Phil Spencer Reportedly 'Evaluating' Xbox's Relationship With Activision

Activision/Blizzard have really become the bad guys of the industry lately.

I dont want to post anything here that's going to break guidelines, in short just want to say that people should honestly boycott Activision games. They've done some messed up things. From Sexual harassment, islamophobia to straight up exploitation. We shouldn't support companies like that.

Phil is working on making all kinds of new enemies between this and the emulation thing. I love it.

Let's not forget Ubisoft. I hope this kind of thing is not too prevalent in the industry. It would break my heart if Xbox had such a toxic environment. Hopefully that's not just PR and Phil Spencer is really ensuring that Xbox is a safe place for their workers.

It's not looking good for Bobby, which doesn't make me sad at all.

@Magabro A few years back I had the pleasure of meeting a big, diverse crew of Microsoft employees and the impression I had was pretty positive. I would be interested to see how their divisions (Bethesda comes to mind) behave.

I will still be one of the few people that will wait until the court system sorts this out. The power of accusations and allegations are astounding in this digital age. You can destroy people's lives without hard evidence or facts. And people just grab their digital pitchforks.

@John117 I think the problem is more that the company itself and the employees did nothing about it for a long time.

Unfortunately harassment, like any form of bullying has huge benefits for the individual that reaps the social power from it. And humans have a tendency to rewire their heads to just follow the group.

So, the consequences have to be extreme enough that people fear them, until an example is made, until we as gamers value people more than games, then it will continue.

Hence why I hope Activision doesn't just get boycotted before they do some PR apology, but that they get destroyed, and everyone involved has their career ruined and unable to find a job for the rest of their life. Only then will people be afraid enough to behave properly.

@John117 Your comparisons are a bit of a stretch here. This discussion is about a CEO covering up a sex abuse scandal, not someone forgetting to recycle.

Get that scumbag out of there..

@John117 yep. I've said it again. People are only responding to what is being published. If we boycott every company when the disgusting few have committed crimes we would consume nothing. Let's put all the developers who don't sexually harass people out of a job. This isn't the solution. The industry as a whole needs to do a hell of a lot more to stop this.

Anyone who wants to stop buying products from companies where staff have committed criminal acts good on you. But don't stop at Activision. You need to go the whole hog and review everything you consume and where its come from rather than cherry picking what the media feed you.

@Whybox but then you also destroy the lives of the majority of workers who didn't do anything wrong. How is this the solution? Burn everything to the ground? You are also assuming as gamers we accept sexual harassment as a byproduct of playing games which is 100% wrong. I'm not saying the criminals don't deserve to be punished but that the many shouldn't be sacrificed for the crimes of the few.

@Alpha_Pulse I don’t care. I’m so sick and tired of the same cyclic *****. It’s been brought up 30 years ago, and nothing has happened. And I think nothing will happen again, people will talk and do nothing. I am sick of it, so yes sacrifice whatever it takes to end it.

@Whybox I understand the frustration but there a lot of families out there that do care. It is all too easy to say tear the house down when are unaffected by it.

Displacing people is not the answer. You should not lose your job because someone else is a piece of s**t. This keeps creeping into the media so we will be tearing down businesses all day long along with many peoples lives.

@GunValkyrie against Bobby? Or Activison?

Love how all these 'internal emails' are suddenly leaked. Do ms and Sony have security problems? Should we be worried?
Good thing both Phil and Ryan make sure to write how concerned they are about this...

There is not a chance that something that was heavily rumoured for years within their industry, about someone they no doubt have both a business and personal relationship with, and never heard a concerning word against prior?... Ok. They obviously know he's on the way out. But round of applause Phil/Ryan for your bravery by making a stand and condemning this in 'private' emails...

When players boycott games, are we not at the same time punishing good people who spent a good chunk of their life developing a game for us to play? Is this not punishing the good with the evil?

I’ve asked for COD for Christmas as I will support the efforts the real workers put into their games, but I don’t like the CEO of Activision and think they ignored serious misconducts in the name of greed and profits. They had the chance to stop it the moment it started and instead ignored it for several years, now we could find COD won’t be allowed in Xbox or PlayStation platforms.

The individual should be punished not the house they subside in. If I kill a person, I should be punished. Not my wife or my cat (maybe my cat) or my family. Unless they were part of the crime that it is.

That's my opinion

OK then.

Ubisoft has also had sexual harassment claims, yet apparently they've done nothing to change the issues. Also, completely unrelated but Ubisoft also saw an increase of revenue since those claims.

I'm sure the mistreatment of employees being profitable and the continued abuse are not related.

Not much for Phil to adjust given Sony bought themselves all the timed exclusive partnerships with them. Looking to be a bad PR investment for Sony now.

