Activision Blizzard's crisis of systemic abuse finally delivers its first high-profile resignation

Like many, I've been watching the unfolding story of Activision Blizzard's crisis of failed leadership and resulting employee abuse with horrified fascination. From:

• the moment that the details of the court papers were reported out, complete with butt plug business trips and at least one employee harassed to the point of suicide; 
• through the abhorrent, insulting initial responses to the lawsuit from ATVI's leaders, who mostly seemed to think they could bluff their way out of this one; 
• to the apparent reasonableness of Bobby Kotick's official response to the whole mess, which initially tried to at least strike the right tone, although it later turned out to be the announcement that he'd hired union-busting law firm WilmerHale to staunch the bleeding of ATVI's legal liability, and didn't appear to be much concerned with actually improving the situation for employees at all;

ATVI's flailing responses have demonstrated, as clearly as anything could, that the leadership of that company see employees as interchangeable and essentially disposable and easily replaced, and care only for limiting their own costs. That shouldn't have been a surprise; the aforementioned Bobby Kotick just finished pocketing $155 million USD in bonuses following a year in which he also laid off nearly a thousand employees, not because ATVI didn't need people doing those jobs, but rather because they wanted cheaper people doing those jobs.

I've avoided commenting on the situation though, simply because I didn't feel like I really had much to add to the conversation. What does one say? Yes, the details are horrifying. They are also not surprising; women in the video game industry have been complaining about these same problems for a long time now; only specific details were missing, details which we now have. 

It seems to me that ATVI is a fish that's been rotting from the head down for a long time now. The fact that so many more lurid, damning details are still coming out, now that the press has actually started digging, would seem to indicate that there's basically no end of this insanity. Seriously, guys, a Cosby Suite? One company demanded a Misogyny Tax before doing business with you, and told you why, and had you barred from Black Hat, and you still didn't see any reason to actually take a real look at yourselves until now?

And the failures of leadership just keep coming! Fran Townsend, now billed as "Activision Blizzard's Torture Apologist Executive," has responded to Bobby Kotick's promise that leadership were listening to employees by blocking those same employees on Twitter. Not a good look.

And so, with all of this swirling, and with ATVI's share price dropping by 12% and counting in less than a month, the next thing that I expected to see was for rats to start fleeing this obviously sinking ship. It's too late for them to avoid having the stench of this follow them to other gigs; even people like Mike Morhaime and Chris Metzen, who'd left ATVI before the scandal broke, have seen their legacy indelibly tarnished by the failures of their own leadership here; after all, most of the behaviour described in those court filings happened while they were in charge. 

But still, I was waiting for someone with a greater sense of shame than Fran, or maybe just less intestinal fortitude, to decide that it was time to "spend more time with family," or to "pursue new opportunities," or some similarly meaningless PR pablum phrase. The only remaining mystery was: which rat would flee the sinking ship first?

Well, today we have the answer to that question, and it turns out to be no less a person than Blizzard president J. Allen Brack. Yikes.

From Blizzard.com's own announcement:

Starting today, J. Allen Brack will be stepping down as the leader of the studio, and Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will co-lead Blizzard moving forward [...] The following is a message from J. Allen Brack:

“I am confident that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will provide the leadership Blizzard needs to realize its full potential and will accelerate the pace of change. I anticipate they will do so with passion and enthusiasm and that they can be trusted to lead with the highest levels of integrity and commitment to the components of our culture that make Blizzard so special.”

There's also a lot of investor-friendly boilerplate about how Oneal and Ybarra are totally qualified to do this job, and how they'll do a great job, so there's no reason at all for shareholders to be taken aback by the fact that Blizzard's president resigned suddenly with immediate effect in the midst of a leadership crisis; you can read the full text there if you like. We'll "hear more from Jen and Mike soon," apparently, and I for one can't wait to hear how they plan to set about "rebuilding [our] trust."

