Updated 2 years ago
2023 Update: Boycott maintained. WOW will need 3 consecutive expansions like Dragonflight to erase the stench. Continue punishing them with your feet. The 2010s must never ever happen again.
The biggest battle royale in the recent history of labor is brewing.
Activision Blizzard created Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, Diablo, and many other games. Until last week it was the largest video game company in the world. Nintendo just reclaimed the #1 spot.
Activision Blizzard is a now a full-on dumpster fire.
After being beset by the largest sexual harassment scandal in recent history spurred on by a major lawsuit by the state of California, including a suicide from a woman whose nude photos were passed around the company, and an infamous “Cosby Suite” for harassment, the compliance officer, formerly a torture apologist for GWB, tweeted an Atlantic article adding “the trouble with whistleblowing,” then blocked a lot of her employees. This is all after she sent out a letter complaining that California bureaucrats are driving out big businesses.
The President has already stepped down.
The head of HR stepped down.
Employees are looking to unionize. In response, Activision Blizzard hired Amazon’s union-busting law firm.
The COO, formerly the COO of the CIA under Trump, is known to be a bully, and “Pompeo’s attack dog.”
Shareholders are now suing because the 2-year-old investigation by California was never disclosed to shareholders, per the Sarbanes Oxley act.
Major esports sponsors such as Coca-Cola and T-Mobile are fleeing in droves.
…and it’s only been a week!
MEANWHILE… Activision Blizzard has underpaid its employees for years, trading on its past glories. Employees have been known to be so poor that they have to side gig in Uber and live in tiny de fact company houses with many roommates.
On top of all this, the games, especially World of Warcraft, have deteriorated in every possible way, become pay to win money machines, and the competitive scenes around them have become completely corrupt.
I can’t believe I sunk YEARS playing these games. Years time played. Yes, you read that right.
This is all so glorious. I’m sure there will be a film over this.
Boycott Blizzard keeps rolling.
The perfect storm striking World of Warcraft| BBC
UPDATE: Major hiring. Possible firing of Ion in the works.
Please God.
Ion is/was an excellent raid encounter designer, probably one of the best in the world. On literally everything else, he failed so miserably he sandblasted away non raiders, which explains the numbers. Our video game addiction is only matched by his addiction to systems and borrowed power as a kludge to prop up his vanity.
I was primarily hoping he would get the axe first; with JAB gone, the Kotickization of Blizzard will continue unabated now that he has “his people” in there.
Tinfoil hat: Bobby strangled Blizz so this would happen, so he could insert his people and really start cracking the whip and transition to mobile and China.
I keep trying to run thru scenarios where Blizzard goes back to the glory days, but that seems more and more unlikely.
UPDATE: Although this is not well known yet, with the stock price plummeting, Activision Blizzard is NO LONGER the top video game publisher in the world, and has LOST that to Nintendo.
“We will reform it from the inside”
“Everyone does it!”
“If we leave we will let down our friends, those pixels on the screen of which we don’t know the real life names.”
“If we leave we will throw away all those years we have sunk into this.”
“I’m not a quitter.”
That is Satan talking. When are you going to reach bottom? How bad does it have to get for you to quit? Watching you careen back after every abomination every time just feels more and more depressing, like watching a junkie relapse again and again, or someone in an abusive relationship.
Just remember – the community you have, the friends you made – those aren’t WOW. Those aren’t ActiBlizzard. Those are connections YOU made. Do not confuse the two and the path will become clear. Think of it like a bar you met a lot of great people at. There are other bars. Or sub in “crack house.” There are other crack houses.
Break the cycle. There are other games.
The behemoth must be slain. The forest needs to burn, so that it will regrow. Blizzard needs to be sold to someone who cares. Activision is a cancer and will always be a cancer as long as Bobby Kotick is in office. Like Trump, he needs to be voted out. But because capitalism is not democracy, you can only vote with your subscriptions.
Quit.
The Shit List (Updated daily)
| Name | Company | Position | Crimes | Date of Firing |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bobby Kotick | Activision Blizzard | CEO | When will the shareholders be able to oust him? | |
| Alan Adham | Blizzard | Chairman | The Diablo Immortal fiasco; pushing mobile games | |
| Frances Townsend | Blizzard | EVP Corporate Affairs | Was Gorge W. Bush's chief apologist for torture and waterboarding. Tweeted an article outling "The problem with Whistleblowing" then blocked many of her employees then shut down her twitter. This sorority girl is in over her head. | |
| Brian Bulatao | Activision | Chief Administrative Officer | Crony of Mike Pompeo and Trump, former COO of the CIA | |
| Ion Hazzikostas | Blizzard | Game Director | A former lawyer of union busting firm Willmer Hale, which is now working against employees. Completely neglected all parts of the game outside of raiding, such as PVP, which used to be a largge chunk of the playerbase; mercilessly pushed "systems" and "borrowed power" ignoring basically all feedback and made playing essentially pointless; for me, removing the ability to make custom sounds in an attempt to stop datamining in an attempt to stop leaks was the dealbreaker. | It is imperative that he be moved to a position that only oversees raid encounters |
| Cory Stockton AKA Mumper | Blizzard | Lead Content Designer | Was in Cosby Suite photo and commneted "best chat ever" | Deleted his twitter. |
| Jesse McCree | Blizzard | Lead Level Designer | Cosby Suite | 8/11/2021 |
| J. Allen Brack | Blizzard | President | Remember that he fired Afrosiabi only after they knew they were being investigated by California. On his watch: Blizzchung, Worldcraft III Reforged, Sex Scandal, wrist slapping of Afrasiabi, Blizzcon 2010 video dismissing female gamer | 8/3/2021 |
| Jesse Meschuk | Blizzard | 8/3/2021 | ||
| Alex Afrasiabi | Blizzard | Senior Creative Director | Drunken, abusive behavior towards women, leader of the Cosby Suite | 6/2020, left to douche his way thru Crypto |
This is what Blizzard is doing to World of Warcraft:
