Nintendo Of America President Joins PlayStation And Xbox Counterparts In Criticism Of Activision Blizzard

We are never getting another COD on Nintendo consoles.

@Qwertyninty Is that really where your mind goes right now?

After he kidnapped that little blonde girl? Some nerve.

Really hope something is actually done with this. Activision will never change if they aren't pressured by other forces in the industry to clean up their act. Riot Games had its allegations essentially swept under the rug, so I'd like to see at least some justice for the victims.

You KNOW you’re in the wrong when Nintendo actually speaks for once.

Headline after a few years : ...Doug joins Activision as the new CEO.

@nessisonett it’s great he spoke out against their culture. My comment was half joking as in reality we might never get another Activision game. Either way I’m okay. We will see what comes of it.

It's good that they've taken the right stance on this.

@Dragonite89 : The only hypocrisy I’m seeing here is from you making baseless innuendoes of impropriety about another person, because the very same comment can just as easily be applied to you (minus the “high ranking” part).

Or are we to disregard presumptions of innocence and freely cast stones based on mere assumptions now?

I could see how some might say Nintendo is downplaying the issue by not making a public statement. But personally, I think it speaks volumes Nintendo isn't using this as a PR opportunity to gain clout by saying, "Look how bad Activision is and look how good we are by caring about our employees." Activision needs to be held accountable, for sure. But these public statements are superficial and usually only done out of obligation. The fact Nintendo is sending this e-mail internally, though, shows it isn't about public perception; they genuinely care about the welfare of their employees and want them to know it. Mad respect.

Wake me up when they take actions not stances, none of them will break partnership with Activison, they’re all setting up Kotick as the sacrificial “lamb” so they can pretend everything is back to normal at Activision while it most certainly won’t.

Man! Nintendo never speaks up about controversial stuff. While I understand where their usual stance comes from, it's a nice change of pace to see them taking sides, speacially when there is so much wrong

@Dragonite89 I don’t think too highly of people with too much power. That said those would have to be some super skeletons to compete with rape allegations.

@Silly_G This isn't relevant to the topic at hand, but I had to do some googling because I thought innuendos were exclusively sexual in nature. Turns out I was wrong. As an English major, I'm always looking to expand my vocabulary, so thanks for teaching me something new.

@Dragonite89 Are you saying he has skeletons in his closet “like most high ranking people” because of some sour grapes attitude about high ranking folks or is it because most people in general probably have a skeleton or two? I’m not currently high ranking where I am and my closet has its share. I’d be comfortable betting money that you have secrets of your own and you’re just doing exactly what you’re accusing him of.

@Qwertyninty and I would have been happy with a mobile port. But then again it woild tempt me to subscribe to NSO. So maybe I’m better off for it. Plus there’s that whole rape thing.

You know the situation is bad when villains like Bowser don't wanna be associated with the evil that's going on. All jokes aside, it really is sickening what is happening at Activision and the proper steps are not being taken.

@sixrings No offense, but that sounds rather judgmental--if not envious--of people in power. There's nothing inherently wrong with authority figures; leadership is necessary in almost all facets of life--schools, businesses, and societies at large. Someone needs to oversee projects and maintain structure. Granted, when a person is in power, it's easier to get by with abuse, and many people aren't morally equipped to handle the responsibility. But that doesn't mean it's impossible. There will always be Koticks in the world, but let's not forget there are Iwatas, too.

@Dragonite89 By that logic, if we all have skeletons why should anybody do anything good ever? Are we all just hypocrites?

Hoo Boy, the comments are already getting spicy.

@NatiaAdamo It goes well with my pasta

@Not_Soos I never said stop doing good, just don’t be too preachy to make yourself look good like you’ve never did something bad in your life.

@Tim_Vreeland At least he give her the respect like the Queen/Princess she is.

@NotGeno MAMA MIA!

@Dragonite89 Or maybe he's just some dude who went to college, worked his way up through a crappy company for 23 years, and now enjoys his job at Nintendo where he can make enough money to leave an inheritance for his family after he passes, and in the mean time set a good example for his kids.

@Qwertyninty honestly I care less about any Activision/blizzard game on Nintendo, cod is literally one of their worse ones also.

In all honesty, nothing from Activision as of late has really interested me. The last thing I was interested in was the Spyro Reignited Trilogy, but that was it.

But my problems with Activision began when they laid off almost 800 people, despite posting record profits for the fiscal year (and their then-incoming Chief Financial Officer got a $15 million sign-on bonus).

It got worse when they basically sided with China over the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests when they took away the prize money from Blitzchung and suspended him.

This latest incident is the final straw for me. Until they radically clean house, shake things up, and reorganize their business, I will never buy another Activision game again, even if it's Spyro.

