New Leadership at Blizzard

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23706475/new-leadership-at-blizzard

by bdz • 5 years ago

252 202 5 years ago

news.blizzard.com

Sounds like a good change.

xnyan• 5 years ago

Blizzard has not been run as an independent studio since 2008 when it merged with Activision. The head(s) of BLizzard are just a layer of management under Bobby Kotick who has been the leader for more than a decade. I can't see this as anything besides blame shifting.

sudhirj• 5 years ago

Nicely decisive move, going straight for the head. And the optics of a diverse leader duo look great given some of the problems.

mehlmao• 5 years ago

The head is Bobby Kotick, who has his own sexual harassment allegations. Activision won't do a thing about him or Frances Townsend.

tapoxi2• 5 years ago

Going straight for the head would mean replacing Bobby Kotick. If he doesn't resign then J. Allen Brack is just a scapegoat.

caymanjim• 5 years ago

The optics are that they thought they needed a woman for PR, but didn't have any confidence in her. I'm not saying she's incapable, but that's what the optics are.

raxxorrax5• 5 years ago

Blizzard tried the good optics strategy for years now. Ironically companies that emphasize it are the ones sexual harassment seems to happen the most.

techpression3• 5 years ago

New leadership? He took over when it was engulfed in flames (he’s just the scapegoat), they need to clean up above him. This is a CEO and board problem, who let this run rampant for over a decade.

serverholic7• 5 years ago

I'm not as concerned about the board. I think they'll do whatever they need to make money and if they need to change Blizzard's culture they will. The CEO is a different story because he was there every day.

KptMarchewa• 5 years ago

CEO is Kotick. Not Brack.

PoignardAzur2• 5 years ago

I think they'll do whatever they need to make money and if they need to change Blizzard's culture they will

That's optimistic. To that kind of institution, what matters is getting back to business as usual with as little disruption as possible. They'll just hope that firing a scapegoat will appease the mob long enough for them to move on to another scandal, and if that doesn't work they'll keep firing scapegoats until it works.

Actual company culture changes would require that the people at the top have incentive to change. The higher ups at Activision-Blizzard already showed they were willing to tank the company's long-term potential for short-term profit.

hans1729• 5 years ago

"They expect one of us in the wreckage, brother."

raxxorrax5• 5 years ago

Well, at least someone has started the fire.

throwaway284534• 5 years ago

I know that HN discourages low effort replies, but I have to tell you that this comment made me smile. A Bane reference that’s also on topic is simply chef kiss.

xeromal• 5 years ago

I love how this was posted in reddit 2 hours before this comment. Who shot first?

notapenny• 5 years ago

I couldn't help but immediately think of this line from Margin Call when I saw the headline. I won't spoil it but at one point the CEO and someone are sitting in a room and he says to the person: "I need a head for the shareholders".

nerdponx• 5 years ago

Not sure if this is a typo or a new solecism, but I think you meant "rampant" instead of "rampart".

techpression3• 5 years ago

Thanks for catching that!

traspler• 5 years ago

"he’s just the scapegoat" - I see him being called a "scapegoat" a lot in this thread but is there any indication of his innocence in all of this? I'm not saying that he is "guilty" but calling him merely a scapegoat seems premature.

techpression3• 5 years ago

He’s definitely not innocent, he has shown both misogyny and terrible leadership, but when you make a press release firing him, while at the same time ignoring all the other problems (people) that is in the company he becomes the scapegoat (a scapegoat doesn’t have to be innocent)

bytematic• 5 years ago

I'm not sure how much the board could be aware, but I agree the whole leadership needs a 3rd party examination.

wpietri• 5 years ago

Boards can find things out on their own. Board members can talk to employees. I personally think they have an obligation to look beyond tidy narratives presented by management, but at the very least they have the capability.

Clubber• 5 years ago

He had only been in the position for less than three years, this has been going on for over a decade. I'm sure he's partially culpable, but I also think he might the fall guy allowing Bobby Kotick (CEO) to stay in place.

dtech• 5 years ago

the allegations are coming from the WoW team for a major part, and he was the Executive Producer and VP of WoW for forever.

blacktriangle• 5 years ago

He's also easily the most publicly hated manager at Blizzard thanks to his "you think you do but you don't" speech. Perfect scapegoat.

