Fire Bobby Kotick

Every so often there is a post that I end up not making, largely because I was not really certain how to approach it. Essentially for me this has been a year without Blizzard games. This is due in part to some intentional and some unintentional avoiding of anything that comes from the Battle.net launcher. Recently I had thought about beginning to lay down my sword and accept that change was happening, because from the outside it seemed like things were beginning to move in the right direction. Then a few things happened, firstly the resignation of Jen O’Neal and the Wall Street Journal article expanding on that action and the fact that Bobby Kotick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard has been complicit in everything up to this point. As part of everything coming out we find out that Kotick actually wrote the awful Fran Townsend letter, which brings into question if Jen O’Neal had anything to do with the public resignation letter in the first place.

This has been a journey that began with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit in July, and has been a ride of various bits of information coming out from that process. As a reaction to all of this a group of Activision, Blizzard, and King employees have banded together to create the ABetterABK movement, and held a number of walkouts. They have some pretty straight forward demands:

  • An end to mandatory arbitration clauses in all employee contracts, current and future. Arbitration clauses protect abusers and limit the ability of victims to seek restitution.
  • The adoption of recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and promotion policies designed to improve representation among employees at all levels, agreed upon by employees in a company-wide Diversity, Equity & Inclusion organization. Current practices have led to women, in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups that are vulnerable to gender discrimination not being hired fairly for new roles when compared to men.
  • Publication of data on relative compensation (including equity grants and profit sharing), promotion rates, and salary ranges for employees of all genders and ethnicities at the company. Current practices have led to aforementioned groups not being paid or promoted fairly.
  • Empower a company-wide Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion task force to hire a third party to audit ABK’s reporting structure, HR department, and executive staff. It is imperative to identify how current systems have failed to prevent employee harassment, and to propose new solutions to address these issues.

Activision Blizzard has taken some half measures namely ending binding arbitration in regards to sexual harassment cases only… which gives them a loophole to claim anything is not specifically sexual in nature. They have also implemented a “Zero Tolerance Policy” towards Sexual Harrassment, which leads ABetterABK to their final demand… that Activision Blizzard act upon this policy and remove Bobby Kotick as CEO. Thing is, it has gone far further than just the Activision Blizzard Employees… we have calls from Shareholders, Sony Entertainment, Microsoft, and Nintendo to leave the company. This seems like a pretty resounding vote of no confidence but in spite of all of this the Board Members continue to back him.

So I have been thinking for awhile, what action it would take in order for me to return to the fold. In truth it is a lot of actions, not all of which are even related to this current situation we find ourselves in. I bounced off Shadowlands for example long before knowing about any of this, and all of the problems I had with that game still exist today. However when it comes to avoiding games that I do love like Diablo 3… I was trying to figure out what pound of flesh would be enough to make me feel like change actually was possible. The single action that I have landed on is the removal of Bobby Kotick from the company entirely. I don’t just want him to step down as CEO, I want him completely gone from the decision making structure entirely. This happened under his reign and there is no question he was not only aware but supported the cover up. He needs to leave in order for the healing to begin in earnest.

The other things I would like to happen is to completely remove the board of directors, but that is a much bigger ask and one that I sincerely doubt is ever going to happen. What I do think is within the realm of possibility however is for the Activision Blizzard King to formally unionize. They have made a lot of strides with the ABetterABK Movement, and I would love to see it formalize into a proper union with all of the rights and protects that it has. Ultimately that is part of why I have been less vocal is because I have a lot of friends who work for Blizzard right now and are trying to make things better behind the scenes. I am constantly torn on how my own personal boycott ultimately impacts them.

I’ve also never made broad sweeping demands for folks to stop playing Blizzard games. Everyone has to arrive at this on their own terms, and for many Blizzard games are their coping mechanism for other things that they are going through at the same time. Many of us use games as a refuge from the troubles of our own life and the last few years have been absolutely brutal. I feel the constant pang of loss of Diablo 3, because that was one of my comfort games that I knew every three months I could return to with friends and get a dose of dopamine from it. That said the single action that would tell me that things are going to start moving in the right direction is going to be the act of removing the man who’s name is synonymous with Activision.

It is time for Bobby Kotick to leave.

3 thoughts on “Fire Bobby Kotick”

  1. A union is about the only way to have meaningful change here, and would impact the entire industry if it actually launched. Even if they swapped CEOs, it’s not like the company itself would all of a sudden start looking out for employee interests.

  2. He’s been CEO for 30 years, he is a throwback to the times when closed door settlements were how things were done. Rose McGowens suit against Weinstein from the 1997 assault. I believe she settled the original claim but signed an NDA. I’m old so I recall all the decades of Congressmen and their affairs, and questionable actions that went away as quickly as they made the rounds in the news. The problem with calling for him to resign is that he’s the type of person to bring it all down just for spite. Yes I’ve seen big name corporate honchos condemning him, probably so people won’t dig into their companies. The stock holders group? They control 0.6% of the voting shares. I seriously doubt he will resign, and unless the company loses money, they won’t vote him out.

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