The lawsuit claims women who reported concerns were not only unsupported by HR, but their complaints were also not kept confidential, resulting in retaliation which included being unwillingly transferred to another unit, being cut out of work projects, and being laid off.Īccording to the documents, this frat house work environment included “cube crawls,” in which male employees would drink “copious amounts” of alcohol, crawl through cubicles and behave inappropriately toward women in the office. Both women left the company as a result of the discriminatory treatment. This employee and another Black woman both reported being micro-managed about their time, with one woman claiming her manager made her write a one-page summary of how she would use time off. One Black woman reported it took her longer than men hired after her to be made a permanent employee. The lawsuit also alleges that women of color were particularly vulnerable to discrimination at Activision Blizzard. Complaints of unequal pay for women resulted in the holding company’s hiring of legal counsel for analysis of compensation multiple times, but no corrective action was taken, according to the court documents. The DFEH investigation also uncovered that women were less likely to be promoted, were more likely to be terminated, and were consistently paid less for performing the same work (or more work) than male employees. In the most extreme case of alleged employee abuse, one woman killed herself on a company trip after being subjected to sexual harassment, according to the lawsuit. Widespread complaints from women included their appearance regularly commented on and being groped by male employees, as well as being pursued romantically by male supervisors.

Court documents claim to reveal a culture of gender discrimination at Activision Blizzard that invaded nearly every aspect of the work experience for women at the company, who make up only about 20% of the 9,500 employees, including “compensation, assignment, promotion, termination, constructive discharge and retaliation.”Ī two-year investigation by DFEH concluded that the company allowed a “frat bro” culture to take hold, according to the lawsuit, and create an environment that allowed sexual harassment to subsist with impunity.

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