Stock drop, strike and Bobby Kotick's response: the latest news about the Activision Blizzard scandal

We tell you about the latest events related to the Activision Blizzard scandal. Today, employees are going to go on strike and have already made a number of demands to the management. During the day, the capitalization of the company fell by $ 4 billion, and Bobby Kotick turned to his subordinates and promised to take measures to resolve the situation.Bobby the Cat

Employee strike

The strike will take place on Blizzard’s main campus today at 10 a.m. Pacific Time and will last two hours.

The action will take place at 20:00 Moscow time. There will also be a virtual strike for remote employees an hour earlier.

The main goal of the protest is “to improve conditions for employees, especially women, women of color, transgender women, non—binary people and other marginalized groups.”

Key requirements of employees:

• remove arbitration clauses from contracts that protect potential rapists and prevent victims from speaking out;improve recruitment policies to increase inclusivity and give representatives of marginalized groups equal rights with men;
• publish data on salaries and promotions of employees, because in the current conditions, representatives of the above-mentioned groups receive unfairly low compensation;
• to involve an independent group to audit the work of the HR department and senior staff in order to identify the shortcomings of the existing system and find a solution to the problem.
• Bobby Kotick’s Official Response

Soon after, the CEO of the company addressed the employees, calling the first comments of the management about the problem tactless.

The full text of the letter can be found on the Activision website.

Kotick stated that there is no place for discrimination, harassment and inequality in Activision Blizzard. The company intends to create a safe and inclusive working environment for all employees.

To solve the current situation, Activision Blizzard will work in five areas:

• Employee support: the company will investigate every claim and take decisive action. New people will be hired to the regulatory compliance team and the employee relations team;special conversations with employees: the management will listen to the complaints and ideas of the staff to improve the corporate culture;
• personnel changes: the company will evaluate the work of managers and managers and dismiss all employees who violate internal regulations;
• new hiring policy: all HR managers should have lists with inclusive candidates for all open vacancies, and the company will ensure compliance with this directive;
• changes in games: the company will remove content from its projects that employees consider unacceptable.
• “Your well—being remains my priority, and I will spare no resources to create the most hospitable, comfortable and safe environment in our company,” said Kotick.

Note that in his appeal, the CEO of Activision Blizzard commented on far from all the requirements of employees. In his letter, for example, there is not a word about the exclusion of arbitration clauses and the publication of data on monetary compensation.

World of Warcraft Development Team StatementThe developers’ appeal appeared on the official Twitter account of the game on the night of July 28.

They stated that they had collected feedback and suggestions from colleagues to remove unwanted content from WoW.

“We know that it will take us weeks and months to earn our trust again by our actions. However, we move on knowing that we share the same values as our community. We are talking about creating a place for representatives of all ethnic groups, sexual orientations and genders that they could call home,” the developers said in a statement.

The

changes will affect both World of Warcraft: Shadowlands and WoW: Classic. Probably, all unwanted content will be removed from the games — including mentions and references to the former creative director of the project Alex Afrasiabi (Alex Afrasiabi), who was accused of harassment.

Falling stocksYesterday, at the close of trading, the value of one Activision Blizzard share was $90.14.

They are now trading at $84.05 apiece — a drop of 6.76%.

Many attributed this to the news about the lawsuit against the company. However, a relatively large drop occurred only after the employees signed a collective letter to management.

Thus, in just a day, Activision Blizzard’s market capitalization fell from $70 billion to $65.3 billion. Since the beginning of January, the company’s capitalization has never fallen below $70 billion, and in February it reached its highest in five years — $80.37 billion.

Since last Thursday, Activision Blizzard has been at the center of a big scandal. The company is accused of harassment and discrimination against women. Former Blizzard top managers, including Mike Morhaime, have already spoken out about the situation. A detailed chronology of events can be found here.