Activision Blizzard CEO denies culture of harassment and blames unions for company problems

theverge.com:

In 2021, the state of California sued Activision Blizzard alleging that the video game publisher fostered a pervasive culture of harassment going back years. Details in the suit spoke of “cube crawls” where male employees would get drunk and walk around the workplace subjecting female employees to inappropriate behavior. It alleged that male employees would pawn off responsibilities to their female co-workers, how women of color were passed up for opportunities given to less tenured workers, and how a senior World of Warcraft developer was so infamous for his harassment of women that his office was nicknamed the “Cosby suite.”

But news of the suit was just the opening salvo in what would become a battery of reporting, documenting the kinds of harassment that went on at Activision Blizzard. Current and former employees shared their stories, including how a woman was demoted for allegedly reporting her harasser, how a nursing mother had her breast milk stolen from company refrigerators, and how one employee’s sexual harassment led to their death by suicide.

Amidst that reporting, The Wall Street Journal released its own report accusing Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick of knowing about, ignoring, and, in some cases, perpetrating harassment of his employees.

Kotick has apologized for some allegations, including one where he left a voicemail threatening to have his assistant killed, but denied others.

And in a new interview with Variety, Kotick further denied that Activision Blizzard had any pervasive issues with abuse. Instead, he blamed labor organizers for the company’s problems.

“We’ve had every possible form of investigation done. And we did not have a systemic issue with harassment — ever,” he said in the