JohnWhigham2• 5 years ago

Ironically enough, looking at the current state of WoW Classic, he was 100% correct. Given Blizzard in its current state, you don't want whatever nostalgic offering they give you, because it will inevitably be butchered.

afrocious• 5 years ago

What about new leadership at Activision? I'm still confused about the business relationship between Activision and Blizzard.

tapoxi2• 5 years ago

Activision-Blizzard (the parent) has 3 major divisions: Activision, Blizzard, and King.

This does nothing to address the problems at the parent company (Activision-Blizzard) or Blizzard's siblings (King, Activision)

hannasanarion2• 5 years ago

Sounds like Bobby Kotick has chosen his scapegoat.

They're not even being called "president", now, just "co-leaders": he's taking the opportunity to consolidate more power too.

apozem• 5 years ago

Jason Schreier:

Titles mean a lot in the corporate world. Until 2018, Mike Morhaime was CEO. When Brack took over, he was president. Now, Oneal and Ybarra are described as "co-leaders."
A clear glimpse at who's really in charge: Bobby Kotick

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1422536264851640320...

NewLogic• 5 years ago

Crazy Bobby is not even a billionaire considering how unethical his leadership methods are.

hannasanarion2• 5 years ago

Bobby is definitely a billionaire. His net worth is currently estimated at $7 billion.

After all, how could you possibly not be a billionaire when you're reaping a salary of $150 million for 12 years?

claaams2• 5 years ago

Fire bobby kotick and then I'll care. Remove him from the board at coca cola too.

mabbo• 5 years ago

I think it's a good move, but I think it would be better if they were more open about why this is happening. I think they need to explain that this is the first step in a larger move to fix their culture, and what the next steps are.

They need to differentiate between "We screwed up, something is wrong, and it's time for real change" vs "We have applied lipstick to the pig, now please go away".

raxxorrax5• 5 years ago

why this is happening

They hope that the emotions get attached to the person fired so the company can get rid of it.

I don't think there is any information who has done what, so someone has to go. Severance will probably make for a soft landing.

Cypher• 5 years ago

Blizzard is beyond repair

claaams2• 5 years ago

I like battlegrounds but I've uninstalled their games and launcher from my devices.

moksly2• 5 years ago

I love how easy it is for enterprise organisations to make the smart moves once shit the fan. Two good choices for leadership both based on their previous work and the fact that they are new within Blizzard and aren’t tainted by the horrible working culture like every other current high level manger.

Of course it’s something they’ve likely prepared to do as a contingency since January.

I don’t agree with people calling J. Allen Brack a scapegoat considering his role in this. There are YouTube clips of Blizcon WoW panels being lead by him where the named director that I can’t recall the name or is making misogynistic jokes that the panel continues with. He’s also worked so close to these people that he must have known and failed to act, unlike the head of Activision. Bobby Kotick may be disliked, I don’t know much about him other than that, but anyone that’s worked at the higher levels of an Enterprise organisation knows that the key decision makers are so far detached from reality that it’s sometimes painful to work with them. Not that they are delusional or incompetent, but they simply operate on a whole other plane than the rest of the organisation and that means you have to trust your governing body.

Maybe Kotick needs to go as well, but I don’t see any reason Blizzard shouldn’t be making this move and they should frankly be replacing every single manager and middle manager that has been anywhere near the disgusting bullshit if their goal is to alter the culture.

lolinder• 5 years ago

Kotick settled a lawsuit about a 2007 incident (before the Blizzard merger) where he allowed ongoing sexual harassment of a flight attendant on his private jet, then fired her when she complained about it. He has a history, and it's reasonable to suspect that he is a primary source of the rot.

Brack is obviously not innocent, but that he's the only one being ousted does suggest that Kotick is trying to lay all the blame on him.

https://kotaku.com/activision-boss-loses-legal-battle-over-s...

delusional• 5 years ago

How does the CEO of a company making mediocre (compared to the talent the seem to have available) games have a private jet?

me_me_me• 5 years ago

there is a reason why he has those horns

ehsankia2• 5 years ago

You can change leadership, but changing a whole company culture is extremely hard. It's not something you change overnight, and it takes a lot of active effort, with people fighting back and complaining about "back in my days, we could do X".

moksly2• 5 years ago

Banning alcohol would probably be a good start.

cletus4• 5 years ago

Make no mistake: this is Bobby Kotick trying to save his job. He may well succeed. I hope his head also makes it to the chopping block.

