It was in a long inquiry published on November 16 that the Wall Street Journal took heavy accusations against Robert Kick. While Activision Blizzard continues to be targeted by different investigations concerning facts of discrimination, harassment and aggression at the workplace, the newspaper accuses his CEO of covering his facts and not having made them up. At the Directory, despite its recent statements.
Bobby Kick knew. This is the main information revealed by the Wall Street Journal in a shock survey published in the morning in the United States. The sulfurous CEO of Activision Blizzard, which has been playing for a few weeks the public response from his business to the storm, would believe in believing the information of everyday life, an integral part of the problem.
According to the newspaper, and contrary to what he reported to his leaders, Robert Kick would have been aware of a number of accusations of sexual assault in the workplace, in different parts of the company. Accusations that he did not communicate to the Management Board, even after the onset of a public inquiry into 2018. The CEO would explain that these problems were circumscribed in Blizzard, and that he had settled them from years earlier.
The WSJ thus evokes the case of an old employee of Sledgehammer Games (studio belonging to Activision, and partly responsible for the franchise Call of Duty ), who declared by lawyer in an email sent to Kick in 2018 have been raped by its supervisor, Javier Payment, in 2016 and 2017. Reported to human resources and other frameworks, the two events would have triggered no response from the active part, opening the door to prosecution. An agreement would have been found in a few months, the employee concerned endowed by being put to the door, without Mr. Kick reporting it to the box.
Another case, just as serious, mentioned by this survey: the one that involves Dan Bunting, co-director of Trey arch, another big studio in the blizzard activism, and also involved in the development of games Call of Duty. The latter would have been accused of sexual harassment following an alcoholic evening in 2017. The company had launched an internal investigation in 2019, investigation, the findings of which the findings recommended its dismissal. According to daily sources, Mr. Kick would have been personally intervening to keep it. After considering his options in the light of this survey, the company has chosen not to put an end to Mr. Bunting s contract, but to impose disciplinary measures, said Elaine Alaska, spokesperson questioned by journalists. Americans. According to them, Dan Bunting would have resigned from his position upon the arrival of their first questions, which has not yet been official.
Eduard Erich, a former developer of Sledgehammer, who left the group in 2018, would have also been targeted by an investigation for harassment at an evening at the office, in 2017. Interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, he agreed to testify. Considering that it was stupid and completely useless to be so saucer, he especially specified that he had for any sanction a two-week deduction on his salary. In a letter sent to him by Activision Blizzard in 2017, the Group s human resources ask him to keep this affair ignored.
Used, marginalized and discriminated
If the article from the Wall Street Journal, publication turned to global economic news, aims to demonstrate the responsibility of Kick vis-à-vis the Blizzard Activision Shareholders, it remains no less eliminating as to the situation of the employees of the group and the culture that reigns there. For example, it is upon the resignation of Jennifer Oneal, long-standing activism employee named Co-director of Blizzard only a few months earlier. In an email sent to the Group s legal team, it expressed its lack of confidence in the direction to change the culture of society. She said herself having been harassed during his career at Activision Blizzard and claimed to be less paid at his new position than his male colleague. I was used, marginalized and discriminated with, she wrote when to mention his departure.
At the opposite, Ben Kilgore, technology chief of Blizzard until her dismissal in 2018 after multiple accusations of harassment, had been hailed by Mike Moraine, the former boss of the branch, in an email sent to all employees.