In our turbulent times, few people manage to shock and hit, but the news that the corporation Activision Blizzard acts as the defendant in the loud trial, it succeeded. For decades, both the senior company and its units earned billions for the year, owning the largest, legendary franchises for a year after the year: Warcraft , Starcraft , Diablo , Candy Crush , in the end. Thousands of people worked in her offices https://euphoria-wins-casino.co.uk/, many of whom the community knew not only by name, but also by person, but bright annual festivals BlizzCon contributed to their popularity.
Now work on Overwatch And World of Warcraft In fact, the WoW audience conducts sedentary strikes in Oribos, former studio staff under the guise of an apology confirm that the kingdom has long been rotten from the inside, and still acting put the ultimatums to the leadership. What happened to the company, which was once an unsinkable? Are the current cataclysms suddenly? Let's try to delve into history to understand exactly when exactly Activision Blizzard began to lose respect for the public.
You can be sure that a great many of the inhabitants of the Earth is familiar with the Activision Blizzard projects or at least heard about them
Women are not here
Let's start with the main – recent court claim. The Department of Fair Hire and Housing Construction of California for two years conducted an investigation, collecting evidence and evidence, and finally formed a solid package of charges. As it turned out, in Activision Blizzard, the culture of the “student fraternity” reigned for a long time-well, when white guys consider themselves better than others because of involvement in a particular community. And their superiority “Bro” from Activision Blizzard was shown to everyone who came to their arm – most often, at the studio employees. Moreover, the lawlessness took place almost with the silent consent of the management of all levels: the company's policy was quite fed by the fact that women were less likely to receive promotion, they were paid less for the same work than men, and much more willing to be fired with any error.
The everyday life of the employees was poisoned by their colleagues who were cut into video games during working hours, leaving boring duties to the neighbors, or paced between the booths with a drink in their hands, making fun of sex and rape. Color women were especially hard, but the leadership did not accept their official complaints, instead resorting to repression: the victims were removed from work on the project, transferred to other units or simply reduced.
In the photo, Alex Afrasiabi, Dave Kosak, Greg Street, Jesse McCrey, Cori Stocton, Jonathan Lecraft, Josh Moskoyira and Paul Kazares Mistyly Posit with the portrait of Bill Cosbee, convicted for mass rape
Blizzard refused women to increase their salary under the pretext that they can become pregnant. They received reprimands for hurrying to pick up a child from a kindergarten. They were kicked out of breastfeeding rooms to hold business meetings there. During corporate events, they were completely treated as pieces of meat: they say that one of the employees committed suicide after her naked photos from one of the parties dispersed the company. This is not to mention sexual harassment, in which the leaders were especially zealous – it is called, in particular, the name of Alex Afrasiabi, the former Senior Creative Director of World of Warcraft.
However, for the people, the company tried to support the most radiant image. Blizzard has more than thirty offices around the world, but the public has always been available primarily an exemplary and defense headquarters in California, in the city of Irvain. This is a real town or, at least, a campus: several impressive buildings with gyms, dining rooms and cafes for every taste, slot machines and halls for video games, pool, sauna, bath, own museum and even a cinema. And on the territory there is a platform for beach volleyball, fields for football and golf, an open -air gym and an extensive park area, where employees take their pets for a walk: they are allowed and even recommend that they be brought to work to relieve stress. In general, everything looks so good that any fan of the company's games would agree to work there (and generally live) just for food.
The tourist zone of the Blizzard office is not at all accidental so that any geek wants to settle here
As practice has shown, it is really possible to work in this way, but not for long. In 2019, it turned out that many Blizzard employees are unhappy with their salaries, barely covering the cost of living, and the promised increase did not fix the situation: in most cases it did not even reach 10%. It is important to take into account that life in California is more expensive than in many other states, and the amount that someone from Russia may seem to be a state in practice often completely goes to household expenses. True, employees are given alternative bonuses: free playing time in Blizzard projects, virtual money in Battle.Net , Game keys and special glasses of honor that can be spent in the company's store. But what to do for those who do not play World of Warcraft? Alas, you can not count on some other compensation.
Rumors that everything was not very smooth inside the company already several years ago, they complemented the stories with dismissals. Let us recall the most massive one: in 2019, about 800 people lost their work, mainly those who were engaged in e-sports and public relations. And shortly after, Blizzard announced the set Hearthstone In exchange for licentious. The decision of the corporation was criticized on Twitter Kristina Mikkonen, a former studio employee – after a while her husband, Yannah “Savjz” Mikkonen from the Team Liquid team, said that he had not been launched for a long time for herthstone tournaments.
