According to a new bombshell report by The Wall Street Journal, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick allegedly knew of sexual harassment and misconduct going on within the company for several years.
Kotick reportedly knew about sexual assault allegations dating as far back as 2018. This was when Kotick was notified by a lawyer representing a female employee for Activision owned Sledgehammer Games. This female was alleged to have been “raped in 2016 and 2017 by her male supervisor after she had been pressured to consume too much alcohol in the office and at work events.”
This anonymous female and Activision reached an out-of-court settlement and is likely under a non-disclosure agreement. The board of directors of Activision were reportedly never notified by Kotick or anyone else within the company about the lawsuit even after regulators began investigating this particular incident.
Games journalist Jason Schreier has speculated that Kotick and Activision knew ahead of time that this report was going to be published as they revealed to all of their employees just yesterday that they would be receiving all of next week off to celebrate Thanksgiving. Going as far as this was a blatant attempt to boost morale prior to the article’s publication.
Many have started to speculate that Bobby Kotick could resign fairly soon as the report has been picked up by major non-gaming outlets such as CNN, NBC News, and Forbes.
