Diablo 4game director Luis Barriga, lead designer Jesse McCree, and World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft were let go from Blizzard on Wednesday,two sources with knowledge of the move told Kotaku.
The news was delivered to development teams today but has not yet been officially announced. A source confirmed to Kotaku that the three developers’ names are no longer visible in Blizzard’s internal directory or Slack. Activision Blizzard did not immediately return a request for comment.
One source who learned of the news said Activision Blizzard did not give a reason for the departures, but they come as the company reckons with a California lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination at the Overwatch and Call of Duty publisher.
Jesse McCree, the namesake for Overwatch’s beloved cowboy fighter and most recently a designer on Diablo 4, was one of several current and former Blizzard developers who appeared in an image of a BlizzCon 2013 “Cosby Suite” obtained by Kotaku. The suite contained booze and a giant portrait of Bill Cosby and reportedly belonged to World of Warcraft developer Alex Afrasiabi.
Afrasiabi is one of the few people called out by name in California’s lawsuit, which accuses him of sexually harassing and groping female coworkers. Bloomberg reported that the nickname for the suite began as a joke about ugly carpeting and predated the sexual assault allegations about Bill Cosby becoming widely publicized, though some Blizzard sources have disputed that origin story. Two former Blizzard employees told Kotaku that the suite’s reputation had always been menacing because of Afrasiabi’s behavior. Afrasiabi-related references have since been removed from World of Warcraft, though there’s no word yet on whether or not Overwatch and its gunslinger will see any changes in light of the latest news.
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Jonathan LeCraft and Cory Stockton, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, were also pictured in the suite. Two sources confirmed to Kotaku that Stockton was put on leave last week but appears to remain with the company.
Luis Barriga has been at Blizzard since 2006, and as game director has been one of the faces of Diablo 4 since it was initially revealed. The game is still deep in development and doesn’t yet have a release date. Last year, veteran game developer Rod Fergusson announced he was leaving Microsoft and Gears 5 studio The Coalition to join Blizzard and oversee the entire Diablo franchise.
World of Warcrafthas been bleeding players since the start of the year. Add to that the drama swirling around a big-time streamer and the general toxicity that festers in just about every online gaming community and you have a recipe for bad stuff to happen. Simply put: It’s tough to look at certain corners of WoW and not feel like Community’s Donald Glover carrying pizzas into a room that’s on fire.
Even before Activision Blizzard became the center of a California lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination, the active player population of Blizzard’s flagship MMO had been falling year after year. A lot of players have been unhappy with recent expansions, and some have even tried to piggyback general complaints about the state of the game onto larger discussion of what’s wrong with Blizzard’s work culture.
The exodus appeared to fly into overdrive in early July, however, when the massively popular WoW streamer Asmongold decided to start streaming Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn instead. If community frustration over a lackluster Chains of Domination update and generous free trials for the competing MMO supplied the tinder, Asmongold was the match, and recently he and his fans have been taking direct aim at WoW’s developers.
It began when someone on the Asmongold subreddit posted an image of a WoW developer liking a tweet that suggested Asmongold himself was in part responsible for making the WoW community so “trash.” While some content creators foster a collaborative relationship with the developers who make the game they cover, Asmongold has a reputation for being combative and hyperbolic in his criticism of WoW. The streamer, who regularly tours the r/Asmongold subreddit in his streams, went on to lambast the lone WoW developer for insinuating he was a symbol of what was wrong with the community.
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“I have to read this bullshit, right, I have to read this bullshit that gets the seal of approval from the people that work at the game, who make the game this way,” he said. “Before you call me toxic, deal with your own fucking game.”
Events only escalated from there. A bunch of other posts targeting the specific WoW developer started appearing on the subreddit, many of which have now been deleted by the moderators because of failing to remain civil or encouraging harassment. One person even sent the developer a message over LinkedIn telling him to “get fucked.” The developer screenshotted this, including his harasser’s LinkedIn name, job role, and city, and shared it on Twitter. Asmongold’s fans then accused the developer of doxxing, despite the fact that no private info had been released.
“The moderation team of /r/Asmongold is made up of volunteers that act independently and our actions and comments do not necessarily reflect those of Asmongold himself,” a Asmongold subreddit moderator told Kotaku in an email. “We do not condone any sort of harassment or brigading, no matter who it’s targeted towards.”
Today, Asmongold followed up on the controversy, writing on Twitter, “Recently more than ever I’ve been accused of harassment when I’ve had the audacity to defend myself and my community. The idea that I should allow myself to be attacked is driven by narcissism and entitlement. I don’t punch down, I don’t punch up, I punch back.”
