California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard

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California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard
Seal of the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles.jpg
CourtLos Angeles County Superior Court
Full case nameCalifornia Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard

California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard is a current lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) against video game developer Activision Blizzard in July 2021. The lawsuit asserts that management of Activision Blizzard allowed and at times encouraged sexual misconduct towards female employees, that the company maintained a "frat boy" culture,[1] and that the company's hiring and employment practices were discriminatory against women.

After Activision Blizzard dismissed the claims in the lawsuit as false, more than 2,600 of the company's 9,500 staff signed an open letter demanding the company take the allegations seriously and make change. While Activision CEO Bobby Kotick later promised the company would internally review the allegations, employees were not satisfied by the response. Employees walked out on July 28, 2021, joined virtually by other developers and players across the industry. DFEH's lawsuit triggered a separate class action lawsuit by Activision Blizzard's shareholders at the federal level, asserting the company failed to meet its fiduciary duties under the Securities Exchange Act.

Coupled with allegations of misconduct and discrimination at game developers Riot Games and Ubisoft around the same time, the DFEH lawsuit is seen by analysts, academics, and media outlets such as The New York Times, The Guardian and CNN as forcing the video game industry to come to terms with the Me Too movement and consider the possibility of unionization to better protect workers.

Background[]

Activision Blizzard[]

Activision's headquarters in Santa Monica, California
See also: Activision Blizzard § History

Activision Blizzard was formed in July 2008 as a merger of Activision Inc. and Vivendi Games, a subdivision of the French media conglomerate Vivendi, which owned Blizzard Entertainment. The merger was influenced by the rapid growth of Blizzard's flagship product, the subscription-based massively multiplayer online game (MMO) World of Warcraft. At the time, Activision had yet to create any MMO games. Once the merger was approved, Activision Inc. rebranded as Activision Blizzard. Activision Publishing was established to house Activision's existing studios, and Blizzard Entertainment remained a division within the larger company.[2] Vivendi's share in Activision Blizzard was eventually fully acquired by Activision shareholders in 2014.[3] In February 2016, the company substantially expanded with the acquisition of King, the mobile game developer and publisher behind Candy Crush Saga. King became Activision Blizzard's third major division.[4] Since 1991, Bobby Kotick has served as CEO for Activision and Activision Blizzard.[2] Activision Blizzard is the largest North American publisher of video games based on revenue, surpassing Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive,[5] and reported over $8 billion in revenues for their 2020 fiscal year.[6]

Since around 2018, Blizzard Entertainment underwent corporate changes, such as the departure of Blizzard's co-founder Mike Morhaime, and a heavier focus on mobile gaming at the cost of Blizzard's more traditional PC gaming background. PC Gamer considered that some of these changes may be a result of the parent Activision's influence on managing Blizzard towards a more profitable business.[7] Jason Schreier of Bloomberg News reported on Activision's influence on the poor quality of the Warcraft 3: Reforged in 2020. Activision did not see much value in remasters at the time of its development in 2017, and instead pressured Blizzard to focus on newer games, according to Schreier. This led to the development budget for Warcraft 3 Remaster to be cut significantly, impacting the game's quality, and the Classic Games team within Blizzard to be disbanded after the game was released.[8]

Activision Blizzard's workforce is 80% male. The top level of leadership at the company exclusively consists of white men.[9]

Discrimination and sexual misconduct in the video game industry[]

See also: Video game developer § Quality of life, and Sexism and video games

Gender demographics in the video game industry have skewed towards men, particularly in contrast with the demographics of video game players. While companies have worked to improve diversity in hiring, the International Game Developers Association estimated in 2017 that only about 20% of the video game development workforce are women,[10] while the Entertainment Software Association estimated that same year that 41% of gamers were women.[11] The gender gap arises from a feedback loop, in which women are less inclined to join the industry due to lack of apparent representation both within the industry and within video games,[12] as well as typically accepted practices within the industry such as the use of "crunch time" and long working hours that typically disfavor female employees.[13] This situation has led to ongoing concerns about the discrimination and treatment of women within the video game industry.[14] The Gamergate controversy in 2014 raised awareness of mistreatment of women within the industry, alongside the larger Me Too movement in other sectors.[15][16]

