Activision Blizzard’s other half (which will also join Microsoft) already promised announcements for the next week.
Until now, we only heard the news around Activision’s stable since Phil Spencer entered the picture, but now, it’s time to catch up on the company’s other half. Mike Ybarra, Blizzard’s president, wrote a blog post in which he explained how the team wants to regain our trust. (Which they have been losing since Diablo Immortal’s announcement.
“We’re measuring our executive and management teams directly against culture improvement. It means their (and my own) success and compensation will now depend on our overall success in creating a safe, inclusive, and creative work environment at Blizzard. We’re dedicating more full-time roles and resources to improving our culture. All too often, this critical effort falls to employee resource groups filled with people who already have full-time jobs.
A few of the leadership positions we’ve established for this new team include a Culture leader who will help us maintain the best aspects of what we have today and change and evolve were needed to ensure everyone brings their best self to Blizzard; a new organizational leader for Human Resources who will build trust, empower our teams, and help foster a safe, positive work environment for everyone; and a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) leader solely focused on our progress across multiple efforts in this area.
We are committed to staffing these teams as a priority. We tripled the size of our compliance and investigation teams and have articulated clear accountability for unacceptable behaviour. It applies to all employees at Blizzard, including leadership and management. We have shared representation data internally with our teams and have set goals for improving these metrics. We’ve put an upward feedback program in place so that employees have confidence in evaluating management. We will use this to measure the quality and effectiveness of our managers,” Ybarra wrote, who then reiterated that the company “needs to deliver content to our players on a more regular basis” and promises to announce some “exciting things,” with new info coming as early as next week.
And on Twitter, Tracy Kennedy, Overwatch 2’s producer, flipped the table at Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard’s CEO: “Bobby, tell everyone about the random projects for Overwatch you all would shove on us. The team would do overtime for only them to get cancelled, and for months of Overwatch 2 development to have been lost. Or how almost entire teams turn over and cite you as the reason. Don’t be shy. Oh wait, that’s right, you hide behind scapegoats because you’re a coward, my mistake. The entire world will remember you to be a greedy joke, and there’s nothing you can do to change that. We outlasted you, and we won. Byeee!”
Ouch.
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