You could try to disentangle potential legitimate grievances from the shitty mob dynamics. Asmongold infamously encouraged players to spit on those in-game who spent money on fancy mounts as an act of protest against WoW’s current updates and monetization model. Blizzard then removed the spitting emote from the game. At the same time, there’s clearly plenty of ambiently toxic behavior in the game that has nothing to do with Asmongold. Blizzard has historically been criticized for failing to aggressively moderate hateful speech in WoWand other games. It only began finally blocking some racial slurs altogether earlier this year.
But beyond the competing counter-claims of who’s more responsible for WoW’s toxicity problem, the fact that some players have taken to doubling down on harassing developers over the latest flashpoints is just further evidence of what a bad spot the game’s in at the moment. Blizzard recently set about purging in-game references to a past developer accused of sexual harassment as part of an ongoing effort to “re-build trust” in the wake of the California lawsuit. Even so, some fans and content creators are still debating boycotting the game and other Activision Blizzard products until the company agrees to employee demands for more equal and inclusive working conditions.
There’s clearly a lot of soul-searching going on in the larger WoW community, and this latest shitstorm will likely only add to it.
The ongoing lawsuit against Activision Blizzard has made public some truly terrible and horrendous behavior that occurred across multiple studios and offices. Many women were allegedly sexually harassed, assaulted, and psychologically traumatized while the folks in power at the companies involved seemingly did little to stop or limit this behavior.
The lawsuit was filed on July 20 by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing after a years-long investigation turned up stories of multiple women suffering daily harassment and abuse while working at Activision Blizzard.
Since it was filed the fallout has been widespread, with former and current employees stepping forward to share more stories of abuse, offer apologies to those who were hurt, or attempt to distance themselves from the whole thing. Devs and workers at other studios have also begun to speak up and share their thoughts and pain too. It’s been an awful, disturbing, and eye-opening past few weeks and to help you get caught up with what has happened since the lawsuit we’ve rounded up all our coverage in one place.
As this is an ongoing situation, we expect more stories about this lawsuit and its fallout will come in the near future so we plan on updating this post with new stories as we move forward.
Screenshot: Blizzard / Kotaku
Afrasiabi worked for Blizzard as recently as June 2020, when he apparently left the company with seemingly minimal mention, to the confusion of the few fans who noticed his departure. And though Afrasiabi is gone, his presence still lingers in World of Warcraft. Kotaku was able to confirm the existence of at least two NPCs that continue to bear his name, in addition to a number of items that directly reference him.
Image: Bungie
The studio behind Halo and now Destiny issued a statement on Twitter yesterday, addressing the allegations of widespread sexual harrasssment and discrimination alleged in a new lawsuit brought by California regulators against Activision Blizzard. “We have a responsibility to acknowledge, reflect, and do what we can to push back on a persistent culture of harassment, abuse, and inequality that exists in our industry,” the company wrote.
Image: Blizzard
The case against Activision Blizzard is proving what many women already knew—misogyny in the industry doesn’t come down to just a few bad apples at a few companies. It’s deeply ingrained in the culture at the heart of how the games business has operated for decades.
Screenshot: Blizzard
The head of Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind Overwatch and World of Warcraft, sent an email to staff last night calling the recent allegations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimation “extremely troubling” and promised to meet with them to answer questions and discuss “how we can move forward.”
Screenshot: Blizzard
Some of the most popular World of Warcraft streamers explained how disappointed and sad they were to hear the news. Top WoW Twitch streamer Asmongold, in a public statement shared on Twitter, said he was “hurt” by the news as a longtime fan of the publisher.
Image: Blizzard / Activision / Kotaku
Social media accounts related to Activision Blizzard and its various properties have stopped posting following California’s lawsuit against the major video game conglomerate going public.
Photo: Mark Davis (Getty Images)
Blizzard co-founder and longtime boss Mike Morhaime took to Twitter just after midnight Friday to comment on the widespread allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the game company he led for so long. “To the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you,” he wrote. “I hear you, I believe you, and I am so sorry to have let you down.”
Photo: Activision Blizzard
“We failed, and I’m sorry,” he begins. “To all of you at Blizzard – those of you I know and those of you whom I’ve never met – I offer you my very deepest apologies for the part I played in a culture that fostered harassment, inequality, and indifference.”
Screenshot: Blizzard
Following troubling allegations regarding the work environments at Ubisoft and Activision Blizzard, several gaming outlets have opted to halt coverage of any games released by the mega-publishers.
Image: Blizzard
On July 23, former World of Warcraft lead designer Greg Street—who was at the original panel— responded to the controversy. In it, he tries to explain what happened while also admitting he made a mistake in a long series of tweets that eventually led to an apology. Street left Blizzard in 2013 and joined Riot Games the following year.
