Activision Blizzard faces fresh allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination in new lawsuit

eurogamer.net:

A new lawsuit filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of a current Activision Blizzard employee has raised fresh allegations of sexual harassment and gender discrimination at the publisher, also accusing it of retaliation after the employee publicly spoke out about her experiences at the company in December.

According to the lawsuit, as reported by Bloomberg Law, the employee — referred to only as Jane Doe — started work as a senior administrative assistant to executives in Activision Blizzard's IT department in 2017. It's claimed Doe was often pressured to drink alcohol at the company, was subjected to sexual comments about her appearance and clothing, was subjected unwelcome physical touching and attempts to kiss her, and that women were routinely made to participate in «cube crawls» where they experienced sexual comments and groping.

Doe is said to have started dressing «more conservatively» and avoiding offsite leadership dinners in order to escape sexual harassment, and it's alleged that when she complained about her supervisors' excessive drinking and sexual advances, she was told «it was just her leadership being nice and trying to be friends with her». Furthermore, the lawsuit — which also targets five named Activision Blizzard employees — claims Doe was instructed to keep her concerns to herself at the time as they could be «damaging» to the company.

Doe alleges that, as a result of her complaints, she began to face a hostile work environment. Many applications to other open positions in the company were rejected when she tried to move away from the IT department, and it's claimed that it wasn't until she highlighted the sexual harassment and retaliation in a written complaint to Blizzard's