Firstly, Brack was only president for 2 years and a lot of these incidents happened prior BUT if you're in charge you're responsible. That's part of the deal that comes with that giant pay check. You don't get to say "it's not my fault". So Brack absolutely should go because he's seemingly failed to correct the toxic culture.

You'll note the email talks about "Blizzard", not "Activision Blizzard". This is how you can tell Kotick is distancing himself from this. It's "Activision Blizzard" when things are going well and "Blizzard" when it's not. Kotick is I'm sure busy selling this narrative that Blizzard is an autonomous unit. It's not. It's fully Activision at this point.

Activision Blizzard has squandered their most valuable properties. The only thing propping up WoW is a 15 year old version of the game that's quickly being ruined with the exact micro-transactions that ruined the game to begin with. Does anyone still care about Overwatch? Prediction: Diablo 4 is going to disappoint. This is the same company that brought you Diablo 3 after all.

As for the new co-leaders, ugh... this just screams PR. One of them is a woman of course. I'm not saying she's unqualified (although both of them are relatively recent hires, interestingly). But you know given the lawsuit that this was going to happen. But the main issue is that there's two leaders. We all know countries need two presidents, armies need two commanders, etc.

So what this suggests is that Ibarra had the confidence of Kotick and the board, she would now be president. So she's co-president because of the lawsuit. It may not be true but that's how people are going to interpret it.

To get out this rot it can't stop at changing the executives. Blizzard honestly needs someone to come in and clean house. This goes beyond the lawsuit, which is no doubt a relatively small minority. This is about half the company probably being useless.

AutumnCurtain• 5 years ago

She's not even "co-president", just "co-leader". Morhaime was CEO, Brack president. Odd title deflation in play here.

void_mint• 5 years ago

When things get totally rebranded into "Blizzard, an Activision Studio" the title deflation will make sense.

scruple4• 5 years ago

Jason Schreier had a good tweet about this title shuffle this morning. [0]

Titles mean a lot in the corporate world. Until 2018, Mike Morhaime was CEO. When Brack took over, he was president. Now, Oneal and Ybarra are described as "co-leaders."
A clear glimpse at who's really in charge: Bobby Kotick

[0] https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1422536264851640320

brendoelfrendo• 5 years ago

Re: Oneal, it's true she's new to the Blizzard executive staff, but she's a 17-year veteran of Vicarious Visions where she rose through the ranks to be Studio Head before they were moved under Blizzard earlier this year.

polytely• 5 years ago

And Vicarious Visions has been doing great work for a while, if anyone can turn it around it's probably the two outsiders, but I doubt that they will be given the tools to actually fix this.

We'll see I guess, I know I won't be spending any money on Activision-Blizzard in the foreseeable future, there are more than enough games out there.

KONAir2• 5 years ago

Diablo 1&2 were Blizzard North things who were more or less autonomous though. I feel this needs mentioning.

klodolph• 5 years ago

Diablo 2 came out over 21 years ago; if it were a person, it would be old enough to go to the bar in the US and get wasted.

I don't think it needs mentioning. It is impossibly hard to keep the same culture at a game company two decades later, especially when the company grows so much. It's not like Valve is the same Valve that released Half-Life, or Bungie is the same Bungie that released Oni. None of these companies today could possibly have a similar culture to what their company culture was when those games came out.

Changing company culture, it turns out, is easy. Stupidly easy. I say it's "stupidly" easy because all you need to do is hire new people, and most companies already do that. The hard thing is changing company culture in the right direction.

vbezhenar4• 5 years ago

At least Mike Ybarra is a hardcore WoW player. I feel a little bit better knowing that.

cletus4• 5 years ago

Brack also played (plays?) WoW and he brought us LFR [1] so there's that...

But hope springs eternal.

[1] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/wow-producer-discusses-k...

wayoutthere• 5 years ago

This is about Ybarra feeling he has a claim to the role and not wanting to pass him over for what would be seen as a PR reaction. This is pretty typical, and the companies I’ve seen be successful with these types of overhauls send a message loud and clear to their executives: expect to be passed over for promotions more than you’re used to. Building the right executive team in 2021 includes diversity of experience as an aspect, and you may be passed over for promotions you’re qualified for because we are building the best performing team, not locally optimizing for the best individual performers.