Prior to the lawsuit against Blizzard, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) became involved with a similar matter at Riot Games. DFEH had been investigating Riot since 2018 on claims of workplace misconduct and discrimination, when in November 2018, a group of women employees sued the company's management for workplace discrimination and failure to handle the misconduct of other employees.[17] Riot had reached a $10 million settlement with the class action group by 2019,[18] but DFEH, based on their investigation, asserted this was too little and the class was due at least $400 million.[19] The class withdrew their agreement to the settlement, leaving the action in litigation as of February 2021.[20]

Ubisoft experienced similar conflict in 2020 and 2021. The French publisher, which has studios worldwide, was accused of allowing management and its human resources (HR) department to ignore sexual misconduct towards women employees for many years.[21] While some staff were fired, and top-level management stated they would be improving their processes to prevent this from happening,[22][23] several employees asserted in 2021 that little had changed, pointing to the fact that some of managers named by the investigations were reassigned to different studios rather than fired.[24] The French trade union group Solidaires Informatique initiated two lawsuits representing employees against Ubisoft in 2021, alleging they had not responded to reports of sexual misconduct.[25][26]

While the video games industry had experienced other isolated cases of sexual misconduct by one individual towards others, reporters for The Guardian, Time, and The New York Times have observed that the industry had not yet felt the weight of the Me Too movement that other entertainment industries had by 2021.[27][28][29] Brianna Wu, one of several women in gaming who faced significant harassment as a result of the Gamergate harassment campaign, said that the video game industry has had visible incidents of sexual misconduct and misogyny towards female developers in which the persons at fault were fired. However, she argued that the impacts of these events had yet to reach the same level of change as the Me Too movement had brought to other media industries, stating that "our industry has done nothing but window-dressing in getting rid of the harassers".[16]

Lawsuit[]

As a result of a two-year investigation, on July 20, 2021, DFEH filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court. The lawsuit alleges that Activision Blizzard has fostered a "frat boy" culture in which female employees endure regular sexual harassment and experience discrimination and retaliation.[1] DFEH sought an injunction to require Activision Blizzard to comply with state workforce protections, and to recover damages for female employees that would include unpaid wages, pay adjustments, back pay, and lost wages and benefits.[1]

The lawsuit contends that Activision Blizzard and its workforce, which is 80% male, contribute to a hostile atmosphere towards female employees. The allegations mainly focus on reports of workplace misconduct at Blizzard Entertainment, though also asserts similar problems occurred within Activision and its studios.[30] The complaint describes male employees playing video games during work hours while delegating their job to women employees, engaging in sexual banter and making advances towards female colleagues, and joking about rape.[1] Prominent executives and creators at the company allegedly "engaged in blatant sexual harassment without repercussions".[31] Within both Activision's and Blizzard's studios, management allegedly both allowed and encouraged "cube crawls", where male employees went from cubicle to cubicle, drinking heavily and making inappropriate advances towards and physically touching female employees.[32][30] An employee's hotel room, rented during the company's annual BlizzCon event in 2013, was reportedly nicknamed the "Cosby suite" by other employees due to the man's reputation for harassing women. This was said to be in reference to the Bill Cosby sexual assault cases,[1] though others claimed the name was chosen based on the room's rug pattern which resembled Cosby's sweaters.[33] A woman employee reportedly died by suicide during a business trip after suffering "intense sexual harassment" in the preceding days, which included employees sharing nude photos of her at a company holiday party.[1] The human resources departments allegedly did not keep reports of sexual harassment confidential, which as a result allowed managers and others to retaliate against employees who reported misconduct, such as by denying them promotions, transferring them to other departments, prioritizing them during company-wide layoffs, or preventing them from working on desirable projects.[30]

The lawsuit specifically named Alex Afrasiabi, the former creative director on World of Warcraft, as an individual at the center of several of these allegations. Activision Blizzard later reported that Afrasiabi had been fired for misconduct in mid-2020 after their own internal investigation found him and two others at fault for similar misconduct between 2018 and 2020.[34][30] Three other employees, including one known to be involved in incidents related to the 2013 "Cosby suite", were no longer working for the company by August 11, 2021.[35][36] One of these employees included Jesse McCree, who was the namesake of the Overwatch character McCree.[37]

Other parts of the complaint were focused on the discriminatory treatment of female employees, particularly women of color,[9] in hiring, pay, assignment, promotion, and firing and constructive dismissal.[30] Women were reportedly universally paid less and offered less stock and incentive pay than their male colleagues, beginning when they were hired and continuing throughout their employment. The lawsuit also alleges they had to work much harder to be promoted, or were passed over entirely. Some women employees reported being denied promotions due to fears they might become pregnant, being reprimanded for needing to go pick up their children, and being kicked out of lactation rooms by male colleagues who wanted to meet in the room.[1] Some factors alleged by the DFEH were in connection with poor reporting of workplace harassment, but the suit also contends that Activision Blizzard overall failed to properly consider diversity in hiring and promotion practices.[30]

