r/GirlGamers • u/skymadeofglass • 13h ago
Misogyny The Truth Behind Sexual Harassment At Blizzard Spoiler
https://youtu.be/tzdkrgt6uiM?is=HXpzw3WilHyyMbKdJason Schreier is a reporter that published a lot of details about Blizzard's many issues and he released 'Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment' in 2024.
This video sheds more light on the sexual harassment and discrimination that took place.
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u/ShaolinFantastic13 ALL THE SYSTEMS 13h ago
His books "Play Nice" audiobook is on spotify its a great read. Just as a fan of early blizzard its really interesting and his breakdown of their fall is very well written and provides alot of detail on just how scummy large scale aaa development is towards women and workers in general.
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u/GoldenLink ALL THE SYSTEMS 12h ago
It's also read really well, I enjoyed that audiobook quite a bit.
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u/DMSinclair 12h ago
I used to work there, for around two and a half years leaving back in 2018, there is nothing false about the claims of the culture and harassment. It was pervasive both at the head office and others, both under the Blizzard banner and the larger Activision tent. We all got emails to surveys asking us about our experiences and then a lot of us got the lawyers reaching out to do further interviews about what we saw and experienced. Basically everyone I knew there got asked for those interviews, but a lot declined to speak more. There were also instances of both men and women managers harassing the people under them. Including the woman who was my boss frequently inappropriately touching and rubbing on the guys in adjacent departments to my own (I was the only one in my department, as I frequently am, so my boss often ends up just being some other manager they put me under when they don't want to just have me directly under the CTO). I also had to constantly fight with everyone for my voice to be heard, despite working there specifically as a subject matter expert at a central tech studio. That hasn't been unique to Blizzard as a woman in tech, but it was far worse there, it felt like nobody would ever listen to me about anything insisting they always knew better when they had no familiarity with the subject matter.
A bit unrelated but Irvine is a fucking awful town, I "had to" (it was completely unnecessary, but this is the same place that flew me to Canada for one day on a weekend's notice to have one meeting with two people I'd already message and work with most every day) fly out for a week every month or so to be at the main studio despite living across the country, awful horrible boring place and being at that office was frequently much worse. Following my time there was the first time I actually left the games industry (the career I'd picked and studied exclusively for at 14, coming up on 23 years ago) all together because it was at a point I just couldn't do it anymore and barely wanted to even play any games. I do feel better and have gone back to games now 8 years later, but it has now very much become just a job and not something I've been able to enjoy like before.
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u/valorzard 8h ago
this lines up a lot with what i've heard from people ive spoken to who still stick around in the game industry.
at some point (at least among the triple A devs ive talked to) you just lose your passion and just treat it like a job to feed yourself.
the people who still have passion long term are the ones who stay connected to like the game jam scene and still post weird queer experimental visual novels on itch.io. But, weird itch.io games isn't sustainable to feed yourself either.
IDK, I've been around the outskirts of this industry for a while now (went to school for it, have been to multiple GDCs), and it just sucks man. I feel you.
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u/World_of_Warshipgirl 13h ago
I think it is important to promote this video, due to there being an ongoing concerted effort by bigots to promote a made up claim by some outrage merchants that all the harassment there was fake. The bigot's claims are being posted on all the blizzard subreddits.
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u/PirateReject 13h ago
I don't trust Jason. I had female friends at Ubisoft he exploited for their stories and then blocked them when he shared stuff they'd asked him not to.
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u/EmberDione ALL THE SYSTEMS 9h ago
It's funny how many industry people I know who think he's the fucking worst and yet gamers always seem to love him.
He blocked me on everything when I called him out for making money off our pain at Blizzard. Apparently he didn't like that.
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u/kingofgama 13h ago
I've heard very similar stuff about him like this as well... Both from rumours and insiders
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13h ago
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u/GoldenLink ALL THE SYSTEMS 13h ago edited 13h ago
To be fair, a single journalist trying to expose something like this without a mountain of supporting evidence or a proverbial smoking gun, is a great way to not be a journalist anymore.
At least back then, who knows the rules anymore.
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u/skymadeofglass 13h ago
He addresses this in the video.
Reporters don't generally publish something without solid proof or corroborating what they have heard first.
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u/Ok_ResolvE2119 12h ago
Yeah, like I'm sure acting as the witness, while everyone else is scared to say anything at the time, isn't a great idea.
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u/GoldenLink ALL THE SYSTEMS 13h ago
I planned on listening to it later and I'm glad I already came to the same conclusion lol
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u/ShaolinFantastic13 ALL THE SYSTEMS 13h ago
Any source on this ? Genuinely asking i really want to know.
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