To say that companies in the games industry are generally pretty awful at handling reports and allegations of abuse, harassment or bigotry within their workplaces is a pretty strong candidate for understatement of the year.
Utterly botching the initial public response and having to backpedal furiously, as Activision Blizzard has done in the past few days, is the norm. The surfacing of these kinds of reports and allegations seem to drive most companies into a state of sheer wild-eyed panic that allows their initial knee-jerk reaction -- deny, deflect, distract, wave your hands wildly and hope people will look away -- to survive the strategy meetings and consultations where it ought to be knocked on the head. Activision Blizzards knee-jerk response last week was an egregious example of the genre, managing to deeply alienate a large group of their own employees as well as making themselves look astonishingly bad in public -- but the genre itself, sadly, is well-established.
Theres a risk, though, that we focus too much on how companies and executives fail in their responses to these kinds of allegations -- that the lesson the industry takes away from events like this becomes all about how to (or rather, how not to) handle the surfacing of allegations or filing of lawsuits. Its both noteworthy and troubling, for example, that Activision Blizzards EVP of Corporate Affairs, Frances Townsend, has become one of the key lightning rods for public criticism: her statement in response to the lawsuit filed by Californias Department of Fair Employment and Housing was certainly tone-deaf, ignorant and pretty flat-out awful, but its nonetheless patently ridiculous to cast Townsend -- an executive who has only been at the company since March -- as the key villain of a story about a culture of harassment and abuse that goes back decades.
This culture always arises from the same poisoned well: people approaching management of a company like a place that doesnt need boring old rules and procedures, everyones a gamer, and theyre all friends and having great times together
So while yes, its awful that Activision Blizzard has handled this situation so badly in the past week -- and by all means, write "dont try to gaslight your own goddamned staff" on your corporate whiteboard if you think itll help at some point down the line -- that shouldnt occlude the real problem here, and the real lessons the rest of the industry should be seriously taking notes about: the awfulness of the companys handling of the actual harassment, abuse and discrimination thats documented in the states lawsuit and in corroborating accounts from employees and former employees, and the ways in which it failed to address that over the course of years, if not decades.
Whats described as happening at Blizzard both in the lawsuits and in the accounts of current and former staff members that have subsequently emerged may be an especially bad example, but the pattern of behaviour described here is one that will be uncomfortably familiar to many people who have worked in or around the industry in any capacity.
Here, too, theres a temptation to focus on the wrong things, and much commentary has obsessed over the most egregious aspects -- the "Cosby Suite" and the various documented chats and messages about it; the horrible and tragic allegation about the suicide of a female employee who had been subjected to sexual harassment including the passing around of pornographic pictures of her in the workplace -- while overlooking the much more common and familiar accounts of the "frat house" environment that allowed such things to happen, and the consistent, grinding discrimination against women in terms of hiring, pay and promotion opportunities.
As awful as they are, the high-profile incidents outlined in the lawsuit and elsewhere are in some ways easier for the rest of the industry to process and condemn -- because the rest of the iceberg hulking underneath the water, the lengthy details outlined in the DFEH lawsuit outside of the couple of lurid paragraphs that have seen so much attention, is a glove that wouldnt fit too badly in plenty of other companies and workplaces.
< img src="https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/blizzard_2.jpeg?width=690&quality=70&format=jpg&auto=webp" >The Blizzard campus was the stage for staff walkouts earlier this week as employees protested against the companys response to the lawsuitThe cliqueish, fratboy behaviour, decrying requests for professionalism or basic workplace courtesy as the shrill haranguing of killjoys and bores; the "boys will be boys" treatment of sexual harassment, drunken or otherwise, dealt with informally with an "oh, well have a word" and no follow-up; the strong feeling that this was a workplace where the phrase "lighten up, cant you take a joke" might as well have been carved in stone over the entrance, and where the only real consequences -- social and career-wise -- are reserved for anyone who dares spoil the "fun" of the dominant clique. Those bells you hear ringing arent just your tinnitus acting up.
