Treyarch Vaguely Gestures at Workplace Culture in Public Declaration on Harassment
Update:Miranda Due (associate producer at Treyarch) has posted on her personal Twitter account about the statement as well as the Kotaku article. She clarifies that the statement was published by women from the studio and requests support, rather than dismissing it.
This context can make things more interesting. Hopefully, this is the start of real change at Treyarch for the next year.
Original story: Treyarch Studios, one of the developers under Activision-Blizzard’s umbrella, has released a statement vaguely gesturing at the company’s larger workplace culture issues that have been on public display since earlier this year.
The statement was made on the studio’s social media. While the message that Activision has not endorsed discrimination as described in a lawsuit against Activision is nice it doesn’t really address any concrete actions Treyarch and Activision – Blizzard have taken on the matter.
The above lawsuit was made public in July, five months ago. It also happens to be a month since a report revealed that CEO Bobby Kotick intervened in the case against Treyarch Cohead Dan Bunting to remove him from his position due to alleged harassment. Bunting was forced to resign from his position at Treyarch after the report was published. It’s a good thing that one of the top people has resigned. However, I hope that this vague platitude of public statements is not coming from a place where there has been actual change. Activision-Blizzard CEO, Kotick, is still at the helm. Workers are leaving because they are unhappy with the company’s workplace culture.
Treyarch is one of Activision-Blizzard’s studios that has been working on the Call of Duty series. Its latest entry was 2020’s Call of Duty : Black Ops Cold War .
