Activision Blizzard Accused of Sexual Harassment so Intense it Resulted in a Suicide

Just when you thought Activison Blizzard couldn’t get worse, between their kowtowing to Chinese overlords and their incredible mistreatment of their employees, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing comes out with accusations that the developers behind Overwatch and Call of Duty also has a frat boy culture that would dwarf Ubisoft and Riot Games.

Here are just some of the accusations being levied towards the company, courtesy of Bloomberg:
 

In the office, women are subjected to “cube crawls” in which male employees drink copious [amounts] of alcohol as they “crawl” their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees. Male employees proudly come into work hungover, play video games for long periods of time during work while delegating their responsibilities to female employees, engage in banter about their sexual encounters, talk openly about female bodies and joke about rape.

Female employees are subjected to constant sexual harassment, including having to continually fend off unwanted sexual comments and advances by their male co-workers and supervisors and being groped at the “cube crawls” and other company events. High-ranking executives and creators engaged in blatant sexual harassment without repercussions.

In a particularly tragic example, a female employee committed suicide during a business trip with a male supervisor who had brought butt plugs and lubricant with him on the trip.

I have to admit: even as someone who profoundly dislikes Activision-Blizzard, these accusations are so extreme I almost don’t believe them. It’s hard to imagine a work culture this toxic would be tolerated for so long, and yet, this lawsuit comes after a two-year-long investigation by a government body, and it’s hard to believe they would simply fabricate a story to fuel a groundless lawsuit.

Activision-Blizzard, as you might expect, refutes the claims: saying they’re either twisted, misleading, or buried up from a long-dead past.
 

The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California.

Look, I never root for Activision-Blizzard in anything anymore. All the same, I don’t think it’s unfair of me to hope that these allegations are false if only because their truthfulness would mean that people have literally died due to a rampant culture of sexual abuse, and that would make them bigger blights on the gaming industry than EA and Ubisoft combined.

But if they are true? We need to burn this company to the goddamn ground.