The truth about Blizzard

0:01 Hi guys, it's me again. Today we're going to talk about the revelations recently that have come out about the Blizzard sexual assault lawsuit investigation controversy and everything that happened in 2021 2022. Now for anybody who was living under a rock then Blizzard went under a completely cataclysmic level of accusations. things ranging from uh you know like assault at the workplace causing an employee to kill themselves from uh employees you know allegedly stealing breast milk out of the uh you know out of the employee refrigerator and the implication of course is that they're drinking it like Homelander or something. And so all these crazy, outlandish, insane accusations, wow guys, big surprise. It

0:48 turns out that a lot of them seem to be [ __ ] Uh they found no evidence for many of them. They found that some people retracted their accusations. And if you go through a lot of filings with the California uh you know the the department that were investigating them, one of the points of failure that Blizzard had was the fact that they had a bunch of white men that were running the company. Oh my god. Well, if you've got that, it must mean that you've drinking everybody's breast milk, too. Well, it sure seems like that's not the case. So anyway, I wanted to talk about kind of and break this all down and look and contextualize all of it. Like whenever this happened, obviously, I think that it really was the perfect storm for Blizzard because I mean at the time Shadowlands was a piece of [ __ ] This was the current WoW expansion.

1:33 Overwatch was garbage. People hated Overwatch. Heroes of the Storm was dead. You would say Starcraft is dead, but that would imply that Blizzard knows what Starcraft even is. Uh, and basically every other Oh, Warcraft Reforged came out and it was terrible. Basically, Blizzard instead of couldn't miss, Blizzard couldn't hit. They were getting every single thing wrong in every single game. And this was coming off of the heels of Battle for Azeroth that was also a piece of [ __ ] So, basically, the amount of hostility, animosity, and frustration towards Blizzard was at an all-time high. Like, it was never going to be, you know, any better, any worse than this. Then on top of that, Final Fantasy 14, you know, they kind of they they they finally kind of come into their their own. They

2:19 they're now are making their games the way that they want to. The game has its own identity. It's no longer derivative or, you know, vestigial WoW systems and it's really its own game. So, you have a lot of people, including me, uh, that moved over and started playing Final Fantasy 14 at the time. And I think what happened is that that happened. The sexual assault lawsuit happened. And you have to remember that like 2021 whenever all these things were happening all at the same time. This was like peak woke, right? It was like this is the point where it was believe all women. Uh every accusation is a conviction. And you know if you ask questions or ask for evidence, you are basically a rapist. So um you know and and you had an entire culture that was you know created around enabling this. And I think that that culture, one of the biggest victims to

3:06 it was Blizzard. Now, one thing I can say too, though, is that I don't think that all of the accusations were fake. I think that um I I think that sexual harassment, this is going to sound maybe a very black pill thing to say, but I think sexual harassment is a um sexual assault even is a uh it's an outcome of the human condition. Uh every company, every group of people, like how many of you guys know somebody and any organization that you've been in where like something weird like this happened? I think that this is just what happens when men and women get together and when women and women get together you have different problems and whenever men and men get together you have different problems like basically people people have problems right the human condition is imperfect and so I do think that like maybe 20 30% maybe even 40% of some of the accusations made against Blizzard uh

3:52 were accurate and I think that they were true and I think Blizzard should have been held accountable for that but I think that a lot of the more outlandish ones the uh you know employee killing herself the breast milk stuff some of the like the Cosby room, you know, all the like really extreme stuff, a lot of that stuff probably wasn't true. And we're not really 100% sure on this, right? But like uh you know, the the California government and independent investigations and also you have people coming out and then taking back what they were saying. I mean, you put all these things together and you're starting to come to, you know, a bit of a conclusion that maybe this didn't happen the way they said it did, right? And so if there's literally no evidence that can be found by anybody, including the government, because you got to keep in mind that an independent investigation, I don't want to go too

4:37 far off in this tantrum, but it's important to keep in mind, an independent investigation does not have the power of discovery. They only have the power of basically um you know like u surrender. So like if you surrender information to them, they will be able to use that information, but they cannot legally compel you to you know, use information. They can't necessarily go and get deleted files. They don't have the same type of forensic capabilities that a government does. But even the government of California was not able to substantiate a lot of these claims and a lot of this evidence. So that would lead me to believe that a lot of this probably didn't happen exactly the way that it said that it happened. Now, also there's the other culture of the frat boy culture, right? And in my opinion, I don't think this is a bad thing. Maybe this is me. Maybe this is episode 3,957

