This is GROTESQUE. A walkout for a day isn’t going to do anything. Players saying to just not play any Blizzard (or Activision) game for a day isn’t going to do anything. Metrics don’t work that way; the company needs to see a huge bottoming out in monthly numbers to even begin making a dent into actual change. The combined company needs to take a huge hit on revenues (remember, Blizzard has been the under performer due to their cadence and the amount of wasted hours and resources spent on cancelled projects, so they would need to take an even bigger dump). And that change has to start from the top (Kotick is the worst person to be even trying to lead the combined companies out of this mess and Brack is the worst person to be dealing with this at Blizzard Entertainment).
Kotick’s own late (by a week) response is meaningless (the guy is driven mainly by money). And Blizzard Entertainment’s issues are its own doing since it preceded the Activision merger; a lot of this culture stemmed from the very people who were long associated with the company including at least 2 of the co-founders. Externally, the company got away with having this incredible brand loyalty as well as family-friendly facade, while the company also leveraged its then pristine reputation, to draw a healthy pool of recruits who took whatever jobs they could to get their foot in the door (gaming industry and especially Blizzard). And many unfortunately put up with this toxic internal culture with hopes of moving up the chain (many more subjected to the allegations in this lawsuit, ran into dead ends dealing with it because it fell on deaf ears).
There is going to be an attempt by many former known Blizzard execs and designers to launder their reputation BUT the damage is done. Many of them were part of the problem and were just so far up the chain and protected/sheltered behind what was once a wall of invulnerability (during that time when from the public facing perception, Blizzard could do no wrong). That illusion is being shattered every few days as more people are now feeling empowered to speak out (and pointing out the hypocrisy of many of those former execs and designers).
Again, this is not just an Activision Blizzard problem. It’s the gaming industry in general that needs to clean up its act.
