Published , by TJ Denzer
Published , by TJ Denzer
There’s been a major shift in leadership at Blizzard Entertainment. Following the ongoing issues of sexual harassment allegations and workplace toxicity that have resulted in a lawsuit being launched against Activision Blizzard, president J. Allen Brack of Blizzard has resigned and will be stepping down from his position today. Fellow leads Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will be taking up the reins of Blizzard Entertainment in Brack’s place.
Blizzard Entertainment formally announced this transition via its official Twitter and a website statement on August 3, 2021. Effective immediately, J. Allen Brack will resign from his position as president and head of the studio while Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra take his place as co-leads. Oneal previously served as a longtime producer and, eventually, studio lead of Vicarious Visions before moving over to Blizzard to oversee the Overwatch and Diablo franchises in January 2021. Meanwhile, Ybarra was with Xbox for 20 years, becoming Corporate Vice President of Gaming in his time there and heavily overseeing the Xbox Insider Program before jumping ship to Blizzard in 2019. He became vice president and general manager of platform and technology and was overseeing the improvement of Battle.net.
This move follows the recent events in which the state of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for what were described as reprehensible workplace conditions and sexual harassment. Brack and Activision’s president Rob Kostich would released their own company emails addressing the allegations as “deeply disturbing” and promised change. However, current Activision Blizzard chief compliance officer and Bush-era torture apologist Frances Townsend went aggressively defensive, calling the allegations “distorted and untrue” and the lawsuit “meritless and irresponsible”.
These events eventually culminated in an employee walkout at Activision Blizzard in solidarity with the victims and prompted a response from CEO Bobby Kotick (which many employees saw as an attempt at placation).
With former president J. Allen Brack’s exit at Blizzard and Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra stepping into the studio leadership role, it remains to be seen if this will provide real improvement. Kotick and Townsend still hold executive positions over Activision Blizzard, just to name a few. We will continue to follow this story as further details come out.