But for the moment, let's ignore them, and focus on the fleeing rat du jour. Brack is not, apparently, being fired for having done a terrible job leading Blizzard, although he would appear to have done a terrible job leading Blizzard. He's not resigning to take responsibility for his failures to ensure that Blizzard employees had a safe and inclusive place in which to work, although he's clearly failed on that front, too. No, according to reporting from Jason Schreier, Brack is leaving to "pursue new opportunities," as per an internal email announcing his departure. Not an email from Brack, though; the email came from Daniel Alegre, who is apparently Activision Blizzard's president (Brack was only Blizzard's president).

As Schrier points out, it's noteworthy that Oneal and Ybarra are designated as "co-leaders" of Blizzard, not "co-presidents" of Blizzard. Apparently, they've been given a typically corporate bullshit opportunity to take on more responsibility, but without actually having any more authority, or more pay, or even proper titles, for their trouble. It's pretty clear that "Bobby" will be the one issuing marching orders to his new Blizzard hench-people. I am not sanguine about the possibility of meaningful reform happening, but I suppose we'll see.

The other noteworthy detail here? Brack hasn't, apparently, penned or posted a proper farewell letter to Blizzard's employees, or even Blizzard's fans, the way Morhaime and Metzen both did when they left. I wonder why that might be?

One thing seems clear. WilmerHale have a row to hoe if they're to stop the bleeding here. Because Activision Blizzard's ongoing scandal has become exactly the type of scandal that someone embroiled in the scandal hates to see: one being kept alive, and in the headlines, by a steady drip-feed of new, lurid, details.

Drip. Cosby Suite. Drip. Misogyny tax. Drip. Blizzard's president suddenly resigns, but without actually speaking about the scandal in his resignation statement, and without bidding a proper farewell to Blizzard employees and fans. Drip, drip, drip.

UPDATED: 

Activision Blizzard's"Senior People Officer," Jesse Meschuk, has also stepped down. As reported by Bloomberg:

A human-resources executive, Jesse Meschuk, also left the company this week, according to an Activision Blizzard spokesperson. Meschuk was the senior people officer at Blizzard and the unit’s top HR representative.

There are no specific details as to exactly when or why Meschuk stepped down, and no statement was issued at the time, but it appears that Meschuk may actually have beaten Brack out the door. 

Drip, drip, drip...

They're not just cosmetic, and they're not harmless...

As if Activision's recently-patented process of weaponizing online multiplayer game match-making weren't bad enough, it turns out that there's an even worse level of emotionally abusive bullshit lurking beneath the scummy surface of the videogaming industry, and unlike Activision's, this one has definitely already been deployed against unwitting and willing consumers. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Scientific Revenue!

Jim Sterling gets credit for the scoop on this story, and his video piece on the subject is an absolute must-watch for anyone who's ever despaired of finding a decent game in the wasteland of shit that is the mobile gaming market.

In a nutshell, though, what Scientific Revenue does is use "best practice" techniques from other industries (specifically, the "big data" and casino businesses) to build data profiles of consumers, without their knowledge or informed consent, the better to target those with demonstrated propensities for in-game purchases and then extract as much money from each tier of punter with a variable pricing scheme.

Basically, the more addictive your personality, the more likely a "SciRev" (nice one, Jim!) is to target addiction-prone players with microtransactions that are priced higher than the exact same MT offerings as presented to players with less-addictive personalities... the idea being that players who are less likely to buy expensive MTs might pop for cheap ones, while the "whales" that are already well and truly hooked will continue to bankrupt themselves by spending money they can't afford on useless digital tat that they don't actually need, and which they probably wouldn't want if it weren't being presented to them in such an emotionally abusive and psychologically manipulative manner.

SciRev's defense of this slimy bullshit is that they're just applying other industries' "best practices" to mobile games. This is rather interesting since one of the industries involved is obviously the gambling industry (they even use the casino industry's terminology for high-revenue victims customers, i.e. "whales"), a heavily-regulated industry to which the AAA video game business, anxious to avoid having their casino-business bullshit slapped with legislated regulations, has been trying very hard to avoid comparisons.

SciRev's other defenses include comparisons to auctions and surge pricing, comparisons which fail for two obvious reasons:

1. consumers engaged in an auction do so knowingly (something which SciRev's victims cannot say), and place their bids deliberately and openly, which doesn't happen under SciRev's invisible, black-box process;
2. surge pricing is applied all consumers equally depending on demand fluctuations, while SciRev's model varies prices invisibly to unfairly target individual purchasers.