Sure this causes turnover, but it’s usually the kind of turnover you welcome during a culture shift. Especially with the transition to remote work, empathy and diversity from senior leadership will only become more important to recruiting and retaining the best talent.

arcanon2• 5 years ago

I like the bit about building the best performing team at the expense of the individual. Seems like something you could say to let down a report in a 1 on 1. Im going to use that from now on, whenever it serves my purpose. Thanks!

datavirtue2• 5 years ago

"BUT if you're in charge you're responsible."

Right next door to this post is another where the ebay CEO escaped responsibility for his employees' harassment of an e-commerce news letter publisher.

pavon• 5 years ago

The Ebay CEO was fired (or asked to resign, I don't remember), which are the same consequences that Brack has faced so far. Also, from what I can tell they are both facing civil lawsuits, not criminal, although one is being brought by the government and the other by the victims.

So at this point they both appear to held accountable to the same degree, whether that is sufficient or not.

shrimp_emoji• 5 years ago

Make no mistake: I will not be stopped. Not by you, or the Confederates, or the Protoss, or anyone! I will rule this company or see it burnt to ashes around me.

Hamuko• 5 years ago

The fact that they have two "co-leaders" and one of them is a woman makes me really wonder if they went for the two leader approach just so that they could have a woman without making a woman the sole "leader". As in, did they really want Mike Ybarra but were scared of being torn a new one by the Internet and their employees?

Has Blizzard ever done this before without being in middle of a massive shitstorm?

psyc• 5 years ago

Michael will be in charge of big picture stuff, and Jim^H^H^H Jen will deal with more of the day to day.

MichaelZuo• 5 years ago

“ Brack was only president for 2 years and a lot of these incidents happened prior BUT if you're in charge you're responsible. ”

Surely moral responsibility cannot be assigned like that? Legal, technical perhaps, but people by and large won’t assign all responsibility to the last person in a line of hot potato. Especially since the person in question didn’t actually have 100% freedom to change the organization as he wanted. There was, and still is, a board of directors above him who has to sign off on any big changes. Responsibility should go with whoever or whatever has the substantive decision making authority, and if that’s shared then …

lostcolony2• 5 years ago

Moral responsibility isn't, but a company's policies, policing, and enforcement are. These were well documented things, involving numerous employees; why were they not noticed and acted upon? -That's- a corporate failing.

x0x0• 5 years ago

New ceos will get their choice of execs. While it's not 100% freedom, it's high.

ehsankia2• 5 years ago

With big CEO compensation should come big responsibilities.

scrumbledober• 5 years ago

Diablo 4 is going to disappoint. This is the same company that brought you Diablo 3 after all.

and, importantly, more the team that brought you Diablo 3 than the team that brought you Diablo 2...

throwaway98797• 5 years ago

Diablo 3 has improved a lot since release.

Seasons. Themes. Give it another go if you haven’t in 5+ years.

heartunderbread• 5 years ago

But the main issue is that there's two leaders. We all know countries need two presidents, armies need two commanders, etc.

I can sense the sarcasm here, but I'm curious as to why this isn't the case? I'd imagine having two leaders provides more stability and thoughtfulness especially when it comes to executive decision-making, so what's the problem?

alex_young• 5 years ago

In my experience 2 leaders is a lot like no one in charge. Doesn't work too well.

SV_BubbleTime3• 5 years ago

I’ve never had any issues trying to figure out where to go to dinner with my wife, after all.

As much as some personality types don’t like it, sometimes you need one person just to be in charge and make a call.

jdright2• 5 years ago

People are afraid of change. Anyway, there is a bunch of studios that have two-heads, and this seems to work amazingly well.

wombatpm2• 5 years ago

I find that when making soup, adding a second chef improves the quality. I also routinely change horses while crossing rivers and streams. Usually about half way.

Sarcasm aside, when there is a disagreement between coleaders, whose point of view prevails? When you know that then you know who is really in charge.

amyjess3• 5 years ago

I'm going to share a story my mom told me about when she was in high school in the '60s.

There was an academic achievement award at her school, given based on objective criteria. I don't remember exactly what this award was called or what the exact criteria were (and my memory of the exact details of her story is hazy enough that I'm wondering if she was talking about being named her class's valedictorian). For the school's entire history, only boys won the award. Until my mom came along. She qualified for the award based on the objective criteria by a decent margin. And so, beginning with that year, her school decided to start issuing two awards: one to the top-performing girl and one to the top-performing boy.