5:25 of me being a chud, okay? But I don't think that frat boy culture is fundamentally a bad thing. I don't think that, you know, if you have a bunch of guys acting like young guys or even old guys that also generally act like young guys still, um, you know, like they they all get together and they act like [ __ ] they're drinking, they're, you know, saying things that are crass, inappropriate. And I'm not talking about sexually harassing employees. I'm just talking about using coarse language and, you know, saying the kinds of things that guys say, right? Um, these types of things are really not a bad thing. And I think that culturally for a while, for like a good maybe five or 10 years, I'd say starting in 2014, I would say ending in 2024 with Trump being elected, there was a idea that this level of like masculinity was almost synonymous with

6:12 being bad, being problematic, being something that needed to be fixed, a problem that had to be solved. And I think that now once, especially because this is what happened, right? You go back and you look at the old pictures of Alexstrazza, right? Okay, that she's the the dragon the red dragon goddess in World of Warcraft. And you know, I get I guess what the red dragon goddess in World of Warcraft looked like in the year 2007, right? I mean, this is obviously the hottest [ __ ] chick with a chain mail bikini. Then they remake her obviously for Dragonflight and this came right off the heels of this big sexual uh sexual harassment lawsuit. And um you know, now she's wearing way more clothes, she's like totally toned down, boobs are smaller, you know, all these things. And I told people, I was like, "Listen, guys, like, let's let's be a

6:58 little bit pragmatic here, okay? Do you really think that they're going to right off the heels of all these allegations?" And also in the cultural climate, the main box art character is a big titty pretty dragon girl with a chain mail bikini. Do you really think they're going to do this? No, they're not. It would be incredibly based if they did, but it did not happen and it never would have happened. So, it seems like this was a hit job that was done by a lot of the HR types. I think it was done also by, you know, people that are in like Blizzard was always I mean, let's be real, guys. Blizzard was a Chud company. It absolutely was. They made games for Chuds and it was [ __ ] amazing. We had an incredible 20 years, didn't it? It was great. But things changed and I think that fundamentally the culture

7:44 changed so much that they found themselves in a position because they did mismanage World of Warcraft and I think this had nothing to do with women or, you know, like woke or anything. I think it just [ __ ] the game up. And I think that, you know, you have stacking debuffs and eventually so many stacking debuffs put you in execute range. And I think that really that sexual assault lawsuit really did execute the uh, you know, the credibility of the company. And also the capacity of the company to make a good product. I don't really think that anything that they've made ever since then has been really that great. Overwatch is fine. Um, you know, World of Warcraft Classic is is fine or retail is fine. Uh, but I mean nothing is like special, right? Nothing has like the same type of like, you know, cultural relativity that World of Warcraft originally had or Diablo III

8:30 had or uh Overwatch had, especially Overwatch, right? People see characters from Overwatch and they say, "Oh, wow. She's from a video game. I didn't even know that." And that's where we're at. Yeah. They didn't say that in 2018 when the [ __ ] came out. It was a popular [ __ ] game. Everybody knew about Overwatch. Now people don't even know where the characters came from. So anyway, um this is a big problem. It's a huge problem and I think it's really sad to think about it. I in a way feel guilty. I, you know, because obviously I was a big person who pushed this, I don't completely feel like I was wrong in a way, but I think at the same time, you know, given the situation and everything, it does feel bad to know that, you know, like the position that I was in, you know, I I believed a lot of this stuff and I still believe at least

9:15 some of it probably actually did happen. But at the same time, you know, whenever you find out that you were effectively co-opted by a lie, I think everybody was, uh, it can be very frustrating and it can be upsetting and it can make you feel stupid and it's annoying that that happened. And I think that fundamentally now what what one of the worst things about this is I think this is the the worst problem is that whenever one of these big controversies happens and then it manifests into effectively nothing and it's even recanted and taken back. I think that what that does is it poisons the well for future survivors, for future victims to be able to come forward and talk about bad experiences that they had. Uh I might be a chud. I might be an [ __ ] I might be a bit of a sexist, but I don't think anybody should expect to go to work and be