I don't think a knee jerk reaction and boycotting the publisher is the right approach, it could lead to perfectly decent people losing their jobs.
I'd like to know what ActiBlizz is going to do to correct this type of behavior going forwards, if they intend to confront the issue and change the culture then great, if they do nothing then I'll take my money elsewhere.

I'll say the same thing I said on PS on the related topic, but why was Kotick still there at all? He should have been gone long before harassment knowledge was even a thing. This is the guy who staged large layoffs to give himself a massive bonus as a reward for freeing up so much cashflow. Harassment coverups are icing on an already moldy cake.

@Bleachedsmiles IDK about Sony, but MS really DOES have a leak problem....everything from XSS to every detail about Halo has ended up leaked, so that one may really be legit

@Alpha_Pulse

Do you not agree that Activision’a shareholders should squeeze Kotick out of the company if he, as the man in charge, can’t keep his employees safe and do his job? No one is arguing that normal employees should lose their job, we want to see repercussions and accountability for the perpetrators. This idea that it’s the fault of the people who boycott and protest when someone loses their job is ridiculous and really, you’re only making it harder for any actual justice to be done when you think like this. If, after all this backlash and negative PR, Activision’s board or the higher ups do nothing to improve the conditions of their workplace, it’ll be THEIR fault that people lose jobs, not regular people who are against what they’re doing.

I'd like MS to certainly be in a position to buy up Activision/Blizzard - preferably after any of the 'higher up's' have been fired so they don't 'profit' from the sale. The IP's alone are certainly worth acquiring if possible and the 'Activision' name itself could be dropped too. The Publisher would be Xbox with Sledgehammer, Infinity Ward, Treyarch etc coming under Xbox Studio's.

I don't see it happening though as Activision/Blizzard is valued 10x what Zenimax was (By January 2021, the company's [Activision/Blizzard] net value was estimated to be $72 billion based on its stock trading price due to the ongoing demand for video games from the COVID-19 pandemic). I guess it depends on whether or not the Share-holders want to get out quickly too...

It almost makes more sense for MS to either 'expand' the studio's they already have and/or set up a new studio and try and recruit many of the staff from Activision/Blizzard with the promise of better working conditions for ALL. Maybe that will lead to the 'collapse' of them, leading to a sell off of assets (inc IP's) but with Annual CoD's making 'billions', Overwatch, Diablo etc too still going strong with 'new' games on the Horizon, I can't see the stake holders willing to sell.

The biggest takeaway for me is that Phil Spencer is being very proactive and re-evaluating their relationship with this company. I'd like to think that 'Xbox' as a platform (not just the console, but where Xbox Game Pass exists) would be pro-active in making it clear that type of behaviour is not welcome in this industry and if it means not allowing them to release on their platform, not giving them any support (dev Kits, help/advice etc), so be it.

Like I said, I can't see Activision/Blizzard selling up so I would rather see other Studio's investing in growth and/or new studio's opening up to give many of staff a route out of Activision and into a more welcoming, equal opportunity, diverse environment. Coupled with outside pressure, the reputation of the company making recruitment 'difficult', the loss of staff to other studio's could cause Activision to collapse. They have put their eggs into too few baskets in recent years too so if CoD 'fails' to sell (particularly all the MTX's), its not like they have many other games in development to try and make money from...

@Dalarrun Bobby Kotick is a major shareholder himself in the company and CEO so either has to be forced out or step down. Others may well be 'grateful' to Bobby for their position and financial benefits that has given over the years - even if it came at anothers expense (they got promoted, got shares and 'perks' over another because of Kotick). So they may not want to turn on him to force him out.

If you have benefited directly from the way they ran the company - got promotions over others because of 'gender', get paid more because of gender etc, get bonuses every year then these are the people nearer the top that perhaps could push Kotick out.

@BAMozzy

So again, if the higher ups refuse to force him out and rally together, the fallout will be on their heads. Consumers do not have to accept what these companies do to their employees, and they absolutely have the right to boycott or protest.

@Dalarrun of course I want him out if he's guilty who wouldn't? That's not my point at all. My point is boycotting Activision isn't the way to deal with HIM or any offenders. This burn it to the ground mentality when a small number of people do wrong is borderline sociopathic. The business entity did not commit the deed rather the individuals. Remove them yes 100% but not the entity they have used to commit the crime. I've already said if you don't want to consume their products yourselves then hats off to but personally I am not judging the many by the deeds of the few.

If it came out that Satya Nadella had been sexually harassing people I wonder how many of you would stop playing on your Xbox and cancel your gamepass subscriptions. Because the logic that is being discussed in these posts indicates that is exactly what you would do.

@Trmn8r I see what you are saying but it's not like they would have known this so I doubt people will judge them for it.

