This evening the latest Activision Blizzard financial call took place for the second quarter results (see slides) and although the results were better than expected, shareholders are not impressed.
The first DFEH lawsuit has spooked investors following the drop in the company’s share price over the past couple of weeks. This has now prompted a class-action lawsuit from shareholders not best pleased with what’s been happening at the company. It specifically states that Activision Blizzard had failed to disclose to investors what was happening at the company.
It also had to be noted that in investor call slides there was a slide specifically tackling the current problems at the company which stated what actions they are taking.
- We have asked Jennifer Oneal and Mike Ybarra to assume responsibility for development and operational accountability for Blizzard.
- We will continue to investigate each and every claim and complaint that we receive. When we learn of shortcomings, we will take decisive action. To strengthen our capabilities in this area we will be adding additional staff and resources.
- We will terminate any manager or leader found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences.
- We will be adding resources to ensure and enhance our consideration of diverse candidate slates for all open positions.
- We have heard the input from employee and player communities that some of our in-game content is inappropriate. We will be actively reviewing that content and removing it, as appropriate.
The whole thing is a complete mess and heads should be rolling, specifically the ones right at the top (looking at you Bobby Kotick). They should have had a finger on the pulse of what was going on lower down the chain and staff should have been protected.
Whether this will change the culture within videogame companies remains to be seen but this industry needs to get its act together. So many staff have not been treated well for years while the big profits roll in. It simply has to change and now is the time to change it with such high profile companies as UbiSoft, RIOT, and Activision being caught out.