Blizzard Leisure, the developer of giant franchises like Diablo and Overwatch, has been underneath intense scrutiny since California sued mum or dad firm Activision Blizzard final summer time over allegedly fostering a tradition of harassment and discrimination. In an try to guarantee workers and followers that the corporate is making optimistic adjustments, Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra printed a weblog publish detailing what it’s doing to “rebuild your belief.”

On the prime of the record is that govt and administration groups will probably be measured “instantly in opposition to tradition enchancment,” which signifies that their compensation will “rely on our total success in making a protected, inclusive, and inventive work setting at Blizzard,” Ybarra says.

He additionally outlined new full-time roles which were created to assist enhance tradition, together with:

a Tradition chief who will assist us preserve the very best elements of what we have now in the present day, and alter and evolve the place wanted to make sure everybody brings their greatest self to Blizzard

a brand new organizational chief for Human Sources who will construct belief, empower our groups, and assist foster a protected, optimistic work setting for everybody

a Variety, Fairness, and Inclusion (DE&I) chief solely targeted on our progress throughout a number of efforts on this space

Blizzard has additionally “tripled” the dimensions of its compliance and investigation groups, shared illustration information internally (which was not included with the weblog publish), set objectives for enhancing these metrics (additionally not shared), and created an “upward suggestions program” for workers to guage managers, Ybarra mentioned.

Ybarra’s weblog about these initiatives arrives underneath the shadow of Microsoft’s large deal to amass Activision Blizzard. Microsoft seems to have gone into the take care of eyes huge open about Activision Blizzard’s current scandals, and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer even nodded to tradition adjustments to come back in an e-mail to employees:

We additionally imagine that artistic success and autonomy go hand-in-hand with treating each particular person with dignity and respect. We maintain all groups, and all leaders, to this dedication. We’re wanting ahead to extending our tradition of proactive inclusion to the good groups throughout Activision Blizzard.

It’s additionally price noting that Ybarra was an almost 20-year veteran of Microsoft earlier than he joined Blizzard in 2019.

Nonetheless, there may nonetheless be a variety of work to do to deal with considerations from Activision Blizzard workers. Ybarra was initially put in place as a co-lead of Blizzard alongside Jen Oneal after former president J. Allen Brack left shortly following the lawsuit, however Oneal stepped down simply three months after taking the function. Throughout her time as co-lead, Oneal “despatched an e-mail to a member of Activision’s authorized crew by which she professed an absence of religion in Activision’s management to show the tradition round,” in line with a Wall Road Journal report from November.

Moreover, a number of dozen staff have been on strike for weeks to protest shock layoffs of QA staffers at Raven Software program. And as Kotaku reporter Ethan Gach identified, Ybarra’s weblog doesn’t handle calls for from the ABK Employees Alliance, an worker advocacy group. That mentioned, some Activision Blizzard workers are optimistic in regards to the Microsoft acquisition, in line with Bloomberg.

Ybarra additionally tacitly acknowledged Blizzard’s lack of current massive releases, an issue that was exacerbated after Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV have been delayed in November with no launch dates in sight, however it appears we may study extra in regards to the studio’s video games someday subsequent week. “We additionally know we have to ship content material to our gamers on a extra common foundation and innovate each in and past our present video games,” Ybarra mentioned. “We now have some thrilling issues to announce, and I’ll be sharing extra subsequent week.”

Disclosure: Casey Wasserman is on the board of administrators for Activision Blizzard in addition to the board of administrators of Vox Media, The Verge’s mum or dad firm.