So even though she won, she still had to share the award because the school suddenly changed the rules in response to a girl finally winning.

arcanon2• 5 years ago

Activision didn’t ruin Blizzard. Blizzard ruined themselves by giving up control of their destiny to another. Such things affect the way you think, to be not independent.

crescentfresh• 5 years ago

I'm a bit out of the loop on what has led up to this. I did a bit of searching and came up with a recent thread (within last 2 weeks) of an Activision employee (female) committing suicide after experiencing sexual harassment (involving nude photos being distributed) while on a business trip with the harassing supervisor?

The thread is here: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/employee-takes-her-o...

filoleg• 5 years ago

The state of California has announced a week or two ago that it is suing Blizzard over a lot of different sexual harassment cases (including the one you've brought up) after conducting a 2-years long investigation and gathering evidence.

Which prompted a (justified) mass outrage and more people coming out with more evidence and relevant situations within the company.

kar1181• 5 years ago

Unfortunately Blizzard is done.

There's some debate to be had if that's a bad thing, but it's now a brand and IP holding company with some in-house development.

icu3• 5 years ago

I agree that the odds are that Ybarra and O'Neal can't turn the ship around... but there is still a non-zero chance.

Seems like Mike Ybarra is a 'Mr Business' type coming from Microsoft XBox who brags about "growth and engagement across services for Gaming at Microsoft" on his LinkedIn (which I don't think bodes well for removing the crazy micro transactions).

Jennifer O'Neal isn't that amazing either... she was the head of Vicarious Visions who have never made original IP, and let's be fair, have basically made mediocre games except for Destiny 2.

Andrex2• 5 years ago

Vicarious Visions handled the Wii versions of Guitar Hero far, far better than the horrible versions of Rock Band available for the system. I'll always appreciate that.

toast0• 5 years ago

she was the head of Vicarious Visions who have never made original IP

Well it's right in the name, so I'm not sure why you'd expect them to build out their own visions.

Anyway, Blizzard has a lot of IP that people already like, doing work in the same universe is mostly fine. Open a side studio to develop new and different things.

mylons• 5 years ago

Ybarra is a very hardcore WoW player. I'd trust him more than most.

Rapzid• 5 years ago

WoW subscriptions alone pull about 760m per year still. They are an extremely valuable IP holding company if that.

They could easily spend tens of millions completely retooling leadership and eventually anyone toxic, and it would be worth every penny.

andrewzah• 5 years ago

Firing a scapegoat is meaningless. Bobby Kotick needs to be fired if any real change is to be done.

nobodyandproud2• 5 years ago

Given Activision/Blizzard is a public company, investor activism is very possible.

Some shareholders just need to care enough and have enough time on their hands.

flerovium• 5 years ago

How the mighty have fallen.

I miss the days when they produced a solid game, charged a single fee, and let a community grow organically around it. SC was a league of its own. WoW was originally created. Let the community tell you what it wants.

It's sad to see institutions decay like this.

VikingCoder• 5 years ago

I had to look it up, I don't see any evidence that Blizzard's Michael Ybarra [1] is related to Joe Ybarra [2] who produced The Bard's Tale (1985). So he apparently has nothing to do with Ybarra's Mystical Shield (MYSH) and Ybarra's Mystical Coat of Armor (YMCA).

I can't even tell you how many times I typed YMCA on my Apple IIc, playing Bard's Tale. It was a lot, though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_J._Ybarra [2] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Ybarra

mkl952• 5 years ago

As someone who has invested 1000s of hours in EA and Blizzard games, it never crossed my mind that one day I would prefer EA to Blizz.

EA is like MongoDB, you know you are getting a flawed product that's nevertheless fun to use. Blizzard is like Oracle's MySQL, they try very hard to be taken seriously only to eventually stab you in the back.

kevlarrelic• 5 years ago

Sorry I'm new to MySQL, in what way did they stab you in the back? Just curious about the analogy!

mkl952• 5 years ago

Obscure / unexpected behaviour in production, MySQL caused little data disasters at every company where we used it

eknkc• 5 years ago

Do not trust anything it does implicitly (like casting stuff, running triggers reliably, locking properly etc).

Nothing follows logic so if you assume something would work a particular way, it will most definitely do the wrong thing instead.

It is fine otherwise.

