World Of Warcraft production halted thanks to Activision Blizzard suit

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According to a major developer, all work in World of Warcraft has been halted thanks to the Activision Blizzard suit.

Last week, news broke that the state of California was suing Activision Blizzard for what it described as a “pervasive workplace culture” in which female employees were often subject to harassment. The suit contained disturbing descriptions of male employee behavior including micromanagement and nude photos from a female employee’s participation in a holiday party, and a “cube crawl,” in which employees “drink copious amounts of alcohol as they crawled their way through various cubicles in the office and often engaged in unethical behavior.” Decent towards female employees.”

The news was so shocking and disturbing that several Activision Blizzard employees took to Twitter to share their stories. One of them was Jeff Hamilton, World of Warcraft’s chief systems designer, who admitted that work had essentially been halted on the game due to the emotional turmoil the suit had caused his team.

Related: If Activision Blizzard’s lawsuit shocked you, you didn’t pay attention

Hamilton wrote on Twitter: “I don’t know what to do. I don’t have all the answers. I can tell you, there is almost no work being done on World of Warcraft at the moment while this obscenity is being carried out. And it does no good to anyone – neither the players, nor the developers nor shareholders.”

Elsewhere in his long Twitter thread, Hamilton said he was “deeply disgusted by the horrible shock to my co-workers, friends, and colleagues,” but what really brought World of Warcraft to a halt was Activision Blizzard’s response.

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“Activision’s response to this is currently taking a group of global developers so angry and shocked that they can’t continue to make a great game.”

Activision Blizzard denied the allegations against it, saying the lawsuit “contains distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.” Frances Townsend, chief compliance officer, went so far as to send an internal email to Activision Blizzard employees, at times both acknowledging previous “atrocious actions” while simultaneously calling the lawsuit “undeserved and irresponsible.”

At the end of the Twitter thread, Hamilton points to over 30 former and current Blizzard employees who have also shared their personal stories online. These stories often reflected the allegations made in the lawsuit, describing a workplace that normalized sexual harassment and assault.

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About the author Sean Murray (4,269 articles published)

Freelance writer and contributor to The Gamer, Shaun hails from Toronto, Canada. If you ask Sean what he likes, he’ll say, “Robots, ninjas, donuts – in that order.”

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