With the problems that have been released about the environmental conditions within the company Activision, it is no wonder why they have not fixed their most popular game, Call of Duty Warzone.
Activision was founded in October 1979 by Atari game developers. However, due to the way atari treated the former developers, they subsequently branched off on their own, becoming the first independent third-party console video game developer. Nowadays, they are most known for their video game franchise, “Call Of Duty.”
Earlier this year, Activision was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing for claims that the company has a workplace environment from hell. Regulators told Slate said a two-year investigation into the company revealed an alcohol-drenched “frat boy” culture that included inappropriate conduct by executives, men openly joking about rape and a general “breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women.”
The company needs to improve the equality in pay and reorganize their staff, which means removing staff that involves themselves with this “frat boy” culture. The so-called “frat boy” culture consists of sexual harassment and discrimination.
Current and former Blizzard employees then took to social media to share their own experiences.
In early August, employees shared their salaries to pressure Activision into confronting pay inequities. These current and former employees have also signed a petition slamming what they see as the video game company’s “abhorrent and insulting” response to a California lawsuit.
The petition was made in hopes to do something about the chaos happening within Activision. They sought to criticize the company’s statements following the lawsuit that was filed on Jul. 20 by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which alleged that multiple female employees were subjected to gender discrimination, sexual harassment and unequal pay.
Activision felt a third source of pressure when The Strategic Organizing Center Investment Group (SOC), a shareholder of Activision, called for a change in the company. The SOC is an umbrella organization that represents 3 million shares in Activision. Although this is only 0.4 percent of the company’s total shares, it was big enough to make noise.
The shareholder group has laid out a letter proposing that Activision’s so-called “cure” for the pervasive allegations of sexual assault and discrimination “do not go nearly far enough.” The SOC recommended a list of changes for Activision to undergo, including increasing board diversity, participating in an equity review and recouping bonus money from executives found to have engaged in or enabled harassment.
The letter that the SOC released has also proposed additional changes to the executive bonus structure, which implies that Activision to not award bonuses in 2021 and to make future bonuses contingent on the company meeting specific diversity and inclusion goals.
With the amount of scrutiny Activision is under, it looks like the Call of Duty community will never be able to enjoy Call of Duty WarZone, because seemingly they will be having a lot of stuff to fix not only in their games but also behind the scenes.
