Diablo 4 director, lead designer fired amid gender discrimination lawsuit

As first reported by Kotaku and confirmed to Kotaku by Activision Blizzard, director of Diablo 4 Luis Barriga, lead stage designer Jesse McCree, and World of Warcraft Designer Jonathon LeCraft are now not with Activision Blizzard, within the wake of the gender discrimination allegations targetted at Activision Blizzard by the State of California.

McCree and LeCraft have been featured within the now-infamous Cosby Suite photograph, additionally revealed first by Kotaku, which depicted a bunch of Activision Blizzard male staff posing with an image of Invoice Cosby inside a former Blizzard worker Alex Afrasiabi’s resort suite at Pax in 2013.

The room was reportedly dubbed the “Cosby Suite” the place Blizzard builders allegedly gathered to interact in sexual conversations about ladies and get drunk on the convention.

The suite was talked about within the Division of Honest Employment and Housing (DFEH) authorized grievance towards the corporate which alleged that, amongst different issues, Blizzard created and maintained a poisonous work setting that excluded and harmed ladies and was extra akin to a harmful faculty frat than knowledgeable office.

In a piece addressing Afrasiabi’s harassment of feminine staff, the DFEH  alleged that “Afrasiabi was so identified to interact in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the “Cosby Suite” after alleged rapist Invoice Cosby. 

An Activision Blizzard spokesperson advised Kotaku in a statement, “Now we have a deep, proficient roster of builders already in place and new leaders have been assigned the place applicable. We’re assured in our skill to proceed progress, ship superb experiences to our gamers, and transfer ahead to make sure a protected, productive work setting for all.”

The departure of those three builders follows final week’s departure of the CEO J. Allen Brack, and his alternative with Jen O’Neal and Mike Ybarra as the brand new co-leaders of Blizzard. 

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A full timeline of the Activision Blizzard gender discrimination lawsuit fallout.