A woman identified only as “Christine,” a current employee at Blizzard Entertainment, has become the first victim to publically address personal experiences of sexual harassment, and workplace misconduct while working at the Irvine-based video game developer.

Christine, whose last name was withheld to protect her privacy, has a four-year history with the company and was clearly emotional as she addressed the public in front of the Blizzard headquarters in Irvine on Wednesday, Dec. 8.

“We need to make major changes at Blizzard. Working at Blizzard was my dream job. When I first heard of all the talented people working at Blizzard, I knew that was somewhere I wanted to work, where I could excel in my career,” she said. “I was so excited to be part of a community that cared so much about their employees.”

During the short press conference, Christine detailed her personal workplace experiences that included allegations of sexual assault by her supervisors at Blizzard.

She went on to describe an “alcohol-infused” work environment, in which she was often propositioned to have casual sex with her supervisors — adding that she would only be gaslighted into believing the comments were simply jokes.

“Since I’ve been employed at Blizzard, I’ve been subjected to rude comments about my body, unwanted sexual advances, inappropriately touched, subjected to alcohol-infused team events and cube crawls, invited to have casual sex with my supervisors and surrounded by a frat boy culture that’s detrimental to women,” she said. “When I complained to my supervisors, I was told they were just joking and I should get over it.”

Christine also said she was told not to report her experiences to Human Resources at Blizzard Activision.

However, she chose to take action against her abusers, and says it resulted in her demotion along with the loss of company stock assets.

“After I complained of harassment I was demoted, I was then further harassed and retaliated against. I was denied my full profit-sharing, denied shares in the company and had minimal raises in the four years I’ve been employed with Blizzard,” she said. “Fighting to keep my job in this toxic workplace culture has taken a severe toll on my mental health.”

Ultimately, Christine hopes sharing this experience will result in a better work environment at Blizzard.

“I’m up here today to fight for a safe workplace environment for employees. Blizzard has some amazing people that work for them, but we need to feel safe and supported by people in leadership roles – and hold people accountable for their actions,” she said.

In terms of accountability, Christine’s attorney Lisa Bloom, who stood beside her client’s tearful speech, said despite the multiple lawsuits, specifically from the Department of Fair Employment and Housing lawsuit that alleged a “frat boy culture,” for example, Blizzard still has yet to answer to the legal consequences of allowing a seemingly prolific toxicity to exist in Irvine.

Bloom added that the victims are still suffering.

“At least three government agencies have investigated this company’s pattern of sexual harassment against employees like Christine. First, the Federal Equal Employment Commission sued Activision for sexual harassment, and related claims, the EEOC entered into a consent decree with the company requiring it to set up an $18 million fund to compensate victims like Christine,” she said. “They were supposed to have a website, and announce the claims administrator by a date that has already passed.”

Calling for more action, Bloom laid out demands for Activision Blizzard to address, in order for victims like Christine to seek compensation for their trauma.

“We demand that Activision Blizzard prioritize all of its many sexual harassment victims. We don’t need more corporate blah-blah-blah,” she said. “We have three demands — we demand a streamlined, fast, fair process for victims to resolve their legal claims with expanded victim compensation fund – set up a fund in excess of $100 million, let victim advocates participate in setting the rules, and let victims make their cases to sympathetic claim administrators who have a history of caring about victims.”

The second demand is a “real apology” to Christine and other victims inside the Blizzard workplace. Lastly, Bloom is calling for a third-party review of the career damage endured.

“Don’t hold her sexual harassment reporting against her – she should be praised for wanting to make the company better,” Bloom said.

In July, Blizzard employees staged a company-wide walkout to protest allegations of sexual assault and demanded changes in sexual assault after the many employees said a response from Blizzard Activision CEO, Bobby Kotick, to the assault allegations was tone-deaf.

In November, Kotick shared a statement in which he said the company would be moving forward with a “zero-tolerance” policy for inappropriate behavior.

“And zero means zero,” he said in a video message on November 21. “Any reprehensible conduct is simply unacceptable.”

This is a developing story.

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