In a serious tone, I ran large apps on MySQL, it works and performans fine. But makes it easy to shoot yourself in the foot. Go with PostgreSQL if you can choose / it is not a big hassle.

udbhavs• 5 years ago

Then Valve must be Postgres (I guess it would have been CDPR before the whole cyberpunk fiasco)

SV_BubbleTime3• 5 years ago

With the number of amazing independent games out now, like Outer Wilds (not Worlds!)… I’ve found sometimes I just really enjoy an Excel Add-on.

ticklemyelmo• 5 years ago

I'll nominate Zachtronics for SQLite.

jrockway• 5 years ago

I kind of agree with the other comments that Blizzard is probably done. It will be interesting to see what emerges as the successor. They have made spectacular games over the years and those franchises will be sorely missed. But someone, someday, will probably do even better.

I hold on to a scrap of hope that somehow they will turn it around. But I can't think of a Fortune 500 that ever turned it around, so I can't be too optimistic.

njharman• 5 years ago

More than one person is responsible for the illegal culture. More than one person should go. And they should be fired before having opportunity to resign.

inetknght• 5 years ago

More than one person is responsible for the illegal culture

Firing them sends a better message than resigning. But if the culture is illegal then they should be charged as such. Otherwise this same problem will continue to fester elsewhere.

NonContro• 5 years ago

There's a big systematic inequality in gaming, particularly PC gaming where Blizzard's products are most popular.

Blizzard has its own launcher, which means they can sell directly to customers, at 0% commissions.

Any new Indies have to go through the monopolist Steam, which means a 30% commission and no direct access to their fanbase.

If we want better conditions in game development, it needs to be easier for disgruntled employees to leave and start their own companies. That means, explicitly, that Steam (holding the monopoly position on PC) needs to be pressured to lower its commission (the 15% level Apple and Google are moving towards seems reasonable) and offer the same terms to Indies as they do to AAA.

emptyfile• 5 years ago

Too little too late.

mdip3• 5 years ago

Good for them. Though, I wonder how this ever was allowed to get this bad in the first place[0]. Perhaps it's how I was raised, my employment history, or I've just "gotten lucky" with (larger) employers[1], but it blows my mind that any large employer allowed an employee to come within a 100 yards of harassing behavior.

I worked in various lead/senior roles in IT Infrastructure, security, support and development at a 5,000-20,000 (depending on the time) employee telecom. I know of one incident in the 17 years I was there that was serious related to sexual harassment. In that case, the "victimized employee" remained with the company, the harasser handled by suspension during a (hours long) investigation where they were fired with cause (also the only case in the US that I'm aware of). I was asked to collect his computer; yeah, firing him was a good call.

Women and minorities in IT -- both technical and management (VP was and currently still is the same woman) were represented well above the average[2] and promoted at no different rate. On our team and among our larger team -- 17 years -- all of the staff acted like adults (some had quirks, but nothing more). I don't ever recall a frat-boy like attitude and I know none of my co-workers would tolerate it. I don't even recall an incident of inappropriate humor. The only thing that came close was one colleague who dropped an F-Bomb casually about every 3 words (usually a "Fckin'" or "Fcked Up" -- despite the word, I don't recall him using the word sexually). He lasted a year or so and didn't get fired for the F-Bombs -- everyone talked about it but nobody really cared[3].

[0] In fairness, I've not followed this story closely, so that may be my perception.

[1] The tempting explanation of "I didn't experience it, myself, therefore I was blind to it" isn't something I can prove I wasn't affected by, but my unusual set of jobs/position in the company allowed for few places to hide this kind of behavior from me at times.

[2] I'm always uncomfortable mentioning this -- we had higher than average because we actively recruited from places that would increase the number of minority candidates. We did not in any way apply hiring practices that favored under-represented races/genders -- and ended up having a very diverse team.

[3] I'm not suggesting harassing/racist behavior be ignored, however, another part of being an adult is tolerating things that we feel are "moral faults" in others without being uptight about it. "It takes a lot of people to make a world" ... My casually-swearing colleague never swore at people or about people -- he swore about things sometimes, and swore casually, even though he chose a word that many in the US feel to be among the most offensive profanities, co-workers used to just comment about "how strange it is to hear so much profanity out of one guy when nobody else is swearing at all".

mdip3• 5 years ago

... feeling badly for picking on F-Bomb guy and I remembered a story about him that I thought I'd share as context when I say he never landed in harassment territory.

