Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Amy Morhaime was engaged when she originally met Mike Morhaime. That statement is incorrect. She was single when they met while working at Blizzard.
Cake, balloons and laughter filled a kitchen in the esports department of Blizzard’s Irvine, California office in late 2018. It was a going away party for one of the founders of Tespa, Tyler Rosen.
Tyler Rosen started Tespa with his brother, Adam Rosen, in 2012 as a collegiate gaming club at the University of Texas, Austin. It expanded as a platform to host tournaments globally in 2013 before Blizzard acquired the organization in 2014. Then Blizzard president Mike Morhaime was impressed with what the Rosens put together, according to one former employee who, like many others in this story, requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Tespa became a part of Blizzard as Adam Rosen and Tyler Rosen worked with schools from the office in Irvine. Other employees in the esports department said they were mostly nice, though they didn’t know the brothers too well. But, according one source, Tyler Rosen took part in one of those cubicle-to-cubicle crawls in 2018. This involved employees drinking and playing games as they walked around the office. While most employees had left as the work day came to an end, Tyler Rosen and a handful of others remained.
The source said a department wide internal memo went out a few days later. Tyler Rosen — referred to as “Touchy Tyler” by several people around the office according to a source — was leaving the company that week in a sudden departure.
A broken system at Activision Blizzard
“Something didn’t feel right to me,” one employee close to the situation said. In July 2020, Bianca, a college student who had worked with Tespa, accused Tyler Rosen of sexually assaulting her in a hotel room in 2014. Several other accusations from other students followed soon after.
“It’s clear now with the allegations against him that he was completely protected and allowed to leave quietly,” another employee close to the situation said. “It’s worth pointing out that his two biggest supporters were the Morhaimes. They should not get a pass in all this.”
Rosen left the company and started his own esports startup, Rally Cry. He’s since taken “a step away” from operations there.
Enough stories of sexual assault and harassment became common within Activision Blizzard that the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) conducted a two year investigation, culminating in a lawsuit filed on July 21, 2021 in response to a “pervasive ‘frat boy’ culture that continues to thrive,” according to the suit. A culture where high-level employees allegedly abused other workers with little to no punishment has festered beneath the surface of a company that many considered a dream workplace in the games industry.
“I’ve seen stories from every branch I’ve worked with,” said one anonymous Blizzard employee. “I don’t think it’s about individuals. They exist in a system that allowed them to get away with things for more than 20 years.”
Upcomer spoke with 10 employees from across Activision Blizzard’s divisions and studios. Many of them described the culture at the company as hostile, inappropriate and unsafe.
Much of that culture itself extends from the original founders of Blizzard, including Morhaime and Frank Pearce, according to sources. Morhaime was known to hire people that fit well in the “frat boy” culture the Activision Blizzard lawsuit describes.
According to one source, Pearce, who left Blizzard in 2019, allegedly dated, and married employees during his time at the company.
“It is the responsibility of leadership to keep all employees feeling safe, supported and treated equitably, regardless of gender and background,” Morhaime, who declined multiple requests for us to speak with him, said in a statement. “It is the responsibility of leadership to stamp out toxicity and harassment in any form, across all levels of the company. To the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you.”
Morhaime repeatedly said he wants to “hear” the stories of women who had terrible experiences, but our sources said there is no way Morhaime and others didn’t know what was happening around them. Morhaime was close with the Rosens and other bad actors within Blizzard, visiting each other’s houses for parties and barbecues often, an employee said.
In many cases, the founders and leadership enabled and protected abusers before leaving for greener pastures at new studios, according to employees.
The lawsuit was a tipping point
The company’s “frat boy” culture was an inherently exclusionary one – particularly to women, who, according to the Activision Blizzard lawsuit filed by the DFEH, only make up 20% of Activision Blizzard’s workforce.
The company’s Human Resources department, sources said, was notoriously unhelpful and often left female employees unprotected. It was one of the major points of interest when examining misconduct within the company according to the suit. As a result of the lawsuit and mounting pressure to make changes, senior vice president of HR Jesse Meschuk recently left Activision Blizzard.
