Discrimination can certainly take a wide assortment of forms, but the culture that has been fostered within Activision-Blizzard has mostly been one that threatens women, minorities, and workers attempting to organize unions. According to a lawsuit filed by a former ABK executive, the company was allegedly discriminatory against older white men as well.
The lawsuit, which was filed by a 57-year-old former tech executive, calls out several instances in which he feels he was directly targeted by ABK leadership for his age and nationality.
It alleges that Bobby Kotick said in a leadership conference that the studio having “too many old white guys” was a “problem” and equating those remarks to a pair of white executives leaving “based, at least in part, on Kotick’s ageist remarks.” The plaintiff also believes that he was passed over for a promotion without merit, despite one of the departing executives suggesting he would be a good replacement; the job went instead to a younger non-white employee who then became the plaintiff’s manager, who allegedly created a toxic work environment and criticized the plaintiff’s work to a point that his merit-based salary increase was hampered.
The suit also accuses ABK of brushing aside a counter-complaint the man filed after a female co-worker made “discriminatory and defamatory accusations” about him to human resources. The suit claims that the plaintiff “asked for ‘checks and balances’ and made clear that [he] ‘was the first person to sound an alarm that a larger issue might be brewing,'” but his request to HR was ignored.
He would later be among 200 employees who were laid off as part of a restructuring effort by ActiBlizz this past August, including six other men aged 47 or older. Since then, ABK has recently had new job postings for the central tech department that he was fired from. “Activision placed profits over people by terminating the older, higher paid executives,” the suit argues.
The former exec is seeking damages for loss of earnings, negative impact to career advancement, reputational damage, emotional distress, wrongful termination, and legal costs. Activision-Blizzard declined to comment to reporting sources on the case.
