Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
The popular party card game Cards Against Humanity has recently come into the ongoing conversation of harassment and toxicity in gaming. Toxic workplace allegations fielded by CAH employees have forced the company to release a statement that included one of its 8 co-founders, Max Temkin, stepping down from his position at Cards Against Humanity’s Chicago office as the group pursues a better and more inclusive workplace environment.
The Cards Against Humanity company released a statement regarding allegations of harmful toxicity in its workplace via its Twitter and website on June 23, 2020.
“Starting on June 6, several of our former employees posted reports on social media about a toxic work environment in our Chicago office,” The statement read. “Many of them centered on one of our eight co-founders, Max Temkin, who led that office.”
This spurred an investigation that resulted in Temkin stepping down from his position. Despite this, Max Temkin is still a shareholder in the Cards Against Humanity company due to agreements made beforehand.
In addition to Temkin’s exit from the company, the CAH group is taking steps to attempt to make a safer workplace for the rest of its employees.
“We’re hiring a specialist firm to review and improve all HR, hiring, and management practices at the company,” the statement continues. “Our goal is to make these practices more inclusive, transparent, and equitable. An outside organization will lead workplace training for all partners and employees of Cards Against Humanity, focusing on communication and unconscious bias at work.”
In respect to this transparency (or perhaps to get ahead of the situation), Cards Against Humanity also published answered alongside the statement in response to questions apparently fielded by Polygon. Given that this is not seemingly an article on Polygon’s website at the time of this writing, it could be something that was intended to be published later by Polygon themselves.
Regardless, we continue to see voices in the industry speaking out against sexual, mental, or physical abuse, such as in the case of sexual misconduct with an OPG group CEO or racist allegations against Mixer, and now Cards Against Humanity. The ongoing conversation about abuse in various sectors of the gaming industry doesn’t seem like one that good people are going to let be brushed under the rug anytime soon.