Blizzard President J. Allen Brack Exits Amid Sexual Harassment
Activision Blizzard said longtime exec J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment, is leaving the company.
Brack’s exit comes less than two weeks after Activision
Blizzard was sued by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing,
which alleged the company’s “pervasive frat boy workplace culture” resulted in
women employees being continuously subjected to sexual harassment and being
paid less than men. Brack was named in the lawsuit as being among company execs
who were allegedly aware of the misconduct and — despite repeatedly being
informed of the problems — “failed to take effective remedial measures in
response to these complaints.”
Brack “is leaving the company to pursue new opportunities,”
Activision Blizzard president and COO Daniel Alegre said in a statement
Tuesday.
With Brack out, EVP of development Jen Oneal and Mike
Ybarra, EVP and GM of platform and technology, have been appointed co-leaders
of Blizzard. The announcement didn’t directly address to the scandal currently
roiling the company, but Alegre said the two new Blizzard leaders have “great
character and integrity and are deeply committed to ensuring our workplace is
the most inspired, welcoming environment for creative excellence and to
upholding our highest game development standards.”
In the wake of the California DFEH lawsuit, Brack wrote in a
memo to Blizzard staff that the allegations were “troubling,” saying “the fight
for equality is incredibly important to me.”
According to the suit, a Blizzard employee complained to
Brack in early 2019 that employees were leaving because of sexual harassment
and sexism. Specifically, per the DFEH lawsuit, the employee told Brack that
women on the Battle.net team were “subjected to disparaging comments, the
environment was akin to working in a frat house, and that women who were not
‘huge gamers’ or ‘core gamers’ and not into the party scene were excluded and
treated as outsiders.”
Last Tuesday (July 27), Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick
promised that the company was taking corrective steps, telling employees in a
memo that “we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future. Our
initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were,
quite frankly, tone deaf.” A day later, more than 1,500 Blizzard employees
staged a walkout at the company’s Irvine, Calif., headquarters to protest the
alleged culture of harassment and discrimination.
Brack, former executive producer of “World of Warcraft,”
took over as president of Blizzard after co-founder Michael Morhaime left the
company in 2018. Brack had joined Blizzard in January 2006 after working on
“Star Wars Galaxies” at Sony Online Entertainment.
In a statement provided by Blizzard, Brack said: “I am
confident that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will provide the leadership Blizzard
needs to realize its full potential and will accelerate the pace of change. I
anticipate they will do so with passion and enthusiasm and that they can be
trusted to lead with the highest levels of integrity and commitment to the
components of our culture that make Blizzard so special.”
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