The suit was filed under California's Senate Bill 973, which authorizes DFEH to file lawsuits relating to violations of the state's Equal Pay Act, and which passed in October 2020 and went into effect on January 1, 2021. The bill, authored by California senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, was intended to bypass complexities that had arisen during the Trump administration over the reporting of wage information to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Under the Equal Pay Act, companies of 100 employees or more are required to report pay data for specific job areas, segmented by gender, race, and ethnicity; this data is kept confidential to the state, but may be used to determine if there are pay discrepancies due to gender or race.[32][38] DFEH asserted "Blizzard's double-digit percentage growth, ten-figure annual revenues, and recent diversity marketing campaigns have unfortunately changed little. Defendants' compliance with California's broad workplace protections is long overdue".[32] According to Noah Smith of The Washington Post, DFEH normally does not pursue such cases, typically seeking to find settlements when it finds actionable issues. In the prior two years, DFEH only proceeded to take companies to court a few dozen times out of over tens of thousands of submitted complaints.[39] The director of DFEH, Kevin Kish, stated that "Our investigations and litigation have to be strategically targeted at remedying violations that affect as many people as we can reach. Our priority has to be on systemic violation of civil rights law, given the scope of what we have to do. We were given tools by the state legislature and we should be using them."[39] Dawn Knepper, an employment attorney, told The Washington Post that because the Equal Pay Act is relatively recent legislation, the DFEH's case against Activision Blizzard could set a major precedent for California's employment laws.[39]

The DFEH's complaint was expanded on August 24, 2021, to include temporary and contract workers in addition to permanent employees, as California law also was intended to protect temporary work rights as well. The amended complaint also accused Activision Blizzard of interfering in DFEH's discovery for the case, claiming that their HR department had shredded key documents they had requested. Activision Blizzard stated in response that "we have complied with every proper request in support of its review even as we had been implementing reforms to ensure our workplaces are welcoming and safe for every employee."[40]

According to Jason Schreier for Bloomberg News, the complaint's primary focus on misconduct in Blizzard Entertainment was due to the division treating its top developers and management as "rock stars", making them nearly untouchable by any complaint filed against them.[41] Blizzard had gained a reputation as both a highly creative studio and a desirable place to work, according to Schreier.[41] Some employees who spoke to Schreier stated that attitudes shifted in the company when World of Warcraft rapidly grew in popularity between 2003 and 2005, and this shift marked the onset of the problems named in the lawsuit. Top developers attending BlizzCon, the annual convention held by Blizzard with players, reportedly viewed women attendees not as players but as groupies, and came to expect sexual favors from them.[41] Schreier stated that this attitude continued to persist within Activision Blizzard through the 2010s in part due to the approximately 20% female demographic and the studio's pressure on employees to make personal sacrifices of time and salary for working at the prestigious studio.[41] As described by Vox's Aja Romano, this type of "rock star" attitude persists across major studios like Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft, and coerces newer hires to commit to long hours to show their dedication to the craft and the company or otherwise potentially be fired.[16] The male-dominated culture, particularly from those who grew up playing video games, can potentially bring a culture of "casual misogyny" with them which could then easily translate into a hostile workplace for women, according to Romano.[16]

The Washington Post's Shannon Liao also spoke to former employees, many of whom stated that Blizzard had a "drinking culture". The offices were well-stocked with alcohol, which led to the "cube crawls", and employees regularly became inebriated at company events like BlizzCon.[30] This type of activity had been reined in by 2019, with alcohol in the offices severely reduced and employees limited to two drinks at public events.[30]

Activision Blizzard employees speaking to Schreier said some complaints about the company's hostile environment went unreported because some senior management was known to disregard such incidents. Blizzard was also averse to reporting these problems to its parent Activision, which internally had been called the "Eye of Sauron", fearing retribution if the problems became known.[41]

Response[]

Activision Blizzard management[]

On July 21, 2021, the day the lawsuit became public, Activision Blizzard responded with a public statement that the allegations did not accurately portray the company's current culture. In the statement, they described the suit as irresponsible, the allegations as distorted and false, and the DFEH as "unaccountable state bureaucrats". The company alleged that DFEH did not engage in "good faith discussions" before opting to start legal proceedings, though DFEH wrote in their filing that they had not been able to resolve issues with Activision Blizzard in mandatory dispute resolution.[1][9][31]

