Blizzard President, J. Allen Brack, has left the company to "pursue new opportunities". This comes after Activision Blizzard was sued by the state of California for sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace, leaked emails from J. Allen Brack which were later called "tone deaf" by Activison Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, and an employee walkout.
This news comes before the Activision Blizzard Q2 earnings call which will be taking place this afternoon at 4:30 PM Eastern. As of writing, the ATVI stock price was down 4.75% to 78.80 USD.
Quote From Daniel Alegre SANTA MONICA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 3, 2021– Activision Blizzard, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) President and COO Daniel Alegre today sent the following letter to all employees regarding Blizzard Entertainment.
August 3, 2021
I am pleased to announce that, effective immediately, Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra have been appointed co-leaders of Blizzard. Jen and Mike will share responsibility for development and operational accountability for the company. Both are leaders of great character and integrity and are deeply committed to ensuring our workplace is the most inspired, welcoming environment for creative excellence and to upholding our highest game development standards.
Many of us already know Mike and Jen and have experienced their leadership, their empathy and their unwavering sense of accountability:
- Jen is an 18-year company veteran and the former head of Vicarious Visions studio. As Executive Vice President of Development at Blizzard, she has been providing senior development leadership and support to the Diablo and Overwatch franchises.
- Mike has been in the technology and gaming industries for over 20 years, including 7 years as a senior executive at Microsoft’s XBOX division. Most recently Mike was Executive Vice President & General Manager of Platform and Technology at Blizzard overseeing Battle.net and our Development Services organizations.
With their many years of industry experience and deep commitment to integrity and inclusivity, I am certain Jen and Mike will lead Blizzard with care, compassion and a dedication to excellence.
With Jen and Mike assuming their new roles, J. Allen Brack is leaving the company to pursue new opportunities.
Daniel
Comments
If he wasn't let go for this, then at the least he should have been let go for that hairdo.
One point I want to make: A lot of people are still unsure if Blizzard really did anything wrong, since no court has ruled on this yet. Some of these people are saying that this is a cynical move by Blizzard and because we don’t know if Brack was at fault for anything.
But here’s the truth: Even though it IS a calculated move by a corporation who’s looking at their bottom line, it’s also a move by a corporation who KNOWS A LOT ABOUT THE EVIDENCE THAT WILL COME OUT. This firing is an admission of at least some guilt, and a proactive attempt to win leniency with the judge and the public. If Blizzard believed that these claims were entirely unfounded, they would make that case in court, and there would be no reason to act guilty now.
Are you unsure whether Blizzard did anything wrong? They have to be careful right now about what they say and how they say it, but what they just did is a public announcement that at least some of the allegations are true.
And if even a portion of these things are true, then Blizzard definitely deserves to be taken to court and many people (including Brack) definitely deserve to lose their jobs.
When the next scandal come along, people will be scratching your heads going "Huh, what happened? The villains were defeated!"
Knowing Blizzard the next scandal is just going to be caused by Allan Brack with a crystal stuck in his forehead or Kel'thuzad for the 19th time.
To translate this from corporate gibberish into plain English: Brack was given the opportunity to leave instead of being formally fired and he took it (likely he also received a seizable goodbye package as part of this deal). As a public signal execs then settled for a co-leadership team with a woman on board, who despite being perfectly qualified for this, would probably never have gotten the job under normal Blizzard circumstances.
This sums it up perfectly.
Unfortunately, those new opportunities might mean a new (inferior) position in Activision. The article said he is just leaving Blizzard.
Also, I really hate the stupidity of not finding out who is actually at fault. The idea of a "fall guy" is wrong and idiotic.
I’ve seen a few comments implying that this is the end of it or that other people will avoid responsibility because Brack took the blame. That’s not true at all. It doesn’t end the court case or the calls for reconciliation from employees.
The truth is that the CEO is partly responsible for this - they need to be aware of the corporate culture, especially if it’s so bad that HR is widely considered to be ineffective. It’s hard to believe that he didn’t have an active hand in this, but if he really knew nothing about it, that means he’s too incompetent to run a company.
Firing him isn’t the final step. It’s a necessary first step, and one that’s so obvious that they’ll do it even before the case finishes.
People used to think Blizzard was good and Activision evil, but this crap apparently was mostly happening at Blizzard.
Good.
you think you do but you don't
l8a
I think this was an inevitable decision the stakeholders had to make due to the bad PR and lawsuit. After the old Blizzcon video that resurfaced and hearsay that Brack didn't handle harassment claims properly, he had to leave.
It's pretty standard, regardless if Brack *actually* was at fault for anything or not. Most companies will ask CEO's to step down when bad PR situations such as these occur, it's easier to have someone in that position be the "fall guy" rather than drag it out and actually find out who/what the real issue is.
Ultimately, we have no idea who else was involved besides that one WoW developer who apparently was in the "cosby room" and had a history of making advances on women at blizzard.
The bad thing about this situation is, most people will go "oh good, now the company will grow" but the true people who were problematic may still end up continuing their career at blizzard (unless they get ousted or also leave).
The new studio heads have now the oppurtunity to make the changes necessary. Coming from outside Blizzard this should be easier than before
I agree that there are probably other offenders who also need to be weeded out of the organization, but I don’t think it’s right to suggest CEOs are regularly used as fall guys, as that implies a certain level of blamelessness when PR is bad. Even if we ignore the allegations that Brack did nothing despite knowledge of the harassment, he was the leader of an organization whose culture allowed for pervasive harassment. That demonstrates (at minimum) a lack of leadership, which means he has some responsibility for what happened by virtue of being bad at his job. He doesn’t need to have been an active participant in harassment for that to be true.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.