He worked at an office in a different state, but I worked closely with his team and he had been put on a team that my former boss had chosen to move across the country to be a member of. Apparently Bill (former boss[0], not his real name) met John (F-Bomb guy, same) two days after he started; they got to talking, John found out Bill had a moving truck coming that weekend and invited himself over to help, even buying lunch for him, my former boss and the one other guy who was willing to help.

[0] Not his boss, not even on the same team and they'd met that day -- it was one of several stories; we'd often wondered if the profanity was a mental thing because he otherwise behaved like a Sunday School teacher.

scruple4• 5 years ago

I've been f-bomb guy before. Cursing (not for cursings sake, but for the love of the language, if there is such a thing) is a crucial part of my language and when I was younger, before I moved into technical leadership roles, I didn't quite understand why it was unprofessional language to use at work... But sspecially so when everything else abut the job felt so casual. In the last 5 years, however, I have been involved in technical leadership and have restricted my usage.

FWIW, I'm also the type to insist on helping friends and colleagues with physical labor work.

nathanaldensr• 5 years ago

Huge amounts of money (and the corresponding power) make lots of people look in the other direction. These companies are too big for their own good.

nineplay• 5 years ago

I've been a woman in this field for 30-odd years and I'm surprised at the stories coming out. The harassment that I've known of happen 'behind closed doors' with senior leaders - terrible and inexcusable but nothing like the relentless frat-boy behavior described at Blizzard. I've been on teams which would make HR's hair stand on end but even on those the insults flew in all directions, I never felt picked out for my gender.

It's clear that at Blizzard there was a culture of harassment which was effectively bullying. I wouldn't' be surprised to find that men who didn't participate were picked on too. I don't think that changes when a few heads roll at the top. I don't know how to change that honestly.

mewse-hn• 5 years ago

In telecom you get to work with real living adults, media industries are rife with exploitation because they're peoples "dream jobs".

If you read the legal complaint filed by the state of california, blizzard had gaming lounges with booze that people would often walk in on a couple having sex. At work.

Those of us who can't imagine working at a place like that should just consider ourselves lucky.

0x500x792• 5 years ago

IMO it's because of the industry. I have worked in the Video Game industry and there are a mix of reasons why I see people sticking around through these types of issues:

1. They are a non-STEM role and this is one of the best jobs for them.

2. It is a video game company. The amount of STEM professionals that I know sticking around in low-growth, high-stress, overwork, and toxic environments is worth it to them because the industry is "fun".

I think a lot of time leaders/companies know they have employees hooked in these roles and don't focus on improving culture because of it.

raxxorrax5• 5 years ago

To be honest, I would leave a place that tries to improve culture. Either the employees carry decent behavior themselves or not. You can enforce it to a degree, but that will never be not toxic.

That said, business environments are most often "clean". That has advantages and disadvantages. But it allows you to work without distraction.

dmead2• 5 years ago

I've been playing starcraft off an on since the 90s.

what am i supposed to replace it with?

screye• 5 years ago

Good time to start looking at Age of Empires 4.

At E3 2021 Microsoft announced AOE4 would come to Game Pass on PC on October 28, 2021.

If the space themes & generic strategy are more important to you, then check you the XCOM games.

If you want a brutally competitive game maintained by a passionate developer, an active community and has long term support then try Dota 2. (warning - it will consume your life)

If you just wanna build, then city skylines and it's amazing DLCs will keep you busy.

haswell• 5 years ago

And for what it's worth, AOE2 is still going strong. With the remaster and continuing flow of useful DLC, I still spend quite a bit of time playing.

brailsafe• 5 years ago

AOE4 sounds cool, didn't know it was coming out. As for Cities Skylines, I kind of lost interest, unfortunately in favour of WoW again of all things. I'd love to a see a very polished 2nd version of it that can scale down to be run passably on my MBP like WoW.

dmead2• 5 years ago

It's really the mechanics of it that keep me there. My mmr floats around high diamond to low masters depending on how much I play. Getting into a slow game like city skylines isn't what I'm after, just the competitive aspect of it.

I guess AOE would be a good substitute or maybe supreme commander.

obmelvin• 5 years ago

Based on talking to a friend who used to work at Blizzard, and was sad to leave his dream job, the main damage is long past. Key employees left over a year ago at this point.

I wish the new leaders well, assuming they sincerely wish to make positive change, but the soul of the company is gone

nobodyandproud2• 5 years ago

Any insider scoops on why Jeff Kaplan left?