Blizzard president J. Allen Brack, who was one of several executives named directly in the complaint, sent an internal email to all employees on July 21, stating that any of the behavior described in the lawsuit was "completely unacceptable", and encouraging employees to speak out to executive management or external support about any concerns they had with sexual harassment and discrimination within the company.[42] The letter reportedly upset some employees with its dismissive nature of problems within the company, and several sought Townsend's resignation.[43][44]

Separately, Activision executive Fran Townsend sent an internal letter to employees on July 23 that reiterated the company's public statement, saying "a recently filed lawsuit presented a distorted and untrue picture of our company, including factually incorrect, old, and out of context stories – some from more than a decade ago" and that the lawsuit was "truly meritless and irresponsible".[43] Townsend's letter raised concerns among employees, and Townsend held an internal teleconference that day with members of the Activision-Blizzard-King Women's Network, which she had been sponsoring. She explained her email in the teleconference by stating that she had been following advice given to her by the legal department, which she said had made the letter sound unlike her. Employees were not fully satisfied with her explanation, and later that day, Townsend stepped down from sponsoring the Women's Network.[30] On July 30, Townsend retweeted a news article critical of whistleblowers, which resulted in strong public backlash by people who felt it was inappropriate given the number of current and former employees who had come forward to describe their experiences at the company.[45][46][47]

On August 3, 2021, Brack announced he was leaving Activision Blizzard, and that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra would take over leadership of the company. Oneal had been a lead of Vicarious Visions, one of Activision's studios that had been recently merged into Blizzard; Ybarra was a Blizzard executive vice president.[48] Later that day, Activision Blizzard's global head of human relations, Jesse Meschuk, was also confirmed to have been fired.[49] During the company's quarterly investor call on August 3, CEO Bobby Kotick said that the company would take "swift action to ensure a safe and welcoming work environment for all employees", and that "people will be held accountable for their actions. That commitment means that we will not just terminate employees where appropriate, but will also terminate any manager or leader found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences".[50] Kotick further stated to the shareholders, "our work environment everywhere we operate will not permit discrimination, harassment or unequal treatment. We will be the company that sets the example for this in our industry. While we've taken many steps towards this objective already, today, we are taking even more".[51]

Employees[]

According to Bloomberg News's Jason Schreier, several employees sought Townsend's resignation after she sent the internal letter, which the employees felt was dismissive.[43][44] Several employees stated publicly on Twitter that they held a work stoppage on July 23, 2021, in response to the letters from Brack and Townsend.[52] Over 2,600 employees of Activision Blizzard signed an open letter demanding the company "recognize the seriousness of these allegations and demonstrate compassion for victims of harassment and assault", and concluding that "we will not be silenced, we will not stand aside, and we will not give up until the company we love is a workplace we can all feel proud to be a part of again".[53][44][54] A large walkout was planned by the employees on July 28, 2021, with the organizers stating that "we believe that our values as employees are not being accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leadership."[54] The organizers also demanded that Activision Blizzard end forced arbitration, implement new hiring and promotion guidelines across the company to address discrimination against women, publish all salary and promotion data across all demographic classes, and have the current diversity, equity, and inclusion task force hire a third-party organization to evaluate the company and determine causes and means to prevent future harassment and discrimination.[54]

CEO Bobby Kotick, in a letter sent to all employees on the eve of the walkout, called the company's initial response "quite frankly tone deaf". He said that the company's leadership would be "immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the company" and bringing the law firm WilmerHale to "conduct a review of our policies and procedures to ensure that we have and maintain best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace".[55] Kotick also said that the company would assure hiring managers were complying with diversity directives within the company, removing in-game content deemed to be inappropriate, and creating listening sessions[clarification needed] as safe spaces for employees to raise suggestions.[55] Employees responded to Kotick's letter that, while they appreciated that he acknowledged the poor initial response to the lawsuit, there had been no action mentioned towards the demands they had requested on their walkout announcement, and continued with the walkout on July 28, 2021.[56][57]

In addition to the matters brought up by the DFEH lawsuits, employees speaking to Axios identified that Activision Blizzard's HR departments had a significant hand in preventing any action to address sexual misconduct concerns. Employees told Axios that HR knew of the sexual misconduct reports for a long time but either failed to take action, protected those that were accused of sexual misconduct, or strongly discouraged employees that raised concerns by saying things like "this isn't a fight you want to fight".[58]

