{"id":1697,"date":"2023-05-07T06:48:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T11:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/itparadise.net\/2021\/05\/07\/heres-the-evidence-a-fired-blizzard-developers-cosby-suite-existed\/"},"modified":"2023-02-19T01:39:22","modified_gmt":"2023-02-19T06:39:22","slug":"heres-the-evidence-a-fired-blizzard-developers-cosby-suite-existed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/?p=1697","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s the evidence a fired Blizzard developer\u2019s \u2018Cosby Suite\u2019 existed"},"content":{"rendered":"

As employees walk out of Activision Blizzard today over allegations of \u201cconstant sexual harassment\u201d and workplace discrimination \u2014 and how poorly they felt the company responded \u2014 Kotaku<\/em> has released a report backing up allegations that a fired developer kept a hotel suite named after alleged rapist Bill Cosby.<\/p>\n

In case you\u2019re catching up, the state of California sued Blizzard for gender discrimination last week. The allegations include claims specifically naming Alex Afrasiabi, the former senior creative director of World of Warcraft. <\/em>The suit says that on top of sexually harassing women, Afrasiabi had a hotel room during BlizzCon 2013 nicknamed the \u201cCosby Suite\u201d \u2014 and it suggested that other employees knew about it.<\/p>\n

Neither Kotaku<\/em>\u2019s report nor the California lawsuit say anyone was sexually abused specifically in the Cosby Suite, but it\u2019s increasingly clear the suite was a real thing. As you can see above, there\u2019s a picture of alleged Blizzard developers literally holding up a framed photo of Bill Cosby. Kotaku<\/em> says the suite was \u201ca hot spot for informal networking at BlizzCon … where people looking to make inroads at the company would go to meet and hang out with some of its top designers.\u201d One source told Kotaku<\/em> that the original intent wasn\u2019t sexual \u2014 saying it was a reference to Cosby\u2019s \u201ciconic ugly sweaters\u201d \u2014 but Cosby already faced multiple sexual assault accusations at the time and other sources apparently understood it as a reference to them.<\/p>\n

Kotaku<\/em> says it has a Facebook album full of photos from the suite, comments of a sexual nature, screenshots of an alleged chat with several named Blizzard developers identifying themselves as the \u201cBlizzCon Cosby Crew,\u201d and sources attesting to the existence of a \u201cboys club\u201d there. One former Blizzard designer allegedly bragged in comments about \u201cgathering the hot chixx for the Coz.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear how serious the \u201cBlizzCon Cosby Crew\u2019s\u201d statements were intended to be, but Activision Blizzard confirmed to Kotaku<\/em> that it terminated Afrasiabi after it was made aware of the complaint\u2019s allegations last month. That\u2019s something the company hadn\u2019t previously revealed publicly.<\/p>\n

You can read the full report at Kotaku<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As employees walk out of Activision Blizzard today over allegations of \u201cconstant sexual harassment\u201d…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[79,78,77,81,80],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2009,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/2009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itparadise.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}