New York (AFP)

No room for discrimination or harassment, assures the boss of video game publisher Activision Blizzard, which promises immediate measures and dismissals after a legal complaint, and while employees call a strike Wednesday.

"We will immediately assess the managers and directors of the company," wrote Bobby Kotick in a letter sent to his employees, of which AFP has obtained a copy.

"Anyone who interfered with the integrity of our complaints and sanctions assessment process will be terminated" because, he assures, "there is no place in our company for discrimination, harassment or unequal treatment of any kind ".

"Boys' club", "harassment", "suicide" ... The creator of the blockbuster "Call of Duty", headquartered in Santa Monica, California, is in the crosshairs of justice, after a complaint filed July 20.

Some executives would be involved, as well as members of the human resources department who sometimes heard complaints from employees.

This is not the first scandal affecting the video game industry, this sector being often considered as an environment dominated by a male corporate culture, where sexist abuses and inappropriate behavior are frequent.

Ubisoft and Riot Games have also been splashed with accusations.

- "Sexist culture" -

This letter from the leader arrives a few hours before the start of a strike.

Faced with what they describe as the "group's sexist culture," former and current employees called for cease work and protest on Wednesday, in person on the Irvine campus near Los Angeles, and virtually.

The organizers of the strike had, last week, strongly criticized the reaction of the management of Activision to the complaint filed in California, and launched a petition which had collected more than 2,000 signatures, according to several media.

The group had indeed initially affirmed that the accusations "do not represent (have) the working environment of Activision Blizzard today".

"We will not stop demanding the systemic changes necessary to protect marginalized women and genders in the workplace," Valentine Powell, engineer at Activision, tweeted Tuesday.

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Among the demands of the strikers: the end of mandatory arbitration clauses (which prevent filing a complaint against the group), but also more inclusive recruitment and promotion policies, and the publication of statistics on diversity and wages.

The boss of Activision Blizzard also indicates, in his letter to employees, having mandated the law firm WilmerHale to assess the company's policy on inclusion.

- 20% of women -

The video game giant also plans to respond to one of the main accusations made in the complaint: the macho and discriminatory policy in terms of recruitment and salaries.

Bobby Kotick writes that he has already "sent an email asking all hiring managers to ensure they have diverse candidate lists for all open positions. We will add resources to ensure that our managers respect this instruction ".

The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), a California state agency responsible for investigating civil law cases.

It reports sexual harassment, ethnic discrimination and machismo against women who represent around 20% of the group's employees.

"Almost all of the female employees confirmed that working for (Activision) was like working in a + boys club +", and "invariably involving men drinking alcohol and subjecting women to sexual harassment of no consequence to them", is it described there.

"Male employees proudly arrive at work drunk, play video games for long periods of time during their office hours and delegate their work to women," the document explains.

© 2021 AFP