$18 million, a weekly revenue from Call of Duty, can it eliminate Activision Blizzard's current scandals and woes?
After a six-month-long lawsuit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEOC signed an $18 million settlement with Activision Blizzard, and District Court Judge Del Fisher, who led the case, also agreed to the agreement, as if the scandal surrounding Activision Blizzard was about to end.
In addition to compensating (former) Activision Blizzard employees who have been harmed in the prosecution, the $18 million will also be used to establish a harassment and discrimination prevention program within Activision Blizzard, which will be audited by the EEOC and the remaining funds may be donated to charities to promote women's participation in gaming or to spread awareness of gender equality issues.
Although the reader may know it, here is a brief explanation of the ins and outs of the matter.
In July 2021, Activision Blizzard was sued by local authorities for workplace bullying and sexual harassment within the company.
Subsequently, the internal problems of Activision Blizzard were constantly exposed, and many game creators such as Diablo and World of Warcraft were revealed to have sexually harassed colleagues of the opposite sex, and even female employees committed suicide because they could not be bothered, the specific content can refer to the "flood of "fraternity" culture written by Yun Youji last year, so that Activision Blizzard staged a "Wolf of Wall Street".
This triggered the anger of the players, the Warcraft players in the game to sit in protest, and finally forced the official to delete and modify all the characters and items related to the main creator of the game suspected of sexual harassment, even Overwatch with the same name as the sexual harassment employee McRae, also changed to Carl Cassidy.
However, the impact of these scandals on Activision Blizzard is far more than just changing a few game characters, under the pressure of public opinion, a number of game creators left, Activision Blizzard's game development was greatly affected, Bobby Kotick was also asked to step down to apologize, and even in the end, "fell" to the situation of being acquired by Microsoft.
The $18 million deal, on the surface, seems to announce that the dark clouds hanging over Activision Blizzard are finally going to clear, but the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard does not seem to be over. In fact, Activision Blizzard has been facing prosecution by multiple government departments.
In 2018, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, DFEH, and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEOC received anonymous prosecutions, and the two agencies subsequently launched an investigation into Activision Blizzard.
In July 2021, DFEH took the lead in suing Activision Blizzard, and in September of the same year, EEOC filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for the same reason.
It seems that Activision Blizzard is entangled in a lawsuit, however, it is not a bad thing that the two departments sue Activision Blizzard at the same time, although both departments represent the interests of employees, but the demands of both sides are not consistent.
DFEH has fined Fist $100 million for employment discrimination, so the amount of fines required by DFEH is undoubtedly high for Activision Blizzard, which has much higher revenue than Fist and more serious internal problems.
Unlike the EEOC, they only need $18 million in compensation, and as long as Activision Blizzard is willing to take out this money to set up a fund for the claimant, then the EEOC is willing to settle with Activision Blizzard.
Although EEOC and DFEH are two different departments and have different claims, the cases they sue are the same, even the same as the claimants, so the settlement agreement of EEOC will affect the litigation dispute between DFEH and Activision Blizzard.
For example, if the claimant accepts the settlement compensation from the EEOC, he will be disqualified from the DFEH lawsuit, and the settlement agreement in the EEOC has also appeared that allows Activision Blizzard to remove any allegations of sexual harassment from the personnel file.
Therefore, Activision Blizzard was reluctant to cooperate with the DFEH investigation from the beginning, and they also accused the DFEH of violating ethics during the investigation.
For this reason, DFEH has tried more than once to interfere in the settlement between EEOC and Activision Blizzard, and this time it is no exception, but the judge still agreed to the settlement agreement of EEOC and said that if DFEH is not satisfied with the verdict, it can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which has jurisdiction over California.
Even if the 18 million settlement agreement passes the court judgment, DFEH still has the right to continue to appeal, it is clear that DFEH does not obey this decision, a large number of Activision Blizzard employees, the American Communications Workers Union are not satisfied with the punishment, for a group of victims who may be as many as hundreds of people, $18 million is not enough.
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Many people may think that $18 million is a lot and Activision Blizzard has lost its way, but in fact this has always been the result that Activision Blizzard wants. They have been trying to sign this settlement agreement with the EEOC since last September, which would have been passed long ago without DFEH's obstruction.
In 2021, Activision Blizzard's revenue was as high as $8.803 billion and net profit was $2.699 billion, which is a dime a dozen for Activision Blizzard.
And the scope of this lawsuit is the entire Activision Blizzard company, from CEO Bobby Kotick, to the creators of various games, to ordinary employees, if this lawsuit continues to drag on, the losses caused are difficult to estimate, and ending all this with 18 million is undoubtedly a good result for Activision Blizzard.
However, even if DFEH does not continue to appeal after that, the company's scandal has ended here, and Activision Blizzard, which has lost many developers, can it still regain its previous glory?
And the player's view of the company can not be changed overnight, the lawsuit is over, and the negative public opinion surrounding the company cannot disappear.
At least, until Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 come out, the question remains an unknown.