The reality is that all too often the harasser or abuser is a senior figure, and are part of a clique that appears to protect them
In every workplace thats been marred by this kind of hostile, unpleasant environment, the source is the same, because this culture always arises from the same poisoned well: people approaching the management of a company or studio with the notion that this wont be like a normal company or a normal job, that this is a place that doesnt need boring old rules and procedures because everyones on board, everyones a gamer, and theyre all friends and having great times together. Who needs a properly trained and functional HR department, running around sticking their noses into things and ruining everyones fun? Its a creative environment, you cant have it being all strict and boring; just have fun and laughs and make games; how hard can it be?
Thats the attitude comes steaming out of every pore of the stories now circulating regarding Blizzards internal conduct problems and the way its inner clique closed ranks around abusive colleagues and conspired to keep colleagues who didnt appreciate their antics out of senior roles. This isnt "something that happened back then and is being fixed", its something thats still happening right now; there are plenty of workplaces that are right now making exactly the same mistakes -- creating a hostile environment for women and minorities, tolerating sexual harassment and bullying, failing to create or follow proper HR procedures for these situations -- and for exactly the same reason -- because the founders, however exceptionally talented they may have been in some other regards, ultimately imagine themselves running a treehouse for their mates to play in, rather than a proper company where peoples careers and livelihoods are invested.
Its said over and over again when these stories break, as they do with such depressing regularity, but it bears repeating nonetheless -- ultimately for this industry or any industry to actually fix these problems will take more than people being horrified when the stories appear years later, and more than people simply to listening to and believing victims, as important as that is. Its vital that people find the guts to stand up to abusers, even when theyre friends -- especially when theyre friends -- but that too isnt enough.
The reality is that all too often the harasser or abuser is a senior figure, and are part of a clique that appears to protect them; which means that the best intentions in the world wont mean a damn thing unless the company itself is properly structured -- and has a properly trained, empowered and motivated HR department thats actually competent to deal with this kind of situation, and not just in the business of sticking fig leaves over the senior staffs bad behaviour.
The takeaway cant just be about Activision Blizzards failings -- it has to be about the changes that need to be made across the industry to put an end to this kind of culture for good
Even as one of the industrys most respected stalwarts sees its name and reputation dragged through the kind of mud that will stick to it for years -- wrecking its once-golden image with many consumers and making it even more difficult than usual to attract talented staff -- it remains the case that the merit of establishing a good HR department is a hard sell to company founders in this kind of creative industry.
To a founder, putting in place a really independent and well-run HR function in your company is effectively putting a set of shackles on yourself, imposing restrictions in regards to some things about how you deal with your staff. It doesnt help that for a founder from a creative or tech background, it can seem like a pretty wishy-washy soft-skill sort of division at best, and a buzz-kill at worst; cool treehouses and fun parties dont have HR divisions, after all.
But thats the structural change thats going to be needed -- proper HR, proper procedures, proper training and all the rest of it -- if companies want to avoid the alternative, which is exactly the situation the world is recoiling from this week; the clique, the closed ranks, the boys-will-be-boys harassment, the workplace made hostile and untenable by people determined to have their fun and laughs without having the basic human empathy or regard for their co-workers required to understand that their fun can be someone elses misery, their laughs are all too often at someone elses expense -- and that the environment theyre creating is one in which actual predators can thrive and feel protected.
That, ultimately, has a knock-on effect on a companys ability to function effectively and creatively -- and on a personal level, all the "how could I have known what was happening in front of my eyes" hand-wringing statements in the world wont erase the reputational stain on founders and senior staff who enabled and encouraged these environments.
HR offices and training and procedures and the enforcement of standards of workplace professionalism are boring. Nobody got into the games industry with dreams of spending their days drawing up codes of conduct for the workplace, I know. But the absence of those things -- the insistence that games companies can eschew basic workplace standards and just be a fun treehouse forever -- has left a portion of the people who work in this industry alienated, excluded, discriminated against, harassed, and downright unsafe, in favour of enabling and protecting predators and encouraging the fratboy antics of the cliquey few.
This week its Activision Blizzard in the spotlight, but the takeaway cant just be about their specific failings -- it has to be about the changes that need to be made across the industry to put an end to this kind of culture for good.