Bungie Issues Statement On Activision Blizzard Harassment Allegations

Destiny 2

Bungie

This week, news broke of a lawsuit being filed against Activision Blizzard by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing regarding female employees that were reportedly overlooked, underpaid and harassed at the company, and a new document was released based on a two year investigation. It contained details of reported stories from women ranging from frustrating to sickening, and Activision Blizzard has simultaneously pushed back on what they call many “distorted, and in many cases false ” accusations from “state bureaucrats” while also promising to do better and take all claims seriously.

The story has been widely spread around the internet as some fans call for boycotts of Activision Blizzard projects and other women have been speaking up both to verify their mistreatment at the company, but with many others saying this kind of treatment is widespread across publishers and developers all over the industry.

One company has decided to address the issues publicly, given their past relationship with Activision Blizzard. That would be Bungie, who partnered with Activision to launch Destiny back in 2014 after they left Microsoft and Halo behind. While the partnership resulted in the successful launch of a mega-franchise, it was not without issue, and Bungie very publicly split with Activision in 2019.

Without naming Activision, Bungie issued a statement about the claims and reinforced its own commitment to creating a welcoming environment for women and minority groups. I can’t embed the entire Tweet thread, which was also linked to in the “This Week at Bungie” news post, so I’ll quote it below:

“Bungie is built on empowering our people no matter who they are, where they are from, or how they identify. We have a responsibility to acknowledge, reflect, and do what we can to push back on a persistent culture of harassment, abuse, and inequality that exists in our industry.

It’s our responsibility to ensure this type of behavior is not tolerated at Bungie at any level, and that we never excuse it or sweep it under the rug. While the accounts in this week’s news are difficult to read, we hope they will lead to justice, awareness, and accountability.

We have a zero-tolerance policy at Bungie for environments that support this toxic culture, and we are committed to rooting them out to defend those who are at risk. Women, POC, and underrepresented communities have nothing to gain by reliving their trauma. We believe them when they come forward with reports of abuse or harassment.

We don’t pretend that Bungie is perfect and that no one has experienced harassment while working here, but we will not tolerate it and will confront it head on. And we will continue to do the work every day to be better. Our goal is to continue to improve the experience for everyone working at Bungie and do our part to make the gaming industry as a whole to be more welcoming and inclusive.”

Destiny 2

Bungie

The general sentiment from Destiny fans has been something like “no wonder Bungie left Activision” or “thank god they got out when they did!” We have not heard reports of specific instances of harassment at Bungie when it was with Activision, and nothing to say specifically that was a factor in why the split happened. Activision reportedly believed Destiny was not making enough money for them (at least compared to a mega-giant like Call of Duty), while Bungie believed revenue was just fine, and were more concerned with the blistering pace of content the Activision deal demanded, a huge expansion every year and sequels developed at the same time.

Bungie has started forming inclusivity clubs over the past year or so, Women at Bungie, Black at Bungie, Trans at Bungie, to help those groups find support at the company. Like Bungie says, it’s likely not a perfect workplace, but the general sentiment I see from there (I know/follow more Bungie employees than most) is pretty positive about the conditions there.

Whether any current Bungie employees are involved in the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard is unclear, but it’s possible, given the company’s time working with them, and the fact that some current Bungie employees used to be with Activision Blizzard.

What this lawsuit will yield remains unknown, and we don’t know how long this process will take. We’ll see what further steps Activision Blizzard takes to address this, and see if Bungie continues to live up to its own promises not to be the next industry cautionary tale.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series, and The Earthborn Trilogy, which is also on audiobook.