@Not_Soos : As am I, and you’re welcome.

@Dragonite89 : I’m a little cynical about Bowser’s comment as well, but more so from it being a PR exercise as opposed to Bowser himself feigning sanctimoniousness. Unfortunately, people and companies are often subject to vilification through association (or even disassociation) and for whatever reason, the execs felt compelled to make a remark about Activision/Blizzard. So unless this was intended to send the message that Activision’s output was no longer welcome on Nintendo’s platforms, the fact that they would get involved makes little sense.

We need to live by and instil our values in our young and impressionable, not merely pay lip service while things go to hell behind closed doors.

Those accusatory words are thrown around so casually on anything these days I unfortunately see them in less weight when used on a real situation like this that actually merits it

Well, I hope they get what they need, a total overhaul, the guilty parties punished, and being treated like human beings in what was supposed to be a dream job for them.

Things aren't looking up for Bobby. It's not at all sad.

@Tim_Vreeland I don't think that she has ever complained or made a public statement about how Bowser treats her.

All jokes aside, now that the three console manufacturers have stated their stance on Bobby's actions, this leads to him getting the boot for good from Activision, and whoever encouraged/supported such behavior.

Truth be told, the only game I've bought from them is the Wii version of GoldenEye 007, though that was back in 2018 and it was so cheap it didn't even matter. I was interested in the Crash and Spyro trilogies, but after seeing this development and some previous ones, I'm not sure I should get them.

The company is going to fold, which will likely hurt the very people we want to help more than the top brass that will drift away into the sunset with golden parachutes. My opinion is I don't want to hear PR from one of Activision's partners (i.e. Sony, MS, Nintendo). Either drop their games or keep selling them on their platforms. That's the decision they have. It's not that difficult. Run your business the way you want to run it and let the stakeholders decide if you succeed or fail. Most consumers probably don't care about any of this, as they regularly support, without even blinking, companies with human rights violations up and down their supply chains.

This is why Crash, Spyro, Overwatch character, etc. will never come to Smash

Put some legs to this. What if it was your mother, or wife, or daughter or friend who was raped repeatedly (allegedly, though it seems likely) by an Activision executive? What would your reaction be? Would you give two ***** about the company's game output? Well, the victims were just that. This will continue until there is a financial cost, and end only then. Bowser is doing the right thing, motivation be d*mned.

I mean, words don't matter. A company either has a good culture via its actions or it doesn't. I work at a place where I get emails like this all the time from the administration, and then all kinds of racist, sexist bs goes on.

So, I believe Nintendo is great, and let's hope they are, but let's also not pretend an email is anything more than performative.

@Silly_G Like I was saying in my initial post, I think that's what sets Nintendo apart from other companies in this situation, though. The article says this was an internal e-mail sent out to all levels of the company that someone leaked publicly online. I don't think this was done for PR because no one outside the company was its intended audience.

Also, "sanctimoniousness" is a other new one for me--you're just a gold mine for words! I take it you've been on this planet a bit longer than me, lol.

Someone is certainly getting fired for leaking confidential emails.

All jokes aside, this isn't something we should be surprised about. I'm just glad Nintendo doesn't intend to publicly speak out about it.

And what did we expect him to say? There are no bad rich people in big business. Well, until they get caught and then the rest of them start clutching at their pearls and gasping. Yeah, OK.

@Qwertyninty
Good. COD is a shell of its former self and doesn't deserve to make money off of the Switch or its users. All it is now is an obligatory Madden-style annual release with little to no innovation except when it comes to monetization. Even the hardcore fans are annoyed with Vanguard which is pretty significant.

I stand firm on the fact that the last good one was Black Ops II which was coincidentally the second-to-last one released for a Nintendo system--being the Wii U (followed by Ghosts which nobody really liked anyway). But that was back when Activision cared about making good games which they clearly don't anymore.

@Dragonite89

I don't really see how Doug saying years of workplace sexual abuse, rape, and a suicide which were all covered up is both "distressing and disturbing" is him being preachy. Any way you slice it, what went on at Activision is objectively bad, and there's no indication the behavior is going to stop.

Generally speaking, I do believe people can be hypocritical, over-reactionary, and self-righteous when they themselves have probably done much worse. I don't think this is one of those cases, though.

I'm probably opening a huge can of worms here, but I think a good example of that is what happened with ZeRo, who is only now being welcomed back into the Smash community after a suicide attempt and many of the allegations against him were proven false. He made one mistake when he was a teenager that was discovered 7 years later, and people (including some Nintendo Life staff members) tried to peg him for life as a predator and a pedophile until his mental health spiraled. Unlike the Activision case, there was no rape attempt, nobody died, and this was an isolated incident and not something that occurred over a period of years. If this is what we were talking about, I would completely agree with you about people getting on their high horse when they've probably done just as bad, if not worse.

