You broke the promise, Blizzard
To the executives, management, and CEOs of Activision and Blizzard.
I have played your games and seen your games played for the longest time. From the very first time I saw a commercial for World of Warcraft featuring Aubrey Plaza, To the BlizzConline event not long ago, you were a company that I thought understood what gaming and gaming culture were all about. The games you made over the years have been nothing short of amazing: Diablo, Overwatch, CoD…The list is impressive.
But in light of recent events, you showed very clearly, that you broke the promise to the gamers and yourselves.
On your About page on your website, your promise is in several sections:
“Everything we do at Blizzard Entertainment is based on the success of the gaming experiences we provide our players. The goal of each discipline within the company — be it art, programming or customer support — is to make our games as fun as possible for as many people as we can reach.”
You knew about the harassment in your own company and did very little if not nothing about it. The point of “discipline” is that it must be in constant practice at all times. The environment you are being accused of creating and encouraging is the complete opposite of discipline and is instead more a lack thereof. It matters not what games you are making, the employees and customers deserve to be respected. You cannot receive respect if you don’t give it first.
“Blizzard polish” doesn’t just refer to our gameplay experiences, but to every aspect of our jobs. We approach each task carefully and seriously. We seek honest feedback and use it to improve the quality of our work. At the end of the day, most players won’t remember whether the game was late — only whether it was great.
Loyalty brings respect. There is nothing wrong with giving the community your best work, but it means nothing without respect for your peers. There are times when Gamers become impatient with the next game that is in progress, but that does NOT give anyone the right to disrespect, harass, insult, others. The respect of others is always at the forefront, always. Saying or suggesting that you can’t see that because you “were focused on making the next game”, is a poor excuse, and a bad take all around.
In our business first impressions are important — but lasting impressions are everything. We strive to maintain a high level of respect and integrity in all interactions with our players, colleagues, and business partners. The conduct of each Blizzard Entertainment employee, whether online or offline, can reflect on the entire company.
Respect is something that you just can’t phone in. You say how important respect is, but you must also SHOW and BELIEVE in that. These are just words at this point, to make yourself look good and noble. Actions will always speak louder than words. If you say it, you must also practice it. That is how discipline always works. You cannot shortcut that. You had people in the company that felt disrespecting their peers and keeping it secret was a good idea. It’s not. You knew of it and did nothing.
Everyone here is a geek at heart. Cutting-edge technology, comic books, science fiction, top-end video cards, action figures with the kung-fu grip…. Whatever it is they’re passionate about, it matters that each employee embraces it! Their unique enthusiasm helps to shape the fun, creative culture that is Blizzard Entertainment.
Creative culture is a beautiful thing. The concept of opening your mind and starting the journey of taking something from the imagination and giving it form in the real world, whether it’s physical and/or digital is an exciting, stressful yet wonderful thing. But harassing those who create, threatening those who want to give their fantasies form and structure, to give and share what they have made to those who take an interest, it cripples that growth. It stifles that and crushes that spark that inspires creativity.
Great ideas can come from anywhere. Blizzard Entertainment is what it is today because of the voices of our players and of each member of the company. Every employee is encouraged to speak up, listen, be respectful of other opinions, and embrace criticism as just another avenue for great ideas.
“Speak up.” — something your employees have not been able to do until now. You heard the words of their pain and suffering and understood the definitions of those words…But yet, you didn’t even try to understand the emotions behind them. You were too busy looking good. A good listener understands, respects, and connects with those speaking up. You did nothing of the sort. You missed the point entirely and tried to say it is all based on a movement that died out YEARS ago and serves no purpose today. “Every Voice Matters” — just words. Meaningless words.
The games industry is ever-changing. Technology improves, techniques change, and design philosophies become outdated. Since the founding of Blizzard Entertainment, we’ve worked to improve through experience, teaching one another and cultivating the desire to be the best at what we do. We see this as an individual responsibility as well as a company one. Employees can count on their peers, managers, and the company itself to be supportive and help them gain the knowledge and training they need.
The industry is ever-changing. Times do change, and so does the technology. But the belief in respecting others and in turn respecting yourself never changes. If all you do is ignore the wrongs, you’ll have learned nothing and thus you will not change at your core. There was a lot of wrongdoing in the company, and while others expressed it, some at great length, you ignored it in volumes. The Employees of your company counted on you to have their back, and you showed that was never the case.
Everywhere on the planet there are people who play Blizzard Entertainment games. While respecting the cultural diversity that makes people unique, we strive to grow and support our global gaming community. We also seek the most passionate, talented people in the world to enrich our company and help us forge the future vision of Blizzard Entertainment.
Having a passion for games and sharing that with others, is a great thing. But without respect for your peers and the rest of the community, the only thing you are doing is just tearing that passion apart. You can seek out the most passionate people to help in creating your games, and helping to build on that vision. But to then turn around and crush that creative spirit while claiming to support and grow the community with the passion from that spirit, is an egregious practice and in my purview, one of the highest forms of hypocrisy I’ve ever seen in my life.
Our products and practices can affect not only our employees and players — but the industry at large. As one of the world’s leading game companies, we’re committed to making ethical decisions, always keeping our players in mind, and setting a strong example of professionalism and excellence at all times.
This was the biggest of the violations to the promise you’ve made to the community, your employers, and yourselves. As one of the leading gaming companies, you are under that heavy scrutiny and responsibility to practice what you preach. But in the light of recent events, along with your response, it’s clearly obvious that it was just words with no purpose behind them. Your passion for games is strong but tainted by your lack of respect for your employees and your inability to right the wrongs in the company. You have people harassing and being disrespectful to others. You knew of the problems and chose to do say nothing about them, in public or private.
All for getting a game out to the gamers.
You cannot just “Say” you are the cornerstone of Respect, Passion, Innovation, Integrity, Communication, and Support, and be the complete opposite behind the scenes. You’ve given the gaming community a cold slap in the face. You have broken the promise to yourself, the company, and the gamers. You should be resolving these problems and being an example of what it looks like to practice what you preach.
You let us down.
