The ongoing Activision Blizzard fiasco has prompted a number of high-profile companies to talk about toxic work environments, and publisher Electronic Arts is the latest company to chime in.
In an interview with Games Industry, executive Chris Bruzzo said that having “bad actors” and toxicity in large organizations is inevitable, but it’s up to the management to act timely and appropriately. Bruzzo acknowledged that as a company with over 10,000 employees, EA too has its issues, but it has a team dedicated to investigating complaints and taking necessary steps to address them. Bruzzo revealed that EA had to take “some significant actions and dismiss employees, etc. over the last several years.”
“We’re encouraging people to raise their hands,” Bruzzo told Games Industry. “We’re trying to make it easier for them. So I think we’re going to have a ballooning of incidents, so that we can actually identify more of the things that are disruptive and take action on them.”
EA recently fired lead Apex Legends developer, Daniel Z Klein, after racist and sexist comments he made in a blog back in 2007 resurfaced. Although the comments – some of which were pretty graphic – were made a long time ago, concerned players pointed out that Klein was well into his 30s at the time he wrote them, so he wasn’t exactly juvenile.
“Are there going to be places where some bad actors or toxic environments exist inside the Electronic Arts employment culture? Of course,” Bruzzo continued. “Once you get to that level, that size of a population, you almost can’t avoid it. [But] just like on the player toxicity side, you have to have a team that investigates complaints and takes action.”
[Source: Games Industry]
