Editor’s Note: A lawsuit has been filed against Activision Blizzard by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which alleges the company has engaged in abuse, discrimination, and retaliation against its female employees. Activision Blizzard has denied the allegations. The full details of the Activision Blizzard lawsuit (content warning: rape, suicide, abuse, harassment) are being updated as new information becomes available.
Update (11/23/2021 9:30 AM CST): Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser has since joined PlayStation’s Jim Ryan and Xbox’s Phil Spencer in responding to the WSJ report about Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick. After Fanbyte obtained an internal Nintendo of America email, in which Bowser called the report’s allegations “distressing and disturbing,” a company spokesperson later confirmed the content of the email was accurate. Bowser states Kotick’s reported actions “run counter to my values as well as Nintendo’s beliefs, values and policies” and that Nintendo representatives “have taken action and are assessing others.” The original story continues below.
The heads of PlayStation and Xbox’s gaming labels have responded to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s reported involvement in workplace harassment and abuse, new reports claim. The large game publisher is currently at the center of lawsuits which accuse the company of fostering a toxic work environment and protecting offenders of sexual harassment and other forms of abuse. Major figures at companies Activision Blizzard closely works with are now chiming in.
Just days prior to the latest development, a Wall Street Journal report made several unsettling claims about Kotick, such as his alleged responsibility for Activision Blizzard’s initial response to a lawsuit filed by the State of California. At the time, the email in question was attributed to executive Fran Townsend. The WSJ report included several accounts indirectly and directly implicating Kotick in Activision Blizzard’s toxic work environment controversies, which he’s claimed to have been aware of since 2018. One story involved Kotick shielding a sexual harasser, while another included some of the CEO’s own history of workplace treatment, such as an instance in which he allegedly threatened to have a female employee “killed” in a voice mail.
In an internal memo acquired by Bloomberg, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan was reportedly the first to voice his concerns over Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick being named in the Wall Street Journal report. Ryan wrote of PlayStation’s “deep concern” about the disturbing claims of employee mistreatment detailed in the article, and one statement reportedly read, “We do not believe [Activision Blizzard’s] statements of response properly address the situation.” A day later, an Xbox staff email by Microsoft Gaming VP Phil Spencer was similarly obtained by Bloomberg, and he expressed similar worry over the alleged state of Activision Blizzard management under Kotick. Reportedly “disturbed and deeply troubled,” Spencer indicated a potential shift in Activision Blizzard’s standing with Xbox when stating the console manufacturer is “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard.”
On Twitter, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier made it clear these internal PlayStation and Xbox documents could potentially prove to be heavily impactful on the game publisher’s immediate future in the industry, with one possibility being Activision Blizzard shareholders moving to “remove embattled CEO Bobby Kotick.” Schreier also shared Activision Blizzard’s response to the PlayStation and Xbox executives’ comments, in which a spokesperson states the publisher “respects all feedback” from industry partners and is “committed to the work of ensuring our culture and workplace are safe, diverse, and inclusive.”
Kotick has been involved in running Activision for two decades and was an architect of the publisher’s Activision Blizzard merger. The company is responsible for major game franchises like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush Saga, making it one of the largest and highest-earning game publishers in the industry. Kotick and other Activision Blizzard executives were subpoenaed by the SEC in September as part of an investigation into allegations of disclosures and sexual misconduct, the results of which have not yet been disclosed.
Sources: Bloomberg (1, 2), Jason Schreier/Twitter
