company events and multiple allegations of rape that he ignored? The WSJ isn't exactly a woke news organization.

So....

Nothing?

I was actually expecting to be put in my place with clear info about this story that I know little about but looks like I was right all along.

Anyone got an actual concrete thing here?

Otherwise I'll continue to ignore it like other social media "news".

The WSJ isn't social media , if you want to bury your head in the sand or insist on being spoonfed information because you're too lazy to keep up on what the topic is even about, maybe just sit the next one out. Or, what would most likely happen if I acquiesce to your laziness, you'd just go "so what's the big deal about that?" and it's just a waste of everyone's time because you've already made up your mind.

Where's the substance?

Take the whole "Cosby suite" thing. It was a joke. Literally.

Laddish? Sure. Bad taste? Definitely. But so fucking what? That function of the thing as a party area was to party in it. And we all know that means standards of behaviour and decorum are loosened!

You want to go to a party where people announce their pronouns, talk sensibly, and drink moderately?

Yet apparently, we're supposed to believe that because it wasn't like that it was the 2nd coming of Sodom and Gomorrah! That it was some sort of shame on the entire company?

What. The. Fuck!

Just stop and question the narrative.

Maybe you should question the narrative that there's never any "there" there. There are actual shitbags out there letting other shitbags get away with shitbag behavior. There's a lot of room between woke social media mobs going after someone for using the wrong pronoun and credible journalism showing a pattern of abusive, possibly illegal workplace conditions that were repeatedly ignored by management. And as the CEO, especially one who apparently was made aware of this stuff with receipts in the form of e-mails and subsequently did nothing, Bobby's responsible. Do you really think he'd be taking that huge symbolic pay cut and showing he's open to leaving if he didn't think his head would be on a pike soon? He knew he was out before the WSJ report showing his complicity dropped. He's done and, in this case, rightfully so. Just because you can't distinguish between a social media mob going after someone for some nonsense and a legitimate failure of leadership allowing untoward behavior to continue doesn't mean the rest of us can't.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I’m not going to go cliff notes all the shit that was going down for you. He knew what he knew and covered it up. And what he knew about wasn’t some made up bullshit like microaggressions or some culturally insensitive comments. It was abusive bullshit that has no place in a professional work place. Fuck him.

I've been following this pretty closely and I'm sorry but there appears to be way more innuendo than substance.

The thing I cannot get past is that it isn't a crime to be a scumbag. At least not until that scumbaggery crosses the line legally speaking.

Its really that simple because when you cut through to the heart of the matter, you can't make subjective judgements of moral character the basis for objective, concrete, social mechanisms like law. Because if you do, it becomes a free-for-all where assertion of fault is all that you need to convict. Its a totalitarians wet-dream.

Thaedolus Thaedolus

Just saw your above post as I submitted this, so not had chance to read it thoroughly, but I suspect the above paragraph concisely expresss my objections and the reason I have for holding that view.

A WSJ piece is more substantive commentary than a Twitter rant, but its hardly conclusive proof of anything. Its still just polemic and allegation that is under no impetus to give a rounded, multi-dimensional account of events. Especially given how politicized the MSM has become in recent years its hard to trust in its objectivity.
 
Last edited:

Thaedolus

Gold Member
I've been following this pretty closely and I'm sorry but there appears to be way more innuendo than substance.

The thing I cannot get past is that it isn't a crime to be a scumbag. At least not until that scumbaggery crosses the line legally speaking.

Its really that simple because when you cut through to the heart of the matter, you can't make subjective judgements of moral character the basis for objective, concrete, social mechanisms like law. Because if you do, it becomes a free-for-all where assertion of fault is all that you need to convict. Its a totalitarians wet-dream.

Thaedolus Thaedolus

Just saw your above post as I submitted this, so not had chance to read it thoroughly, but I suspect the above paragraph concisely expresss my objections and the reason I have for holding that view.

A WSJ piece is more substantive commentary than a Twitter rant, but its hardly conclusive proof of anything. Its still just polemic and allegation that is under no impetus to give a rounded, multi-dimensional account of events. Especially given how politicized the MSM has become in recent years its hard to trust in its objectivity.
I don’t think a bit of healthy skepticism and benefit of the doubt is wrong, but the outright dismissal of what's been alleged, including a lawsuit by the state of California alleging that the company outright encouraged sexual misconduct, is unwarranted here. SJW social media mobs don't cause the seismic tremors shaking up a company this big: real world fuckery does. Again, I think the problem here is people not being able to distinguish between the two and are just defaulting to the "I don't like blue hair SJWs" mentality and ignoring what an actual case of abuse looks like.
 
Last edited:

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I don’t think a bit of healthy skepticism and benefit of the doubt is wrong, but the outright dismissal of what's been alleged, including a lawsuit by the state of California alleging that the company outright encouraged sexual misconduct, is unwarranted here. SJW social media mobs don't cause the seismic tremors shaking up a company this big: real world fuckery does. Again, I think the problem here is people not being able to distinguish between the two and are just defaulting to the "I don't like blue hair SJWs" mentality and ignoring what an actual case of abuse looks like.

The problem I have with this is the absence of incentive or motive. Activision are dirty bastards, but in my experience they only do so when it serves some sort of business objective. Encouraging sexual misconduct does not serve their bottom line, if Kotick opted to keep this stuff on the down-low then it was because negative PR costs money to control. Its not a thing any big corporation wants to draw attention to, but that's obvious and not an indicator of sinister motives.

Take a step back and look at how this narrative is formed of 99.9% moral outrage. The only actual criminal allegation was the employee suicide and apparently that didn't cross the threshold for charges to be made.

Beyond that we have the case being made by state authorities which are civil complaints, complaints that are incentivized to be made as extreme and damaging as possible because that drives up their dollar value in fines or (more likely) settlement pay-offs.

Then you have the employee activist class who are using the controversy for a collective bargaining and unionization drive, again an obvious incentive to exaggerate and catastrophize on top of the opportunity to settle individual historical personal grievances!

I cited the "Cosby suite" thing earlier for a very specific reason: Salacious and juicy an anecdote it may be, but it has zero evidential value. That it was played for prejudicial impact in the court of public opinion from the outset should leave you in no doubt how this action is being pursued.
 
Top Bottom