Among employee concerns was the engagement of WilmerHale by Activision Blizzard, as the firm is considered to specialize in anti-union messaging and union busting, including participating in preventing Amazon workers from unionizing.[59][60][61] Employees across the Activision Blizzard studios, including Activision, Beenox, Blizzard Entertainment, High Moon Studios, Infinity Ward, King, Sledgehammer Games, Raven Software, and Vicarious Visions, announced the formation of the ABK (Activision/Blizzard/King) Workers Alliance on August 3, 2021. The ABK Workers Alliance stated that Kotick's response was not sufficient to address the earlier demands made by employees in regards to resolving the workplace conduct and discrimination issues raised by the DFEH lawsuit. The Alliance rejected the use of WilmerHale as the auditing firm, due to their "pre-existing relationships with Activision Blizzard and its executives" and their past case work "discouraging workers' rights and collective action".[62] Internally, the Alliance outlined steps they could take as employees to help mitigate issues, improve communications between employees, and mentor new employees.[62] The ABK Alliance outlined the harsh conditions that many at Activision Blizzard employees working for quality assurance had, including 50 to 60 hour workweeks on average, being hired on contract and thus lacking benefits and employment security, and hostility towards transgender and other LGBT individuals.[63]

Shareholders[]

Company shareholders started a separate investigation to determine if company executives were following proper fiduciary duties under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 in the wake of DFEH's lawsuit and its impact on Activision Blizzard's stock price.[64] A formal class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the shareholders on August 3, 2021, in the United States District Court for the Central District of California, asserting that in light of the claims brought by DFEH's suit, Bobby Kotick and other senior management had failed to provide proper oversight to prevent the situations outlined in DFEH's suit, and that several of the past filings that Activision Blizzard made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) contained claims that were "materially false".[65] Among specific claims, the suit said that the company failed to inform shareholders that it was under investigation by DFEH, and that the company had knowingly took minimal actual against the sexual misconduct complaints while stating in their SEC filings that "such routine claims and lawsuits are not significant and we do not expect them to have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, or liquidity".[66] The suit continues that by withholding this information, the company's stock price was "artificially inflated", which negatively affected shareholders.[66]

A letter from shareholder SOC Investment Group to the management of Activision Blizzard criticized its response and ongoing attempts to mitigate the situation, as it does not go "nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity, inclusion, and human capital management".[67] Among concerns SOC raised were lack of means of addressing the replacement of management found to be complicit with the sexual misconduct accusations, including how this would affect bonuses or other benefits, and the use of WilmerHale to perform the internal review partially due to the firm having "a sterling reputation as a defender of the wealthy and connected, but it has no track record of uncovering wrongdoing".[67] SOC implored Activision Blizzard to improve diversity at the management level, tie future bonuses to manage to achieving goals related to diversity and improved workplace conduct, and to have a more thorough Equity Review that evaluates the entire company on concerns raised by all stakeholders including Kotick and the company's employees and customers.[67]

Players and streamers[]

Some players have canceled their subscriptions to games made by Activision Blizzard,[68] though as discussed by Kotaku and Axios, this raised concerns among current employees and some players that doing so might lead to layoffs that would negatively affect the employees they're trying to support.[69][70] Some World of Warcraft players have staged in-game protests and organized mass log-outs, or organized fundraisers for charities that support women and people of color in gaming and the technology industry.[69][71][72]

Several video game streamers on Twitch and other outlets, who had previously focused on Blizzard games, refused to stream these games after the lawsuit came to light, issued statements against the company, and joined in other boycotts and protests.[68][73][69] Popular World of Warcraft streamer Asmongold began incorporating updates on the lawsuit and criticism of Activision Blizzard into his WoW streams. Hearthstone streamer Allie "Alliestrasza" Macpherson chose not to publish exclusive details about a new card when the allegations became public, instead creating a video in which she expressed solidarity with employees of the company.[74] Streamers and other prominent members of the video game community urged players not to play any games made by Activision Blizzard on July 28, the day of the employee walkout, comparing playing such games that day to crossing a picket line. Prominent streamers including Brian Kibler and Sean "Day[9]" Plott supported the walkout by not streaming that day, or streaming games made by other companies.[75][76] Many members of the gaming community showed their support for the walkout with the #ActiBlizzWalkout or #ActBlizzWalkout hashtags on Twitter.[75]

