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Activision Blizzard fired 20 employees following harassment allegations

Activision Blizzard fired 20 employees following harassment allegations

US publishing giant Activision Blizzard has apparently fired 20 members of staff following accusations of harassment and misconduct.

That's according to the Financial Times, which reports that the firm sent out a letter to employees on Tuesday, October 19th, though the company's chief compliance officer and US Homeland Security vet Frances Townsend hasn't named any of the staff who have been fired for legal reasons.

She did, however, did say that developers and supervisors are amongst those whose jobs have been terminated, but said that no one from the board and management has been given the axe.

The letter to staff also said that Activision Blizzard had hired 19 people to its ethics and compliance team.

“We call it as we see it,” Townsend told the FT.

“It doesn’t matter what your rank is, what your job is. If you’ve committed some sort of misconduct or you’re a leader who has tolerated a culture that is not consistent with our values, we’re going to take action. The impact on the business is not a consideration.”

This comes in the wake of a California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) lawsuit against Activision Blizzard that was filed in July accusing the company of fostering a toxic working culture.

Said lawsuit could be in trouble following an alleged ethics violation with DFEH's attorneys.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.