Who here wanted one final reminder before the end of the year that we live in a cursed capitalist hellscape where justice can be bought and paid for if you own a large enough company? Nobody? Too bad: We’re all being reminded thanks to news that Activision-Blizzard, now owned by Microsoft, has settled the multi-year sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit with California’s Civil Rights department to the tune of $50M.
The lawsuit in question was the spark that lit the torch and cast a light across ABK’s deep levels of cultural and sexist rot, as well as the catalyst that caused workers across the company’s various studios to organize, tanked the company’s stock, and pushed ABK to scramble for a buyer – all while CEO Bobby Kotick tried to shift blame away from himself and other executives and towards those mean ol’ gamers and unionizers as he maintained that ABK “did not have a systemic issue with harassment — ever” and that reams of evidence to the contrary were merely “mischaracterizations reported in the media.”
The California Civil Rights department (formerly the DFEH) reportedly was seeking more than the $100M payout that Riot Games agreed to in its own discrimination lawsuit in 2022; it’s since settled for half of that number.