But even I, as someone who hates cancel culture and believes in second chances and tries to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, can acknowledge that this sort of thing shouldn't have happened and Kotick needs to step down. There's a difference between corporate greed and this. You can choose whether or not to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online if you think it's scummy, but the woman who was raped didn't have a choice. That's not to say I harbor ill will toward Kotick because I don't hate anybody as a person of faith, but this is bigger than skeletons in the closet--this is a boneyard.

@Dragonite89 What a completely baseless claim. Because he has a position of power he must have skeletons in his closet (possibly up to or including sexual harassment or rape?)? Chances are we all have some skeletons in our closet but that shouldn't keep anyone from doing or saying the right thing. Perhaps he's a good dude who has a generally good moral compass, is that not in the realm of possibility? Keep in mind this was an internal email. Its not "preachy" to send a good message and reinforce the fact that the entertainment company you help manage has its ship sailing in what seems to be a good trajectory.

@Not_Soos : Ah, yes. I should have gathered that from the extract being derived from an e-mail.

And you’re much too kind. Some may consider me youngish (young at heart, anyway ), currently 32, though I joke that I’m middle-aged (and I’m not too far off the mark, really).

They rarely speak out about industry politics/controversy

You know Its a issue if Nintendo is calling you out.

Then remove all Activision games from the online store. Its all very well Sony, Xbox and Nintendo saying they don't agree or support this but they still happily sell their games, at a push maybe i can let Sony off as they are locked in with a legal contract with COD but MS and Nintendo could just remove the games and say their consoles are no longer home to Activision games with Sony joining in once their contract is over. It just feels very hollow right now and then looking for browny points.

They are not going to do anything. They should stop with this nonsense to be honest.

Nintendo’s value? Oh please. It’s all about money for giant corporations.

Surely the shareholders at Activision have figured out by now that the Call of Duty games can still be developed without Bobby Kotick.

The fact that even Nintendo reported on this shows that Bobby Kotick has screwed up big time.

First Sony emails, now these. Even Nintendo feeling free to publicly confirm them (it's not s production NDA element, after all) does not help overlook how Fanbyte not only acknowledges that such info can only come from leaks, but proudly boasts finally getting one from their own "verified source". Yet doesn't name this source despite further turning to Nintendo for commentary on this.

And the working climate at Activision, the kind of thing it would at least be socially excusable to leak (and even then, ideally to authorities first and to an audience of rabid nerds like us second)? How many years did it take? But of course, employee abuse is nowhere near as hot as the dirt on a new unannounced game release or baits about new hardware revisions.

Props to Nintendo for their stance on the topic, but all fandoms and tabloids really can go where everyone is unilaterally directing Kotick at the moment. We lack about as much morality as Activision culprits do, even if we manifest it in arguably somewhat less disastrous contexts for the most part.

@Dragonite89 ackshually, I’m not sure it is your freedom to make baseless accusations.

Seems like knee-jerk virtue signaling.
I hope it still feels more reassuring than patronizing to the staff.

Considering how many times he abducted Princess Peach, Bowser is afraid he will be next.

Btw, Diablo 2 Resurrected and Overwatch are on sales.

The word service is cute from the big three, but as long as they continue to sell Activision games I feel it's more of a slap on the wrist. If they truly believe what they say they need to show some action against the company.

Quite frankly, I haven't played an Activision game since the Hong Kong controversy. Good riddance.

@Not_Soos @Not_Soos yes of course there are people in power who are good people. And perhaps a lot of the people I have issues with are people who were good people then they got power which they couldn’t handle and then their morals all fell off the rails. The problem is when you get to the top there is less and less accountability because people want to keep the gravy train going or are too scared to speak up. It’s a recipe for disaster in a lot of cases.

Either way I wish there was more Iwatas.

@Dragonite89 if only perfect people are allowed to judge people there would be no one in jail.

In general the majority of people who are not perfect haven’t done a few things in the lie lives because of whatever moral compass they subscribe to. One of those things is rape. As a result people are going to speak up about those things which doesn’t mean that they themselves are perfect but more than likely means they are not rapists.

@Qwertyninty by that logic neither is Microsoft or Sony after this year.

@Meteoroid I think the argument is that with enough pressure activision would have to fire the evil man which has brought in so much money for the evil company.Then the good people could get back to work and make their own money again.

I feel just firing the CEO isn’t going to solve their internal issues at AB. You would need to remove other members of the company that had any part in the system of harassment.

@MadmanMike agreed but one is better than none. Don’t let perfect become the enemy of the good.

@Qwertyninty I could not care less.

@Purgatorium They didn’t take a stance. This is an internal email that got leaked.

