Is it another day ending in 'y'? Yes? Then Activision must be in the
news again, and not for anything game related.
So, you might have heard Activision has been having a bit of a to-do regarding its 'fair and ethical' treatment of its employees: you know, discrimination, harassment, workplace abuse. Its gotten them into a
bit of legal problems in California, and the stockholders (and the
SEC) are concerned because of how it affects the value of the company.
Thus, New York State has suggested that the company release a yearly
report detailing how many complaints vis-Ã -vis these issues the
company is dealing with, how much money they spend settling these
issues, pending issues, stuff like that.
All the sort of thing that the company would - obviously - like to
keep quiet about, but that stockholders (and employees, for that
matter) have necessary interest in. Activision's C-level is urging its stockholders to vote no on the proposal.*
Who wants transparency, after all? The best way to move on from issues
like this, after all, is just to bury your head in the sand and
pretend it never happened.
Oh, Activision.
Also, they're working hard at excluding a representative of the
AFL-CIO onto the board, because obviously the last thing you'd want is
to let any of those lowly employees (who have no trust in management
given recent events) have a voice in how the company is managed. That
the company has reputedly threatened employees with termination for discussing working conditions** is just the icing on the cake.
Oh, Activision.
Meanwhile, the stockholders approved Microsoft's buy-out of the
company (largely based on promises that the stock price would go up by
about 25%)***. The deal isn't final yet, though, since it still has to
be approved by the various regulatory agencies. Given all these issues
- and the fact that Activision has lost 30%**** of its active players
in the past year and has seen declined revenue***** - I'm surprised
Microsoft is still interested in the purchase. But maybe they're just intending to do a clean-sweep and fire every member of the C-level,
keeping only the talent and IP. It is probably the only way to make
this dumpster-fire of a corporation worth anything again.
But look, it's not all negative. Apparently they're making a new
Warcraft game, so that's cool. It's for mobile, but... what?!? You all
have phones, dontcha?******
Oh, Activision.
Kotick sounds pretty toxic. No doubt this microsoft deal was shoved through >to let someone else manage the shitstorm.
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