Photo: Rich Polk (Getty Images)
Hundreds of current and former employees from across Activision Blizzard have signed a letter to the company’s management calling its response to a recent lawsuit alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination at some of its offices “abhorrent and insulting.”
Reports included unwanted shoulder rubs, being propositioned for sex, sexual harassment within their first day, and even a “game” around the office where men would try to grope one another’s genitals. These allegations haven’t been as widely reported as the litany of testimonials from harassed women, but they also point to how systemic the issues were at the company.
Image: Activision Blizzard
The announcement of the walkout is accompanied by a statement of intent letter addressed to Activision Blizzard management. The letter states that employees believe their values are not being reflected by management and issues a series of demands meant to improve working conditions for those subjected to harassment and discrimination. These demands include an end to mandatory arbitration, which forces complaining employees into extra-legal mediation rather than public court cases, revised recruiting, hiring, and promotion policies, pay rate transparency, and the hiring of a third-party organization to review the company’s reporting policy, HR department, and executive staff.
Image: Blizzard
Blizzard has promised to remove content “not appropriate for” World of Warcraft, likely in response to in-game references to creative director Alex Afrasiabi. This announcement comes after a short period of silence following the publication of a California state lawsuit against the company, which alleges Activision Blizzard fostered a pervasive environment of harassment against its female employees.
Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)
“I want to recognize and thank all those who have come forward in the past and in recent days. I so appreciate your courage. Every voice matters – and we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future.
Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf.”
Screenshot: Kotaku
The “Cosby Suite” was more than just a nickname or a joke. Based on images and comments Afrasiabi posted on his Facebook supplied to Kotaku by a former developer at Blizzard, it was reportedly a booze-filled meeting place where many, including Afrasiabi, would pose with an actual portrait of Bill Cosby while smiling. It was also a hot spot for informal networking at BlizzCon, three sources told Kotaku, where people looking to make inroads at the company would go to meet and hang out with some of its top designers.
Image: Blizzard
While not everyone can attend the Activision Blizzard Walkout for Equality, there are other ways to show support for the employees of the company as they demand improved working conditions for women and other marginalized groups in the wake of their employer’s inadequate response to California’s sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit.
Photo: Eric Thomas (Getty Images)
A new open letter signed by almost 500 current and former Ubisoft employees announces their solidarity with the workers at Activision Blizzard, demands movement from their own leadership, and calls for systemic change across the entire video game industry, Axios reports.
Screenshot: Blizzard
When Activision Blizzard, a company currently under fire for its discriminatory practices and rampant sexual harassment issues, hires WilmerHale, a law firm with a reputation for union-busting, heads turn and brows furrow.
Screenshot: Blizzard
A cybersecurity company whose security researcher had once been harassed by Blizzard employees at a hacking conference charged the game developer a 50 percent “misogyny tax” when it sought a quote for security services, according to a new report from Waypoint.
A cybersecurity company whose security researcher had once been harassed by Blizzard employees at a hacking conference charged the game developer a 50 percent “misogyny tax” when it sought a quote for security services, according to a new report from Waypoint.
The researcher, Emily Mitchell, told Waypoint that she approached the Blizzard booth during the annual Black Hat USA cybersecurity conference in 2015 to see if the major video game company had any open positions. Her shirt, which referenced a security process known as “penetration testing,” prompted two unnamed Blizzard employees to ask her questions laced with misogyny and sexual double entendre.
“One of them asked me when was the last time I was personally penetrated, if I liked being penetrated, and how often I got penetrated,” Mitchell said. “I was furious and felt humiliated, so I took the free swag and left.”
Two years later, Blizzard approached cybersecurity firm Sagitta HPC (now known as Terahash) to request a quote on one of Sagitta HPC’s password-cracking boxes. Mitchell, who was Sagitta HPC’s chief operating officer at the time, saw Blizzard’s request and immediately remembered what occured at Black Hat USA 2015. After learning of the incident from Mitchell, Sagitta HPC founder and chief executive officer Jeremi M. Gosney responded to Blizzard’s inquiry with a lengthy message decrying her treatment at the hands of Blizzard’s employees.
“[R]ather than dismiss you and tell you that we will not do business with you, we’d like to give Blizzard the opportunity to redeem themselves,” Gosney wrote. (He eventually shared the email on Twitter with Blizzard’s name redacted.) “We are committed to combating inequality, and I am calling on Blizzard to do the same. As you may or may not know, today is International Women’s Day. And in honor of this day, we are attaching a few conditions if Blizzard wishes to do business with us.”
