Activision President Rob Kostich Holds Town Hall Meeting With Approximately 2000 Employees

On Thursday, August 5, Activision president Rob Kostich held a town hall meeting with Activision employees. It is unknown if any King or Blizzard employees were present, according to our source. This is the second meeting that higher ups have held to address the ongoing cycle of allegations and lawsuits against the company, though this is the first to our knowledge that has been held for one part of the company specifically. 

According to our source, who asked to remain anonymous, Kostich was the primary speaker at this meeting, held through the company’s new meeting platform BlueJeans by Verizon, rather than Zoom. Other Activision executives also spoke at the meeting. “Today is not going to be our usual town hall,” Kostich reportedly said. “Today we are going to focus on the matters that are most urgent.”

Kostich went on to discuss the results of the listening sessions the company had put in place of continued all-hands meetings. “We went through about nine sessions,” Kostich said. “That was about nine hours of dialog.”

Though Kostich reportedly said that “everything we learned in those sessions is going to be shared in great detail,” he proceeded to remind the employees in this meeting of their confidentiality agreement. 

After acknowledging that the demands of employee groups had been made clear, our source told us that Kostich brought up a slideshow presentation with the Activision values on it. Kostich said that the company is “not living up to our values right now,” and that it needs to “treat everyone with dignity and respect,” and “drive more diversity and gender equity in our ranks.” 

Kostich did not provide any specific plans on how to do this other than “making sure we have training in every level of the organization.” What kind of training and by who was not mentioned, according to our source. Similarly, when asked about WilmerHale, the union-busting law firm ABK hired to investigate the toxic workplace claims, Kostich said that “we hear your concerns,” but did not elaborate further. 

On the subject of mental health and HR escalation, Kostich encouraged employees to “work with your manager.” 

“There are a lot of frustrations we heard in terms of coverage from an HR perspective,” Kostich reportedly said. “Please know you have a very safe way to escalate any and all concerns all the way up to me.”

Activision Vice President and People Officer Suzie Carr spoke next. According to our source, Carr said that Activision will be providing employee sessions with “trained crisis experts” starting as soon as Friday and Monday for US employees because “people want professional help and to see professional experts.”

International employees will apparently have access to similar sessions based on the resources in their region. “These offers are in place for all our employees, both men and women,” Carr said.

David Stohl, the current head of Infinity Ward, spoke after Carr. He reportedly started by saying that the company is much larger and different from when he started, before going on to thank those that have come forward with their experiences of abuse and harassment at the company. 

“I want everybody to know who was so brave to share their stories in the feedback sessions, that meant so much to me,” Stolh allegedly said. “If you feel like you don’t have a place to go, you can reach out to me.”

He also said that employees that want to talk to the narrative team at Infinity Ward should do so, as there have apparently been requests to broach the toxic environment and content of games with them. He then moved on to addressing the toxicity in the studio and Call of Duty. 

“Toxicity is a huge problem and something we want to adress to make it more accomodating for people with diverse backgrounds,” Stohl said, according to our source. He also promised to have something “funded and built” to fix in-game chat toxicity, along with stating: “I’m fully committed to making Activision the absolute safest, best place to work.” He also did not elaborate further on how he plans to go about making good on these promises. 

Call of Duty general manager Johanna Faries spoke after Stohl, stating that all of this had hit her very hard and that “it’s not something that is simply going to pass, we are all going to be carrying this burden.”

Faries related her own experiences with harassment and sexism, saying: “I want everyone here to know if you’ve been impacted by any of the events, I am feeling for you. Your experiences are real. Your call for progress is certainly warranted.”

Next, Faries moved on to the topic of crunch and overwork at the studio. “The feelings of overwork, the feelings of crunch, are not lost on us,” Faries said. “While Call of Duty is important for all of us, it is more important that you are healthy.”

Our source isn’t entirely sold on Faries’ words, however. “This gives me a lot of mixed feelings since I’ve been crunching for so long, and while those words are nice, I doubt if any changes will happen, especially at the lower levels where I work.”

Kostich closed out the meeting by telling the employees “I recognize everyone wants a lot of urgency on this, but we have to make sure we get this right. We have to make sure we rebuild the trust in Activision.”