Reply to: DOOM: Blizzard

[d000hg]

Without wanting to stereotype anyone, I can well imagine many of the kind of borderline Asberger uber-nerds drawn to game programming would be the types to behave like that! Also, perhaps over time the gung ho game play itself rubs off on them.

I mean, firstly we could make that claim about all programmers. But if we're going to go down that route, I've never seen women getting much abuse from that sort of total nerd. They might be caught sniffing the saddle of the ladies' exercise bike but they wouldn't dare intimidate them, that's the more laddish managers' role. Until they go on a shooting spree, this sort of uber-nerd is not a problem to anyone, except those with sensitive noses.

The other thing to point out, having been in that environment, is that women are pretty rare. The coders are all guys, a few ladies in HR and they stay quite separate. In the places I've worked as an employed developer, I am aware of precisely one female developer. 3 smaller companies I worked at, there was one woman in total and she was on the phone!

[OwlHoot]

now give those guys a fandom.

and some share options for the early birds, yes, that would go to their heads big time!

[lorakeen]

Without wanting to stereotype anyone, I can well imagine many of the kind of borderline Asberger uber-nerds drawn to game programming would be the types to behave like that! Also, perhaps over time the gung ho game play itself rubs off on them.

now give those guys a fandom.

[vetran]

What? Decent people who work hard. That'd be a shame.

He was talking to Warty!

[NotAllThere]

You'll be tremendously surprised as to how little interest I have in your attention considering your personality and behaviour.
Now since obviously English isn't quite clear to you: I have not claimed to be an expert, just that this whole thing was going on for a long while and was quite a problem.

It is quite relevant for the industry.

Stop harrassing him. Oh wait. This is general. As you were.

let's just say that hopefully people like you will no longer have room in the industry moving forward and that's a good thing

What? Decent people who work hard. That'd be a shame.

[OwlHoot]

::: The seniors and leads were contantly harassing the female staff while also passing most of their own workloads to them, groping was a normal occurrence and let's not forget the infamous cube crawling. ..

Without wanting to stereotype anyone, I can well imagine many of the kind of borderline Asberger uber-nerds drawn to game programming would be the types to behave like that! Also, perhaps over time the gung ho game play itself rubs off on them.

[lorakeen]

It tends to be smaller companies, the big american style corporates tend to have an active HR to mitigate it, bad for their share value.

It still happens but only the high up letches get away with it and its dirty talk not touch in my experience.

How abut a "Cosby suite", a cube crawl in while the higher ups literally harass and grope any female employee in their path and someone killing herself because her boss leaked pics of her private parts?

Blizzard IS a big company. A tulip one

[lorakeen]

Lots of companies in a wide range of industries have similarly nefarious practises. I think bringing them to light is well worth doing.

not every other business has a "Cosby suite" or female employees killing themselves due to harassment.

[vetran]

It tends to be smaller companies, the big american style corporates tend to have an active HR to mitigate it, bad for their share value.

It still happens but only the high up letches get away with it and its dirty talk not touch in my experience.

[northernladuk]

Well that's OK then. If everyone's doing it...

Not really, just the focus is purely on Blizzard so needs wider action if this isn't just confined to them.

[d000hg]

I'm struggling to believe this is unique to Blizzard and is just lifting the lid on the standard goings on in most similar software houses, if not many other businesses with a comparable demographic?

Well that's OK then. If everyone's doing it...

[ladymuck]

I'm struggling to believe this is unique to Blizzard and is just lifting the lid on the standard goings on in most similar software houses, if not many other businesses with a comparable demographic?

Lots of companies in a wide range of industries have similarly nefarious practises. I think bringing them to light is well worth doing.

[northernladuk]

I'm struggling to believe this is unique to Blizzard and is just lifting the lid on the standard goings on in most similar software houses, if not many other businesses with a comparable demographic?

[lorakeen]

Makes him more of an expert than anyone else on here is likely to be.

As a teen/graduate I really, really wanted to work for either Blizzard (Warcraft) or Reflections (Driver). The latter is local to me but I never got an interview, though I did work for one of their competitors. Game development is a weird place.

Blizzard had such a good reputation that people were willing to take serious paycuts to work there. The low pay used to be mitigated by the profit share schemes.
They used to be a good company for devs... but that only applied to the original pre 2004 staff. The rest were treated like crap. That cute legend about how people could have a lifelong place at Blizzard? It was bulltulip unless you'd been there since the 90s. Otherwise- Blizzard was high on its own legend, and the results were bad.



As it turns out, a company who doesn't respect its customers obviously doesn't respect its staff, and the result is... quite awful.
It rolled down hill. A corporation who posts best ever income then fires 800 people because amagad they still aren't giving the shareholders enough after paying Kotick's multimillion bonus.

It was always an incredibly awful place for women, but being a contractor was better than being an employee. Harassment was normalized, and that led to the mess they are in now.


The seniors and leads were contantly harassing the female staff while also passing most oftheir own workloads to them, groping was a normal occurrence and let's not forget the infamous cube crawling.

JAB being fired is probably the best thing that could happen to Blizzard- a lot of players celebrated it as well.
THese practices were KNOWN and allowed.

[saptastic]

A 12 month stint 8 years ago makes you an expert on the goings on at Blizzard? Or are you just looking for attention again?

Not sure the OP said they were an expert? .......