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These conditions included a 50 percent “misogyny tax” on any business Sagitta HPC did with Blizzard (to be used as a donation to threedifferentorganizations devoted to support girls and women in the tech industry), Blizzard becoming a Gold-level sponsor of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, and a formal letter of apology from Blizzard executives to Mitchell in which they’d further dedicate themselves to supporting equality for women and sexual harassment training.
The list of sponsors from that year’s the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference indicates that while Blizzard itself didn’t support the event, parent company Activision came in as a Silver-level corporate partner. Kotaku contacted Gosney for more information on the events surrounding his email to Blizzard, but didn’t hear back before publication.
“[Blizzard] made it clear that they were not interested in agreeing to any of our terms, just a lot of empty promises that they were taking the report ‘seriously,’ that it would be investigated internally, and assured me that they do conduct sexual harassment training,” Mitchell told Waypoint. “Ultimately it felt like they were more interested in gauging their own legal exposure and placating me.”
In 2017, the organizers of Black Hat USA, the Las Vegas hacking conference at which Mitchell was originally accosted, promised her that they would not allow Blizzard back as a sponsor for future events. As far as Kotaku can tell from historical information, neither Blizzard nor Activision have had a presence at the cybersecurity event since the year Blizzard staff harassed Mitchell.
Read More: Inside Blizzard Developers’ Infamous Bill “Cosby Suite”
Activision Blizzard is already in the gaming community’s crosshairs since last week’s bombshell revelation that the state of California is suing the company for a workplace culture that fostered years of abuse, harassment, and violence against female employees. The lawsuit specifically mentions the actions of former World of Warcraft creative director Alex Afrasiabi, references to whom Blizzard plans to remove from the MMO, and events that took place in Afrasiabi’s hotel room at BlizzCon 2013, known colloquially among a group of male employees as the “Cosby Suite.”
In the wake of this publicity, Waypoint also learned of a 2018 incident in which an Activision IT worker set up a camera in one of the Eden Prairie, Minnesota campus’ unisex bathrooms and recorded employees using the toilet. That worker, Tony Ray Nixon, was fired by Activision and ultimately pled guilty to an “Interference with Privacy” charge.
“Once this incident was reported to us, the Company began an investigation, promptly removed all unauthorized cameras, and notified the authorities,” Activision Blizzard told Waypoint. “The authorities conducted a thorough investigation, with the full cooperation of the Company. As soon as the authorities and Company identified the perpetrator, he was terminated for his abhorrent conduct. The Company provided crisis counselors to employees, onsite and virtually, and increased security.”
A large group of Activision Blizzard employees participated in an organized walkout earlier this week in protest of the company’s history of inaction in the face of intolerable harassment against women and minorities. The group’s demands included an end to forced arbitration for Activision Blizzard staff and a more diverse, worker-oriented approach to interviewing, recruiting, and hiring processes within the massive corporation.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick eventually addressed these concerns, calling earlier responses to the incidents in question “tone deaf,” but failing to impress the employees already planning the day-long work stoppage. The company has also hired a law firm known for previous union-busting efforts to help investigate the damning allegations, which doesn’t inspire much confidence in Activision Blizzard’s good intentions.
“This is the beginning of an enduring movement in favor of better labor conditions for all employees, especially women, in particular women of color and transgender women, nonbinary people, and other marginalized groups,” the employee coalition wrote in a follow-up statement. “We expect a prompt response and a commitment to action from leadership on the points enumerated above, and look forward to maintaining a constructive dialogue on how to build a better Activision Blizzard for all employees.”
Blizzard co-founder and longtime boss Mike Morhaime took to Twitter just after midnight Friday to comment on the widespread allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at the game company he led for so long. “To the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you,” he wrote. “I hear you, I believe you, and I am so sorry to have let you down.”
Morhaime helped found the World of Warcraft and Diablo developer right out of college in 1991. Since then, it’s gone on to become one of the most prominent studios in the world, producing hits in every genre like StarCraft, Hearthstone, and Overwatch. For much of that history, Morhaime was its leader, and his departure in 2018 to go on and form the new game company called Dreamhaven was widely regarded as a major blow to Blizzard’s longstanding legacy.
But according to a complaint filed in California court earlier this week by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing following a two-year investigation, a “frat boy” workplace culture was rife at the company during Morhaime’s time as CEO there.
Here is Morhaime’s statement in full:
I have read the full complaint against Activision Blizzard and many of the other stories. It is all very disturbing and difficult to read. I am ashamed. It feels like everything I thought I stood for has been washed away. What’s worse but even more important, real people have been harmed, and some women had terrible experiences.