Bullshit excuses aside, the most important things to know about Scientific Revenue are a) that it's already in use, and b) that is clearly shows up the most common defense of AAA microtransactions (that they're "optional," and somehow about player choice) as the lie that it has always been. This kind of abusive microtransaction-based business model is not intended to be optional; it's intended to be unavoidable, it deliberately targets the most vulnerable consumers, and it desperately needs to be regulated. There really ought to be a law. Seriously, this microtransaction bullshit needs a legislative remedy.

Incidentally, for those that are keen to see the Nintendo Switch succeed, I'd say that the existence of operations like Scientific Revenue in the smartphone gaming space go a long way to improving Nintendo's chances. Whether you're on Google Play or the iOS App Store, mobile gaming has become a wasteland of shit; Nintendo's actively-curated experience might be full of ports of games that made their mark on other platform, but those are all excellent games, and Nintendo seems to be alone among AAA videogame companies in having absolutely no appetite for this kind of abusive bullshit. Nintendo sees their customers as customers, and not as "whales" waiting to happen, and that could be a powerful selling point for their (superior) mobile gaming platform.

For those that can't watch Jim Sterling's excellent video, Heavy.com wrote a pretty decent piece (Scientific Revenue: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know) covering it. Seriously, though, if you care at all about videogames, and hate corporate bullshit, then you really should be subscribed to The Jimquisition by now.

They're not just cosmetic.

One of the main arguments that people often advance for the inclusion of paid, free-to-play-style microtransactions in full-price, AAA videogames is that they're just cosmetic, and therefore harmless. This is an argument that the AAA videogame industry has pushed themselves on multiple occasions, arguing that MTs were entirely optional, and weren't in any way intended to manipulate players, or the games themselves, to squeeze more money out of customers who've already paid for the games themselves.

There's just one problem with that line of defence: it's bullshit. AAA videogame companies absolutely intend for their MT systems to be as manipulative and exploitative as possible, and at least one of them is actively working on ways to make them even more so, as reported by Brian Crecente at Rolling Stone:

Activision was granted a patent this month for a system it uses to convince people in multiplayer games to purchase items for a game through microtransactions.

[...]

The patent details how multiplayer matches are configured, specifically how players are selected to play with one another. That process used by Activision involves a computer looking at a wide variety of factors including skill level, Internet latency, availability of friends and other things. It then goes through a system to first soft-reserve a slot in a game for a player and then assign the players to the same match.

This patent, though, specifically discusses how that system for pairing up players can also be used to entice a player to purchase in-game items.

"For example, in one implementation, the system may include a microtransaction engine that arranges matches to influence game-related purchases," according to the patent. "For instance, the microtransaction engine may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player. A junior player may wish to emulate the marquee player by obtaining weapons or other items used by the marquee player."

The patent goes on to note that the same information could be used to identify which sorts of in-game purchasable items should be promoted.

Activision, naturally, claim that they haven't put this patented technique to use in any games.... yet. Specifically, they haven't added this special bullshit sauce to Destiny 2, in spite of that game clearly having been designed around its microtransaction system. This was just some R&D people "working independently from [the] game studios," and doesn't represent any intention at all (😉) on Activision's part to basically turn all their online-only multiplayer games' match-making systems into the shittiest experience possible, and their players into helpless victims of this cynical exploitation.

Activision's newly-patented match-making system describes exactly the opposite of an enjoyable player experience. It literally sets the player up to fail in the least fair way possible, matching them against players who have out-geared them, and then advertising that gear to losing players in that emotionally charged and vulnerable moment, pushing paid content that will let them victimize other lower-ranking players in exactly the same way... and then going on to reward them with exactly that kind of griefing experience if they cave to the pressure and drop the cash. It's not so much a match-making system as a grief-making system, encouraging toxic behaviour that more-reputable developers are trying to eradicate from their games' online communities.

But Activision aren't planning to ever use it, of course. Heaven forfend!

BULLSHIT.