Any chance he was caught up in this as well, months before it became news?

dmix• 5 years ago

Weird how their dedication to HR practices are highlighted but nothing about making high quality games that people enjoy. Is that just supposed to be a given?

When these big companies start to get older they always seem to prioritize the organization itself instead of the value they provide to customers.

toofy• 5 years ago

When these big companies start to get older they always seem to prioritize the organization itself instead of the value they provide to customers.

Do ya think this is an age issue or a size thing. (or maybe a bit of both?)

I don’t have data to back this up, but it sure seems like once a company reaches a certain scale it becomes more about cutting quality than building a better product.

I absolutely recognize the forces that drive this and I could definitely be imagining a lot of it due to a growing sense of jadedness, but it sure feels true more often than not.

PoignardAzur2• 5 years ago

They're in the middle of an HR scandal first and foremost (though people are mad about they game design decisions too). It makes sense they're focusing on the HR part.

kesor• 5 years ago

A two-headed hydra is an excellent way to improve proper decision making in a crumbling company.

Andrex2• 5 years ago

Now I'm wondering if these two get fired, if four more "co-leaders" will take their place.

ghostbrainalpha2• 5 years ago

I think two-headed is actually the best way to do a lot of executive jobs.

One person to analyze information, ask questions, and make policy decisions.

One person, to have meetings communicating those decisions to everyone who needs to know. Do interviews. Collect feedback.

It's not like one person does all the work, and the other person sits through all the boring meetings. That shit never works.

But one person pursuing new goals and change, and the other person maintaining current responsibilities can work really well. A lot of CEO's have named this "co-lead" their chief of staff, and they have a shocking amount of power for someone unfamiliar with that position.

keymone• 5 years ago

Both leaders are deeply committed to all of our employees; to the work ahead to ensure Blizzard is the safest, most welcoming workplace possible for women, and people of any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or background; to upholding and reinforcing our values; and to rebuilding your trust.

what a load of bullshit. all that trust was lost when those two were already in leadership positions.

_RPL5_• 5 years ago

WoW has been my main game since I was a teenager, and for the past decade it's been lurching up (Legion) and down (WoD), but mostly down (BFA, SL). It seems like Blizzard is out of ideas with WoW. They are like a tired writer who is trying to edit a paragraph trying to make it read better, but ultimately makes it worse with the edits.

Health of their games aside, here is to hoping that they at least take care of their employees moving forward. The thing that's most disheartening about the harassment allegations is how many former female employees (50+) came out on twitter to collaborate the claims of run-away toxicity. Not something I expected from a company that positions itself as the "wholesome gaming company of your childhood."

Whatever it takes for them to clean up their workplace, they need to do it. The games, too, will be better for it. Workplace toxicity doesn't just lead to harassment, it kills collaboration and creativity.

HelloNurse• 5 years ago

Summary of plausible bad reasons to appoint two "co-leaders" where one would suffice:

- Both candidates had such strong claims on the #1 spot, and so much influence, that the company was forced to promote both to avoid losing one of them. Hiring an outsider, like a sensible and earnest company would have done, would have alienated both rather than only one. Is Activision known as a fractious organization?

- They really wanted Oneal, but they added Ybarra to avoid looking like they had undergone a feminist coup. Because they care about what their users think of them, and this is what they think of their users.

- They really wanted Ybarra, but they added Oneal to give an impression of greater change, just because she is a woman.

- Both candidates weren't considered really qualified as a sole "leader", but there was hope that they could handle the crisis together instead. Which implies personal conflicts, poor personnel quality (not necessarily Oneal and Ybarra, of course) or both.

Even worse theories would be easy to think of, but since Blizzard executives can be expected to read HN discussions about them speculation about what they are doing would be pointlessly cruel.

peterthehacker• 5 years ago

Whenever I see a business try “co-leader” stuff I think of that episode of the office where Jim and Michael are promoted to “co-managers”, then Oscar comments, dripping with sarcasm:

Look, it doesn’t take a genius to know that any organization thrives when it has two leaders. Go ahead, name a country that doesn’t have two presidents, a boat that sets sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be without the popes?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wF8jmFoQ7zM

seanp2k2• 5 years ago

I wonder if Townsend will be next https://www.activisionblizzard.com/leadership/frances-townse...

New Leadership at Blizzard

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