At least three video game news websites, The Gamer, GameXplain, and Prima Games, stated they would not cover any Activision Blizzard gaming news until the situation was resolved.[77]

Others in the game industry[]

Several former Blizzard executives issued public apologies on Twitter. Co-founder and former president and CEO Michael Morhaime stated, "to the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you. I hear you, I believe you, and I am so sorry to have let you down".[78] Chris Metzen, former senior vice president in Blizzard, issued a similar apology on Twitter: "We failed, and I'm sorry", adding that "this is later than it should have been".[79] Other former Activision Blizzard employees, including Morhaime and members of Bungie and other Activision studios not at the center of the lawsuit, expressed support of the walkout.[80] Take-Two's CEO Strauss Zelnick stated that "we will not tolerate harassment or discrimination or bad behavior of any kind. We never have" and that their company strives to make options to deal with such harassment or discrimination available open to all employees.[81]

The lawsuit began to draw others outside of Activision Blizzard into the debate on workplace issues in the gaming industry. Nearly 500 employees of Ubisoft, which had similarly been subject to accusations of creating a hostile workplace for women in 2020, wrote an open letter in solidarity with the Activision Blizzard employees, stating that "it should no longer be a surprise to anyone: employees, executives, journalists, or fans that these heinous acts are going on. It is time to stop being shocked. We must demand real steps be taken to prevent them. Those responsible must be held accountable for their actions".[82]

In light of the lawsuit, new calls to push for unionization of video game developers arose. Jeff Strain, a former Blizzard employee, wrote an open letter calling for the video game industry to consider the need to unionize to protect workers from these types of management problems.[83] Carly Kocurek, an associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said that the response around the Activision Blizzard lawsuit was a "big deal" and could be turning point within the industry for unions to help protect workers right and assure fair treatment.[29] CNN reporter Rishi Iyengar said the case had the potential to be a "watershed moment" for the industry, as it puts not only the male-dominated field in the spotlight but also the practice of drawing on employees' love of gaming rather than paid compensation to coerce extra work out of them (such as during crunch time), a practice that Iyengar wrote was driven by the male-dominated workforce.[84] The Guardian's Kari Paul also reported on other industry analysts and academics who viewed the suit as a possible watershed moment for the industry.[85]

Impact[]

The lawsuit forced Blizzard to cancel its planned livestream reveal of an upcoming Hearthstone expansion in early August, as the company frequently seeds information through streamers before their own official broadcast, and these streams had boycotted Blizzard. Instead, the company posted an announcement related to the new expansion with minimal fanfare. Lead designer for Hearthstone, Dean Ayala, stated that "Having any celebration is a hard sell right now. I can assure you the only hesitation we have with moving forward with things like streams or card reveals is out of the respect for our co-workers".[73][86] The development team for World of Warcraft stated they would be removing content from both the main game and World of Warcraft Classic that is "not appropriate for our world" in light of the lawsuit, including in-game characters made in reference to Afrasiabi, and that their team is "committed to taking the actions necessary to ensure we are providing an inclusive, welcoming, and safe environment both for our team and for our players in Azeroth".[87] Casters for the Overwatch League opted to avoid saying the name of McCree, one of the game's playable characters, and instead used "the cowboy", following reports that the character's namesake, Jesse McCree, was no longer with the company in August 2021.[37] Subsequently, late that August, Blizzard confirmed it will change McCree's name to "something that better represents what Overwatch stands for", though will need to review their narrative state of the game to determine what the new name will be.[88] Blizzard stated that they will cease naming any characters in any of their games after employees in the future and will be "more thoughtful and discerning about adding real world references".[88] The Warcaft team within Blizzard also announced similar plans to rename characters that had been based on employee names following the Overwatch announcement.[89]

T-Mobile had sponsored both the Overwatch League and Call of Duty League, but about two weeks after the DFEH lawsuit was announced, reporters for Polygon and observed that both Leagues had removed all T-Mobile branding from the website and online broadcasts, and had covered up T-Mobile's logo on player uniforms. These sites believe that T-Mobile pulled its support of the Leagues due to the lawsuit, though they were unable to confirm with T-Mobile.[90] Both Coca-Cola and State Farm issued statements that they would step back from Overwatch League sponsorship and reconsider their position in light of the lawsuit.[91] Kellogg's stated they would not continue their sponsorship of the Overwatch League.[92] Sports Business Journal observed that IBM's branding was removed from all Overwatch League media, including the league's official partners' page and power rankings.[93]

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