It is time to stop rewarding these assholes with your money. It is time to stop paying full-price for games are come deliberately broken in order to push free-to-play monetization mechanics at you. Do not spend money on any game that also tries to milk you after purchase for paid microtransactions. I don't care how "optional" or "cosmetic" they're supposed to be. These systems are not intended or designed to feel in any way optional, and they are not harmless.

At least lawmakers in the UK are starting to take an interest in this issue; hopefully more lawmakers in other countries follow suit, so that regulators can impose some controls here, since it's painfully obvious that AAA publishers either can't or won't do so on their own.

Jim Sterling, who's been covering this issue since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, has a pretty good video out on the subject, as do Pretty Good Gaming, who have been covering this issue pretty intensively for months now.

 

Diablo III @ BlizzCon 2016

For months now, fan forums and games media sites have speculated breathlessly about what Blizzard might announce at the upcoming BlizzCon for their Diablo franchise. The gist of all the speculation, apparently based on a single tweet and a misprinted four-side die, is that some sort of announcement was coming, and it would be "awesome" -- whether it was a sequel, or a prequel, or a 2nd expansion, or maybe a mobile game, there would definitely be something announced in November. Surely Blizzard aren't about to let a third BlizzCon go by with nothing substantive to show their Diablo fanbase. Right?

Wrong. At least, so say Blizzard themselves.

From Battle.Net:

From all over the world, members of our community will band together to invade the halls of the Anaheim Convention Center. Whether you’re planning to be there in person or tuning in at home with the Virtual Ticket, here’s what intrepid Diablo fans can expect at BlizzCon 2016.

Diablo 20th Anniversary Panel
Get the inside scoop on what’s in store for Diablo III! Join us as Lead Designer Kevin Martens, Senior Game Designer Wyatt Cheng, Lead VFX Artist Julian Love, and Art Director John Mueller share the gritty details on the celebration plans that lie ahead for all our eager nephalem.

• What: A retrospective on Diablo’s 20-year legacy and first look into upcoming content.
• When: Friday, November 4 from 5:00 to 5:45 p.m. PDT

Diablo III Dev Talk and Q&A
Get the inside scoop and ask your burning questions about Diablo III! Join us as Lead Designer Kevin Martens, Senior Game Designer Wyatt Cheng, Senior Game Designer Adam Puhl, Senior Game Designer Joe Shely, and Senior Game Designer Travis Day review upcoming content and features for Diablo III and take live questions from the audience.

• What: A deep-dive and Q&A on the content and features headed to Diablo III.
• When: Saturday, November 5 from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. PDT

Darkmoon Faire: Quick Talks
Similar to the miniature panel-like chats we had last year at the Slaughtered Calf Inn, quick talks are making a return at this year’s Darkmoon Faire! Join our developers as they share insider details about their most passionate Diablo projects and hang out after to chat about your favorite Diablo memories.

• What: A series of quick talks from our developers on various aspects of Diablo III.
• When: Friday, November 4 at 1:30 p.m. PDT and Saturday, November 5 at 12:30 p.m PDT

This should look very familiar to Diablo fans, since it's basically the same lineup of events from BlizzCon 2015, where they had one panel (which opened with 20 minutes of the D3 devs enthusing about their love of Diablo's "legacy"), an announcement of patch 2.4's content (mention of new D3 content is notably absent in 2016's announced events), and the Slaughtered Calf Inn, a space smaller than the nearest washroom and located behind the face-painting booth, where players could chat informally with the D3 dev team (most of whom have now either left D3, or left Blizzard entirely). 2016's offerings appear to be slightly more formal than the Slaughtered Calf Inn, but no more substantive; in fact, if anything, there's less substance on offer.

In 2016, Diablo fans will get 45 minutes in which Blizzard will try to convince them that they really did love the Blizzard North Diablo games, 1 hour in which they'll answer (some) questions about the current state of the game, and a series of "quick talks" in which the remaining D3 devs will talk about other Blizzard games, and reminisce about their time at Blizzard, generally.

That's it. That's all Diablo fans are going to get, this BlizzCon. And, yes, the Diablo area is, once again, the same size as the nearest washroom. To say that Diablo fans are underwhelmed would be something of an understatement.

I wish I could say that I was surprised, but I'm not.