10:01 sexually harassed. I don't think anybody should expect to be touched without their consent. And I don't think that any of those things shouldn't warrant you getting fired. I think if you treat a person that way, if you invade a person's personal space, if you grab them in a way that's inappropriate, I think you need to leave the company. That's just not something that we do in civilized Western society. And I think that that's been the case for a really long time, and that's a good thing. But at the same time, I think that you need to draw the line and understand where a mixed signal or maybe an accusation isn't necessarily the truth necessarily, right? I'm not saying it isn't always the truth, but sometimes it's not. And so, um, I think that really this should give people another reminder to trust, but verify. It's important to make sure that we listen to what people who are,

10:46 you know, potential survivors or people who are uh, you know, victims of these types of behaviors. we have to listen to them and at least to a certain degree understand what they're saying to be potentially true in order to investigate and figure out whether it actually is. But at the same time, I think that especially then and even now, we need to take ourselves away from the perspective of just looking at it from the dimension of okay, well, you know, this person said this, let's take it with zero evidence, right? And whenever you really go back and you think about it, and this is something that's important to keep in mind, what evidence really was presented, what evidence was really out there that Blizzard had all these huge problems? It was really just people saying this, right? There were no real pictures. There were no videos. There was no uh

11:32 chat messages and anything that was leaked out or anything like that. Uh it was just simply a uh you know, basically a he said, she said situation. And so I think that what happened now is that you know like we've had that happen and and now there are people that come forward and they do say like hey I was taken advantage of abused etc. And because of the bad actions of seemingly the people in California and also Blizzard uh making these accusations or embellishing them seemingly um you know now it's going to be even harder for people that are legitimate to be taken seriously. And I think that's a very very sad and bad thing to have happen. So really to me, I am just disappointed in this whole thing. Uh I'm disappointed to see what's happened. Uh I don't really think that, you know, like if this hadn't happened, Blizzard would still be making games

12:18 that are on the same level of orv, you know, like the Warlords of Reinor cinematic. Like I I don't think that really would have happened either way. But at the same time, I think that it definitely would be better than it is now. And the more that I read the way the California filings, you know, almost demonized the idea that they had a certain, you know, dominant uh, you know, gender or ethnic group that was running the company and they looked at this as like an intrinsic problem. Uh, I realized that this seems to be a hit job. This seemed to be a instance in which they wanted this company to comply with an ideology and the company was not complying with the ideology and then they weaponized different complaints and different uh you know legislative and legal and administrative and judicial things to punish them for not

13:05 acquiescing and not basically playing along. And I think that's really sad to see happen especially whenever you have a lot of people who lost their jobs over this. Obviously Blizzard, you know, it's like you used to a lot of people like every game dev that I know, right? Or anybody that I knew that got into gamedev or or whatever, they would always tell me like, "Well, the dream job is to be able to work at Blizzard, right?" Well, now you don't want to work at Blizzard because people ask you like, "Okay, so who is drinking the breast milk?" Right? And it just, you know, it it's not as exciting as people that want to know what the new WoW expansion is. Okay. So, it's a little bit um awkward, you could say. So, um that's really the video I wanted to talk about. Um, you know, right now it it's always going to be I think it'll forever be a he said she said situation. I think many of the accusations probably were to some degree

13:50 true, but at the extent that they were uh, you know, uh, presented, it's probably not accurate. And it seemed like Blizzard was not acquiescing to the, you know, woke identity, politics, agenda stuff. And this was, of course, evidenced in, of course, what I said before, the filings, right? This was defined as a problem. And um fundamentally I think that there is a war on uh you know that type of culture and the people that use uh these types of rules will do this and they will weaponize and pull every lever they possibly can. And I think that it's important that us that are normal people, right, have to make sure that we have our guard up and not let these people subvert us or lie or take advantage of us like they have many times. And I think this is just one more example of it. and I wanted to make this

14:36 video and talk about it and just kind of set the record straight at least the best that I can because I talked about it a lot whenever it happened. So, I'd be curious to hear everybody else's thoughts on this and what everybody else thinks. And uh at the end of the day, um you know, I'll be keeping up with this as you know, more pieces of information arise, but ultimately it's just really sad to see what happened. And um I hope that you know, I hope things can get better and I hope obviously we can move past this hysteria. I think that we already are as evidenced by the amount of blowback and hostility for, you know, these accusations now, but it's a long road to go and we're not there yet. But I'm glad to see at least one of these things that was [ __ ] be put to bed. So anyway, guys, that's about it. That's it. Um, wow. How about that? Who could

15:22 have expected all these outlandish stories were actually seemingly mostly embellished? So anyway, thank you all very much for watching. Curious to hear what everybody thinks in the comments and I will talk to you all in the next one. Peace.