Hundreds of protesters gathered for a rally in front of the headquarters of Blizzard
And a little earlier, from about 2016, Blizzard began to lose key employees who, in the eyes of a significant part of the public, were the face of the company. The first high -profile event was the departure of Chris Metzen, one of the creators of Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, whose voice was said. This fact itself does not mean anything, especially since Metzen really burned out at work so much that he only recently decided to return to the creation of games – now table. And in 2018, the co -founder and president of the company Michael Morheim gave way to Jay Allen Brack; Morheim was followed by another co -founder of Blizzard, Frank Pierce. More recently, the team also left Jeff Kaplan, who actually personified Overwatch. And these are only the most loud, irreparable losses: how many professionals have gone, whose faces and names we do not know? It is clear that dismissal, transitions and opening of their own studios are quite ordinary events in the game industry. But when people who devoted a huge part of their lives from the team leave one by one, it is difficult to write off on routine.
Outside and within politics
In 2019, the surroundings of the conference center in Anaheim were covered with umbrellas, helmets, impromptu barricades and hand-written by handlers that were waving people in the costumes of May and Winnie-Pooh. Thus, players dissatisfied with the position of the company met the opening of the BlizzCon festival: they did not like how the studio reacted to the incident with NG Blitzchung Wai Chung. During the interview after the end of the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament, the Hong Kong Sportsman shouted: “Freedom of Hong Kong!", After which the stream suddenly ended, and the troubles have just begun. The player was deprived of all the prize (about three thousand dollars) and was removed from any official Hearthstone competitions for a year. And the commentators who took a scandalous interview were completely fired.
The scandal came to the peak of protest events and demonstrations for freedom of Hong Kong. After Jay Allen Brack recognized the leadership from the Convention scene and apologized for the “hasty decision”, a wave of popular discontent went to decline, but the damage was already inflicted. We analyzed in detail for what reasons Blizzard made this unfortunate decision. Now we only note that, despite the controversial actions of Vai Chung, the studio could well have been by an official warning or reprimand. Instead, going to extreme measures, the company only exposed its vulnerability. She showed the whole world that she was panicky afraid of financial losses and at the slightest threat acts reflexively, not having time to calculate the consequences. Certain parallels are visible here with what happened to Kristina Mikkonen's husband: a punishing sword fell to where he could reach, just to quickly find the guilty and demonstrate the power of the corporation.
Money-money, rubbish
In fairness, the average consumer began to ask questions about the development course of Blizzard and without any political scandals: just look at what she once earned her brilliant reputation – games. In 2013, Activision, which has been associated with Blizzard since 2008, bought the remains of the company's shares from Vivendi , As a result, the creators of Warcraft completely crossed the new roof. This moment can be considered the end of the era of single -user games, whose heritage still nourishes the projects of the studio. Since then, the main Blizzard Entertainment product has been the services-services that bring more stable profits: at that time, an advanced phenomenon that barely left the offices of marketers. The change of politics led to the abolition of the second addition to Diablo III , termination of support Starcraft 2 , destroyed all hopes for the third part, and closing the project Ares , which was called " Battlefield In the Universe Starcraft ". Even the incredibly popular Overwatch is built on the bones of the project Titan , who once promised to become a completely new IP in the portfolio of the company.
Heroes of the Storm – One of the games that was sacrificed on the way to a bright future
Yes, these cancellations themselves still do not confirm anything: according to Morheim, only half of Blizzard projects get to the release. But what we got in return? At BlizzCon 2018, the developers hinted at a sensational announcement related to Diablo – fans of the series relieved that it would be Diablo 4. Unfortunately, instead of her, Blizzard with incredible pathos announced Diablo Immortal – role -player with online elements for iOS and Android, which, in addition, was created by Chinese forces Netease. And the matter is not even as a game that did not cause complaints: just a surprise was, to put it mildly, not what fans were waiting for. In addition, there was still fresh in memory a similar situation with the "new part" Command & Conquer, which also turned out to be a mobile game.
In the same year, classics fans were pleased with the announcement Warcraft III: Reformged. The remake of one of the best games of the very good old Blizzard could restore the help of the company’s tank reputation in one fell swoop, but in reality everything turned out completely different: Reformed release was known as one of the largest failures in the industry. The original eighteen years ago almost in all respects exceeded his own updated version. The reason for the failure is called not only disgusting management, but also meager financing: Activision began to tighten the belts tightly, and a single -user strategy would probably not bring an impressive profit. So they did it rather according to the residual principle, and even then they did not finish it to the end: all promises to improve, fix, bring to mind and fix so far and remain promises. Meanwhile, the horizon is already looming Diablo II: Resurrected , The fate of which also does not inspire optimism.
The pathos announcement of the mobile game was one of the first reasons to think: but Blizzard generally understands who works for whom?