@Alpha_Pulse

Boycotting a company is more effective at sending a message than pretty much anything else. Companies care about profit above all else, and if a problematic CEO or executives are affecting said profits, they will adjust accordingly. You might not THINK you’re defending corporations, but you definitely are. If I lost my job because the heads of my company were sexually harassing employees, being racist etc., and the profits tanked because of it, I would absolutely direct my anger and the blame at the heads of the company instead of consumers. If you agree that they should remove the CEO or the higher ups that are guilty, I don’t see what point you’re trying to make. We both agree that they should be held accountable, and the people calling for a boycott agree as well. We are in an amazing age where more than ever, companies, police, people in power are being held accountable for their bad actions. Change. Progress. Adjust. How Activision chooses to answer the call is up to them, and if they can’t do it, the blame is on them.

@Dalarrun The point I'm making is pretty clear. In fact I couldn't be clearer. You seem to have trouble reading which is a necessary skill to argue the point so I'm going to leave it at that with you. Thinking dragging down an entire company down and ruining a lot of other people's lives along with it is cheap and easy way out and doesn't address the root cause. There are better ways to deal with this than the new method of cancelling everything.

Wasn't there something in the media about Bill Gates being inappropriate in the workplace quite recently too?

If you want to boycott then boycott away but please also make sure you assess everything you consume because there are more than just Activision products that are stained with exploitation. If you are going to make that stand then make a full stand not half baked one.

@Alpha_Pulse

Okay, shoot. Give us a few examples of better ways to get accountability out of these companies. I’ve already given you a perfectly good answer to the problem, which is to fire these ***** who are behaving badly. You seem to think the only option is to either let them continue doing what they do, or to shut down the entire company which isn’t the goal of these boycotts. You can’t be so simple minded as to think there are only two options here. One more time so YOU’LL understand: the jobs of these everyday workers are not in the hands of the general public. They’re in the hands of their bosses, who need to acknowledge they’re in the wrong and change their ways.

@Dalarrun each individual responsible for their own actions. Which is what I've been saying the whole time are you thick?

Read all of my comments please. They all say hold the criminal to account. Boycotting is literally withdrawing your consumption from the business. The jobs ARE in the hands of the public if the public collectively boycott the organisation. No revenue equals cuts. This won't stop people from being sexually abused. There's a part of the brain that makes this happen regardless of making money or not. Some people are just sick.

Think of this like a disease. If you burn the body first you never resolve the root cause of the disease. If you investigate how to fix the disease then you can find the cure and prevent it from recurring.

I can't be any clearer. The INDIVIDUAL should be held to account. The INDUSTRY needs to do more to prevent it.

I have literally said all the things you are supporting and you seem to be misreading this and attempting to argue against me with my own argument. I can't be bothered commenting any further because you are a broken record and are boring me. Sorry.

@Alpha_Pulse

You don’t have to reply, I’ll do so for the sake of others reading this back and forth. Boycotting a company or at the very least, being vocal about your displeasure with said company puts pressure on them to make changes. As far as I know, Kotick who has been problematic for a while now is still employed. No other high profile Activision execs have been fired or resigned, either. They have not done enough to address the problems within their company and they absolutely should face consequences until they do. It is in THEIR hands what happens to THEIR company.

Stop blaming consumers for having a conscience and voicing their opinions with their wallets. None of us owe companies diddly *****, especially when they’re treating employees badly. You’ve taken a wee bit too much capitalism to the brain, and it’s showing. Saying the industry should be responsible for something one company does completely contradicts your whole “individual accountability” spiel, by the way. This is Activision’s problem, not the game industry’s.

Also, a little tip for future debates: don’t resort to whataboutism, because it deflects from the topic at hand and makes your argument look weak. People pick and choose fights all the time, and we can go down an endless rabbit hole about all the different contradictory opinions you and I have. This particular one is about the toxic work environment at Activision. Do keep up.

@Dalarrun until you learn to read your whole foundation crumbles.

How am I blaming consumers for having a conscience when I am literally voicing my opinion on protecting those who are innocent who work for Activision? 🤣

God you crack me up. Its been fun. Its been emotional and I thank you for your time.

@Alpha_Pulse

It isn’t up to you or I to “protect” the innocent by buying the products of the company that is mistreating them, it’s up to the company to change their ways so consumers feel comfortable buying from them. Again, this is Activision’s problem and you coming in here making people feel guilty for boycotting them deflects and misplaces blame away from them.

Your argument is that people shouldn’t boycott companies or protest, and you’re wrong for it. Sitting on our hands and hoping that people in power do the right thing hasn’t ever really worked out that well throughout history, and if I’m being honest with you, I’d rather the innocent employees find jobs that treat them better anyway if Activision can’t get its act together.