@Pod It’s an internal memo. Unless you can prove Nintendo had this leaked on purpose, there is no virtue signaling here.

@Spiders
I didn't mean virtue signaling to us.
I meant virtue signaling from managment to the staff.

Also, the headline here is somewhat misleading.
This appears to just have been meant as a reassurance to in-house staff, not as open criticism of a business partner of theirs.

@Spiders And that's not still a stance?

@Dirty0814 facts. Also COD can’t even fit on the Switch

@Qwertyninty COD couldn’t even fit on the Switch. No point in bringing it

@MadmanMike yes. Facts right here

I am gonna avoid every game from Activision on Switch for now until this gets resolved

Honestly I hope they go bankrupt and have to sell off their franchises. They higher people in leadership who's soul job is to make deadlines and budget at whatever human capital cost. That kind of environment just breeds abuse and negativity. This is what happens when gaming companies get to big, they loose the "for the love of the game" mindset and turn into soulless money factories.

@Meteoroid If they removed the games then it would seriously impact stock and it would cause some actual change, if the big 3 said they aren't restoring the games until Kotick is gone and there's some actual improvements then chances are that could happen. Going by how the staff are acting i can imagine most of that other "99%" would want this not to mention it wouldn't effect them anyway as they don't see a penny of the game sales.

@Purgatorium No. A stance would be delisting Activision Blizzard games. They’re probably furious this got leaked.

@Pod Who are they “signaling” to? Their employees? This wasn’t a tweet. It wasn’t even meant to be public.

@Spiders Nah, bro. It's still a stance.

@Not_Soos this literally is a PR stunt following Sony and Microsoft.

Sony is being sued right now too. I expect that same to happen to both MS and Nintendo next.

@Meteoroid I can assure you the Devs working there would happily see the games removed if it meant they weren't abused, threatened, raped and ignored. Until people like Kotick are gone then Activision will never be a nice place to work at, if the Big 3 removed the games from sale then that would make the Board blink and actually want to sort it out as money and stock is now being affected.

People have been boycotting Blizzard since stuff with Overwatch, people can still boycott them if they wish even if the games are aviable for sale.

Send in the Nintendo Ninjas!

I find some of these allegations hard to get behind to be honest. A death threat from 15 years ago that the police have never investigated? Members that aren't the CEO sexually abusing people so make the CEO the bad guy? I'm not saying he's a saint but he probably is happy to take this 300 million severance package and retire. You may all be playing into his plans and giving him another 300 mil to play with in retirement.

@Zacattack99
...You mean, other than the fact that the last fighter has already been announced, and there are no plans for any more?

@Spiders
Yes, their employees.
That's why they are the ones mentioned in the comment.

Nintendo is welcoming everyone. Please give me a job and I will resurrect F zero, pilotwings, 1080, wave race xxxx

@Spiders Oxford defines Stance as "the attitude of a person or organization toward something; a standpoint.". And that's exactly what Nintendo and Bowser did with this email.

@Savage_Joe I know what words mean. The context is completely being ignored. 1) Having a stance in private is not having a stance... this was an internal memo. 2) It’s a company policy they’re legally obliged to have. Calling it a “stance” to mention it or agree with it or enforce it is disingenuous.

Is a time clock “a stance against tardiness”? Is paying your employees “a stance against poverty”? Is the on-campus cafeteria “a stance against world hunger”?

Yes, but really, truly, and deeply, no.

@Spiders perhaps you are the one missing the point. The stance on something doesn't have to be public. You can have your private stances. What you think and believe about marriage, preferences, pregnancy and all of that are your stances. You don't have to tell me what they are as long as you have your own understanding and beliefs about them. Your actions, or inactions, will tell me more about your stances than what you say publicly. Same thing with this "internal" email from Nintendo.

@Savage_Joe I think it works more like Schroedinger’s Cat: it’s not a stance until you open the box. Activision had the same stance “in the box”, as does every legally operating business in the West, for all the good it did.

You could argue it’s a stance now that it’s leaked — I’d still disagree, but at least it makes sense. I think arguing everything is intrinsically a stance is, well, it’s politicization. To that mindset, everything is a stance and we’ll just keep going around in circles.

Of course, they HAVE to virtue signal otherwise sjws will be mad

@Jersa7Darkangel, I mean for the next Smash.

3 Big Studios are just doing PR if they really wanted substance they say or do more like bann any Activision/Blizzard games from their platforms. This would send a immediate message to Activision/Blizzard Bottom Line FAST.

And now Sony is getting sued again for sexual harassment, that is Sony for you they are just like Activision, they are lying two faced hypocrites. This is one of the many reasons why I hate them.

@Qwertyninty
If this is becomes the reason they dont bring their games to nintendo consoles. We dont even need them.
Bowser, i salute! For saying it like this.