The CEO of Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, WoW) has now addressed the sexism scandal that his company has been confronted with since 2021 in an interview. According to Bobby Kotick (60), investigations have shown that his company never had a problem with systemic sexism. External forces have played a bad role for the company and unjustly caused an image problem.
This is the background:
- In July 2021, a state authority filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard and made serious allegations. There is a macho culture in the company, women are disadvantaged, and an employee was even driven to suicide.
- As a result, more and more problems were identified at Activision Blizzard. Employees went public, and there were scandalous stories about a “Cosby Suite”, about “breast milk stolen from refrigerators”, and about “cocaine in the bathrooms.“
- Activision Blizzard began to admit mistakes and lay off people. Ultimately, the discussion ended when Microsoft offered to buy the troubled company, and CEO Bobby Kotick seemingly relieved, accepted the deal.
In February 2023, Activision Blizzard paid a $35 million fine and emphasized that it had significantly improved the situation.
What has been Kotick’s role so far? CEO Bobby Kotick has ultimately come under fire as the main responsible person after a November 2021 report from the Wall Street Journal about him was published. Although there were only a few personal accusations against him, he also had problems:
- He allegedly urged a manager to speak out against the lawsuit and dismiss it as ridiculous.
- Kotick was said to have known about many cases of sexual abuse but kept them from the board.
Ultimately, the employees demanded his head, but he was firmly in the saddle and would now receive a lot of money if Microsoft buys the company.
Instead, other people were laid off, such as the president of Blizzard – for many, that was more of a “scapegoat.”
Kotick speaks of “malicious distortion”
This is what he says now: In an interview with Variety, Kotick now presents his point of view:
- He speaks of a “malicious distortion” of the company he has led to the top for 32 years. This has made him angry, but also humble.
- He does not apologize for the corporate culture of Activision Blizzard, but states that the company is preparing a presentation of data to show that his company was not a “connection house.”
- For a company with 17,000 employees, Activision has had a relatively low level of complaints about harassment.
We have conducted every possible form of investigation. And we had no systemic problem with harassment – never. We had none of what was falsely reported in the media. But what we had was a very aggressive labor rights movement that worked hard to destabilize the company.
As a reason for Activision Blizzard’s image problem, he sees “external forces” and labor activists outside the company.
He personally sees himself portrayed as a hate figure on the internet in recent years, facing especially anti-Semitic comments:
The hate has turned into a lot of antisemitism. When you look at images of me circulating on the internet, there are anti-Semitic undertones. My children have received death threats.
Kotick also emphasizes what a worker-friendly person he is. He is not against unions, being the only one of the 500 Fortune CEOs who is in a union. If there are people in his company who want to join a union, he is totally for it.
He has nothing against unions, just against unions that do not follow the rules.
How is this commented? The comments under the Variety article are negative. The magazine is accused of being a “propaganda arm” for Blizzard. The article is full of lies.
Also, gaming sites that deal with the Variety interview adopt a biting tone:
- At Kotaku, it is pointed out that he previously took responsibility and is now pushing everything onto “external forces.”
- PC Gamer conducts interviews with employees of Activision Blizzard, who made it clear that Activision Blizzard indeed had a problem with systemic sexism.
According to Kotick, Activision Blizzard has not been sold because it was troubled after the sexism scandal, but he cites completely different reasons:
Activision Blizzard explains why they had to sell themselves instead of buying EA.
