As reported by IGN, EA executive vice president and chief operating officer, Laura Miele, called out leaders in the game industry and said those "who fall short of basic standards" should go.
She didn't say any names specifically, but it may be a low-key way to call out Activision Blizzard over toxic culture. I'm not in their studios to experience this myself, but if there is negligence going on resulting in lawsuits... because leaders don't make it a point to keep standards up as far as what they won't allow to go down, then they need to be called out.
It doesn't matter if it's aimed at Activision Blizzard, someone else, or a combination that includes Activision Blizzard... so not saying names was good to an extent. If there's a point to be made based on valid reasons, then it's good that she spoke out without being specific so that all studios take a look at what's going on around the workplace (all companies should regardless of the industry).
From my personal experience, and from the standpoint of the average working-class person, it sucks to work under those conditions. It sucks to work under leaders that expect you to take care of certain objectives on the ship while they sail it into the rocks, over a waterfall, or allow certain crew members to sabotage the crew.
There are people at these companies because they believe in the company, they want to grow with the company, I've seen people even rep game studios outside of work (wearing shirts and the whole nine). That's serious pride when you think about it, but a toxic culture can strip you of any desire you may have for that. What takes place of that pride could either be a shrug of the shoulders where employees just work the job in numb mode for the money, which can affect passion/creativity until something better comes along or... they could become disgusted at the simple thought of coming into work and it shows.
When someone reaches that point of disgust, it could either result in them preparing to leave or they could end up bumping heads with others out of frustration. Then the person that was affected by the toxicity is falsely identified as... the problem. The great resignation wasn't fueled by the pandemic alone, no one wants to go to the workplace and deal with unnecessary crap if they don't have to.
If all it takes are proper standards to prevent this from happening with some of your team members, that's a plus, especially when those standards apply to everyone. I've seen enough situations where leaders have looked the other way in terms of certain team members at their company, while others either have to walk that fine line or have even more stress put on them due to harassment or... to make up for the lack of work being produced by the manager's favorite.
It's not just harassment in terms of bothering someone, we're also talking about sexual assault allegations. Activision's CEO Bobby Kotick, allegedly knew about sexual assault allegations and didn't report them. If the allegations are true, that's defeating as h-e-double hockey sticks, because complaints are falling on intentionally deaf ears. I have to be specific about if allegations are true, because false allegations do exist (and when they're exposed to be false, too little is done as a result to punish such a serious allegation most of the time).
Either way, this story definitely motivated me to write a dear developers article because it needs to be something business owners in and outside of game studios need to keep in mind. Your ship and your overall business is more sound when standards are in place and no one gets a pass for breaking the rules.
Check out the article from IGN... here!
