Microsoft’s Phil Spencer says he’s “evaluating all aspects” of the relationship with Activision Blizzard

Microsoft’s Phil Spencer said he is “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard and making ongoing proactive adjustments” according to the Wall Street Journal. Reporting of alleged misconduct and offenses in the publisher. Spencer made the comments in an email to Microsoft employees and saw by Bloomberg.

Spencer wrote that he was “disturbed and deeply disturbed by the horrific events and actions” described in the report, which includes detailed allegations of sexual harassment within Activision Blizzard, as well as charges against Kotick himself, including his threatening to kill an employee. “This kind of behavior has no place in our industry,” Spencer wrote.

This email comes after PlayStation head Jim Ryan wrote a similar email to the employee which criticized Activision’s response to revelations of misconduct within the company. The allegations were made public for the first time after a lawsuit filed by the State of California in July, which Activision Blizzard initially classified as “distorted and in many cases false”.

“We respect all feedback from our valued partners and are interacting with them further,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said in a statement. given to IGN in response to Microsoft’s comments. “We have detailed important changes that we have made in recent weeks and we will continue to do so. We are committed to ensuring that our culture and workplace are safe, diversity and inclusion. We know it will take time, but we won’t stop until we have the best place to work for our team.”

To be more clear, both the emails from Sony and Microsoft, leaked to the press, were certainly written with the express intention that they would be leaked to the press. I’m extremely skeptical at the suggestion that either company will do anything substantive other than possibly save face by pulling what would be a mistimed advertisement for Activision games.

However, both statements put public pressure on Activision Blizzard. Since the WSJ report was released on Tuesday, Activision employees have asked Bobby Kotick to remove CEO and organize a company walk. More than a thousand employees have also signed a petition calling for his removal. An Activision blizzard The shareholder group also wants him removed. So far, Activision Blizzard’s board of directors has only released statements siding with Kotick. How long that lasts remains to be seen.