I was at Blizzard for 28 years. During that time, I tried very hard to create an environment that was safe and welcoming for people of all genders and backgrounds. I knew that it was not perfect, but clearly we were far from that goal. The fact that so many women were mistreated and were not supported means we let them down. In addition, we did not succeed in making it feel safe for people to tell their truth. It is no consolation that other companies have faced similar challenges. I wanted us to be different, better.
Harassment and discrimination exist. They are prevalent in our industry. It is the responsibility of leadership to keep all employees feeling safe, supported, and treated equitably, regardless of gender and background. It is the responsibility of leadership to stamp out toxicity and harassment in any form, across all levels of the company. To the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you.
I realize that these are just words, but I wanted to acknowledge the women who had awful experiences. I hear you, I believe you, and I am so sorry to have let you down. I want to hear your stories, if you are willing to share them. As a leader in our industry, I can and will use my influence to help drive positive change and to combat misogyny, discrimination, and harassment wherever I can. I believe we can do better, and I believe the gaming industry can be a place where women and minorities are welcomed, included, supported, recognized, rewarded, and ultimately unimpeded from the opportunity to make the types of contributions that all of us join this industry to make. I want the mark I leave on this industry to be something that we can all be proud of.
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Since news of the allegations broke on July 21, former Blizzard developers have been speaking out on social media about the harassment and abuse they experienced or witnessed. Current developers have been distancing themselves from the company’s public and internal statements and calling on it to make changes.
Activision Blizzard’s response so far has been to challenge the accuracy of the accusations by implying that they only reflect things from the past. “The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past,” a spokesperson for the company told Kotaku. “The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today.”
Activision Blizzard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack sent an email to staff earlier this week calling the allegations “extremely troubling.” In this message, he failed to mention that he was personally named in the suit as someone who failed to stop another developer from serially sexually harassing female coworkers. That developer, Alex Afrasiabi, contributed World of Warcraft as recently as 2020, and many NPCs and items in the game still reference him. A video recording of both Brack and Afrasiabi making sexist and condescending remarks about a female fan’s question at a 2010 BlizzCon panel has also been making the rounds online, following a seemingly industry-wide reevaluation of Blizzard’s history.
Call of Duty maker Activision acquired Blizzard in 2008, and following the merger formed a new parent company called Activision Blizzard. While both subsidiaries have largely functioned separately, Activision’s role in Blizzard’s day-to-day business reportedly grew following Morhaime’s departure in 2018.
Last year, Blizzard released a remaster of WarCraft 3 called WarCraft 3: Reforged that was so unpopular the company almost immediately started offering refunds for it. According to a recentreport by Bloomberg, increased financial pressure from Activision is partly responsible for recent uncharacteristic flops like this. Some of the new changes have reportedly included meetings suddenly being attended by finance people who wouldn’t normally been there prior to the company’s cultural shift. Several longtime Blizzard developers, including former Overwatch director Jeff Kaplan, have begun exiting the company in recent years.
Dreamhaven, Morhaime’s latest venture, has a mission statement begins by stating wants to highlight a wider variety of voices and “provide a safe space where developers, creators, and players can connect in meaningful ways.”
Yesterday, Blizzard released a collection of the studio’s classic games. But the studio also gave a warning to those looking to stream one of the games, Rock n’ Roll Racing on Twitch: Turn off the music. All of it.
Announced and released yesterday, the Blizzard Arcade Collection contains three classic games: The Lost Vikings, Rock n’ Roll Racing, and Blackthorne. If you plan on streaming this collection, be careful when playing Rock n’ Roll Racing as the music contained in this arcade racer isn’t cleared for streaming. As spotted by PCGamesN, this PSA came via a tweet from Adam Fletcher, a community development lead at Blizzard. “If you choose to stream, please do so with the music turned off,” warned Fletcher.
The new version of the game included in the Blizzard Arcade Collection contains not just the midi classic rock covers found in the original release, but newly added full versions of these same songs. This is a cool bonus, but it also means this game contains a bunch of licensed music that might get you a DMCA strike on Twitch.
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However, it’s not just the new complete versions of the songs that you need to avoid while on Twitch. Fletcher also added that, for now, the old school midi track covers could also get you in trouble too. Considering one of the best parts of Rock n’ Roll Racing is the classic rock soundtrack, this isn’t a great solution.
Back in November, with little warning, Twitch began purging clips and streams from the site that contained any licensed music or sound effects. The situation hasn’t improved much since then.
In fact, during last night’s BlizzCon opening ceremony a pre-recorded performance of Metallica had its music removed and replaced with generic audio by Twitch. This is a good system we have. Everything is working perfectly…