And since they talked about the failures, then how can I not remember World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor? The first addition to the famous MMO, who came out after the merger with Activision turned out to be so unfinished that they didn’t even repair it: the team just left the players for several years to understand what happened. The credit of trust was recovering with Legion release: the next addon really went out excellent, and its development did not disappoint the fans. True, later it became clear that Blizzard was clearly going to put a successful formula into circulation: two additions in a row have already been created in the image and likeness of the Legion, but even the developers were able to save money on them. Shadowlands, under the pretext of novelty, pulls out the long -forgotten names and events, and the new scenario moves raise too many questions. The death of the main boss of Battle for Azeroth and one of the main antagonists of the Warcarft universe did not have any changes in the world, or at least a decent video. And the victory over Sylvanas creates the feeling that the scriptwriters themselves were at a dead end, forgetting that they, in fact, wanted to tell her with a new story.
The history of the ancient god N’zot was built on a brick for fifteen years – and destroyed overnight
Well, of course, Overwatch 2. The sequel of the most successful Blizzard project will still not receive a clear date of the release, which in itself speaks of problems, but this is not even the case. We still have not received an answer to the main question: why does a continuation are needed, which, by all signs, is more like an addition or non-distinction of the original? It is not surprising that the community of players is increasingly perplexed whether Blizzard is generally understood, what is expected from it, and does she listen to her audience.
White Christmas
What happens to Blizzard now? Nothing good. The company again, as in the case of Hong Kong, missed the first reaction, either underestimating the current mood of the community, or hurrying to report to the investors that everything is under control. The result is predictable: it was not possible to hush up the scandal, they took up the leadership of the studio from the inside and outside. Employees write letters of protest and organize strikes with rallies: someone really wants qualitative changes in domestic politics, and someone, which is already there, hopes that the wind of change will take it to a better place. It is difficult to create a revolution and at the same time work, so the World of Warcraft team does not even try to pretend that everything is in order. It is easy to assume that about the same thing happens with other projects.
Sitting strikes have already passed on the American servers of World of Warcraft: the players who buy a subscription decided to express their discontent. Chaos is happening on the forums of the game: Laura’s experts remembered how many objects and NPCs serve as Alex Afrasiabi, and he got under the same broom with him and the unwanted Jeff Kaplan, who just once played in Everquest With the main sexual predator Blizzard. Part of the Easter Eastern Parts is already removed from the game.
Screenshots from the rally in Oribos
Players who are already not very eager to conquer the womb and Torgast, the dark lands are massively leaving. Many go to competitors: authors Final Fantasy XIV I had to limit the creation of new characters so that the servers could cope with the influx of newcomers. In particular, some time ago, Asmongold, one of the most famous World of Warcraft Streamers, moved there. Then he claimed that he simply took a break, but current events can seriously affect his further plans. Moreover, even before he left, he had a conflict with the Blizzard manager Adam Holiski, who was outraged by the criticism of the company's policy.
The cancellation flywheel is still untwisting at low speeds: Activision Blizzard has announced a gaming publication about the boycott of products The Gamer , GIK portal Cinelinx And the popular YouTube channel Gamexplain , And the famous publishing house Prima Games suspended work on the leadership of the future Games Blizzard. Following Asmongold, the Madseason and Preach Streams began their own boycott, as well as the leading taliesin & podcast Evitel. It is possible that others will join them, especially if the company's management continues to make mistakes. It is symbolic that the most “in the spirit of the times” were people who had long left Blizzard. Mike Morheim, Chris Metzen, Greg Street, Mike Kern and others did not fail to declare his indignation, disapproval and removal. It doesn’t matter that corporate culture is not developing in a couple of years, and what Blizzard is now accused of now existed in cozy offices and with them – just then this was not considered a crime.
The name of Bobby Kotik, the permanent leader of Activision, and then Activision Blizzard, has long become a household
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What will happen to Blizzard when all the guns shoot and all the prosecutors will perform? Most likely, nothing catastrophic: there are ships that are too large to sink even after a meeting with a dozen icebergs. Let the Activision Blizzard shares in the last days and fell by a good ten dollars, their rate has already begun to slowly level. Surely, very soon the administration will adjust the policy and make a repentant appeal, sprinkling with ash the hottest heads: Bobby Kotik has already assured that work on increasing inclusiveness has begun, and the activists have already replied that this was not enough. Demonstrations or lowering will take place, at the next press conference, the main roles will be assigned to new managers from vulnerable social groups, and Twitter will celebrate the next victory of justice.
But it was not for nothing that we recalled in such detail about all the losses and failures. Each of them left a snag in the soul of those who considered Blizzard not just a studio, but a friendly family of developers, loving games and people who play in them. Now the old scars are reinstered, the illusions are scattered. When Yon Hazzikostas next time shouts from the Blizzcon stage: “For the Horde! For Azerot!" – how many people will answer him?
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