Editor’s Note: A lawsuit has been filed against Activision Blizzard by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, which alleges the company has engaged in abuse, discrimination, and retaliation against its female employees. Activision Blizzard has denied the allegations. The full details of the Activision Blizzard lawsuit (content warning: rape, suicide, abuse, harassment) are being updated as new information becomes available.
Activision Blizzard recently received some backlash for a diversity tool it shared online, and the organization has issued a subsequent statement addressing the controversy. Diversity in gaming has been a hot topic of discussion in recent years, with praise being given to games like The Last of Us Part 2 while other popular games and organizations have been subjected to criticism for not being diverse enough in their hiring and storytelling practices.
When it comes to controversial and criticized game companies in the modern age, Activision Blizzard is one that will spring to mind for many. The Call of Duty and Overwatch publisher is currently juggling multiple lawsuits related to allegations of internal sexual assault, abuse, and the propagation of a generally toxic culture where racism and sexism were allegedly allowed to run rampant. Current and former Activision Blizzard employees have reported regularly hearing racial slurs, and homophobic hiring practices have been alleged as well. In addition to various testimonies from employees, Activision Blizzard failed to comply with a California law that required the company to add another woman to its board of directors, a shortcoming that the company attributed to the nascent Microsoft purchase.
Perhaps in an effort to earn back some good will, the company shared its "Diversity Space Tool" online yesterday. The tool, which is a bizarre chart that is meant to quantify diversity by assigning points to traits like gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, almost immediately earned backlash, prompting an amendment to the Activision Blizzard blog post that downplays the tool, stating that it was designed as an optional supplement to a broader diversity initiative. These statements are echoed in a tweet from Activision Blizzard, which claims that the tool is no longer in use. The shared image of the Diversity Space Tool, which can be viewed below, has also been removed from the Activision Blizzard site.
In a more positive development, Activision Blizzard recently increased wages for QA testers, but the reception to this diversity tool has still been overwhelmingly negative. While this tool is perhaps not as harrowing as many of the allegations of disgraceful conduct, it is certainly odd, and for many will serve as the epitome of corporate posturing when it comes to diversity, as such a chart, even if it were not bizarre and uncanny, doesn't make up for the many allegations of racism, sexism, transphobia, and more.
The future of Activision Blizzard appears to be more uncertain than ever, as the company has been under a steady stream of criticism from all corners of the gaming community. New York City is currently suing Activision Blizzard for how it is handling the Microsoft purchase, which casts even more doubt on the idea of the company turning things around. If the purchase does go through, it's clear that Microsoft will have a lot of work to do to move Activision Blizzard through the mire of its recent controversies.