A person identified as Christine is the first Blizzard Entertainment employee to publicly speak about misconduct at work and her sexual harassment experiences. For your information, Blizzard Entertainment is a video game development company in Irvine. The last name of Christine is withheld for privacy.
Christine has a 4-year-long history with Blizzard Entertainment, and she sounded emotional when addressing the issue when around the company headquarters. Describing her position as her dream job, Christine recommended big changes at the video-game development company. Christine wished to have a job at the company and do well in her career when she heard that talented people worked there. She also stated that she was thrilled to be involved in an Irvine community that showed so much concern for their workers.
In a recent press conference, she detailed her workplace experiences, which included sexual assault accusations against her Blizzard Entertainment supervisors. Describing her work environment as alcohol-infused, Christine stated that she was frequently suggested to have intercourse with her Blizzard Entertainment supervisors. She also stated that Blizzard Entertainment staff would manipulate her into thinking that their sexual comments were just jokes.
There have been rude comments on Christine’s body, sexual advances to her, and invites to do intercourse with her Blizzard supervisors. Besides, she was subjected to cube crawls and team events with alcohol. She also revealed that Blizzard Entertainment in Irvine has a form of culture that she described with the phrase ‘frat boy’ and that harms women. As she complained to her supervisors about the comments, they told her that they were merely joking and that she should overcome the situation.
She also stated that the other Blizzard Entertainment staffers told her to avoid reporting her workplace experiences to the HR department of Activision Blizzard. However, she decided to act against her abusers, which then contributed to her demotion alongside a loss of Blizzard Entertainment stock assets.
Shockingly, she stated that the other staffers not only harassed her further but also retaliated against her after her demotion. She has been a Blizzard Entertainment employee with minimal pay hikes and without company shares over the last few years. Christine stated that fighting to hold onto her employment position in the toxic work environment has severely affected her mental health.
She expects that sharing the experience will ultimately lead to a much better workplace environment at her company. She underlined the need for Blizzard Entertainment leaders to support the amazing staffers who work there and make them feel safe. It appears that she is only fighting for a safer environment for staffers to work at the Irvine company.
About accountability, Christine’s lawyer Lisa Bloom stated that despite the lawsuits against it, the company has not yet addressed the legal repercussions of letting seemingly prevalent toxicity exist in the city. For your information, Bloom stands by Christine’s tearful speech, and the Department of Fair Employment and Housing is involved in one of those lawsuits. Bloom also stated that the harassment victims are suffering even today.
According to Bloom, three or more governmental agencies have looked into the sexual harassment pattern at the company against workers such as Christine. Initially, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission litigated Activision Blizzard for this form of harassment. Then, EEOC got into an agreement with Blizzard Entertainment requiring the company to establish a fund of $18 million to compensate sexual harassment victims such as Christine. As for Bloom, the company should have had a website as well as was supposed to announce its claims administrator on or before a specific date.
Demanding further action, Bloom explained demands for Blizzard Entertainment’s parent company to address the situation for victims such as Christine to pursue compensation amounts for their deeply distressing experiences.
There are demands to Activision Blizzard to prioritize all its victims of sexual harassment that pertain to the following.
- A fair, quick and streamlined process for the victims to settle their claims with extended victim compensation funding.
- Establishing a fund of above $100 million.
- Allowing the advocates of the victims to take part in establishing the rules.
- Letting the victims present their harassment situations to claim administrators with sympathy who are known for caring about them.
Another demand concerns an apology to not just Christine but also other victims of sexual harassment at the Blizzard office. Bloom also demanded a neutral analysis of the professional career damage suffered due to the harassment situation.
As said earlier, Christine reported her workplace harassment experience to Activision Blizzard. Bloom told people not to have a bad opinion about Christine for it and praised her client for her desire to improve the company.
Blizzard Entertainment workers staged a walkout in July over sexual assault accusations. Then, they kind of demanded sexual assault-related policy changes after the other workers described Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s response to the accusations as insensitive.
In November 2021, Kotick stated that Activision Blizzard would proceed with a policy of zero-tolerance about inappropriate behavior.