The Dark Side of the Video Game Industry - And How To Protect Yourself From It

hey guys simon from loose pixel and this week's our talk is going to be a little different and the reason being is in most of my r talks they're usually calm and i have a nice uh you know ambient music to go with it you can watch the time lapse of a of a painting and i'll just talk about my history and my career and share some advice and stuff like that however today's a lot more serious because i want to talk about well i want to talk about what's happened with what's happening with blizzard as as as we speak right now there's the whole shitstorm is going on right now but um i i don't want to formulate it as a how do i feel about it you want to know how i feel about it i think it's appalling disgusting and unforgivable um but that's not if you really want to get in-depth opinions and thoughts and feelings on it then watch azam and gold watch bellular gaming watch trade chat watch signs of kalani all these wow channels okay but that's not why i'm here today i want to offer you some practical advice i want to actually give you instructions so to speak on how to how to prevent yourself from falling victim to this type of treatment and here's the thing if you're an aspiring artist who wants to get into a career in gaming as a professional artist like 75 of my viewers on my youtube channel like at least 60 to 70 of my students um then you are far more vulnerable uh to this type of abuse than you might think and one of the main reasons being and one of the reasons why i feel i am particularly positioned i'm uniquely positioned in this whole conversation of what's happening with blizzard to speak out about this not because i'm a you know a game commentator or a game channel it's because i am an a fantasy art channel heavily nestled in this world of gaming i myself have over 20 25 years of gaming of experience in the gaming industry i teach fantasy art online i talk about art career stuff in video games and film all the time this is what my channel that's the foundation of what my channel is about so i feel uniquely responsible to talk about it and share with you my experiences and my knowledge and my advice for you particularly if you're a younger aspiring artist aspiring to work in the film or gaming industry so i'm going to take you back into my own career my own experiences and juxtapose them against what you might be experiencing yourself and explain exactly what it is that makes us artists unique but also uniquely vulnerable and if i go way back in my life i didn't only love art i didn't i wasn't only passionate about drawing but i identified myself as an artist it was my identity it continues today to be my identity i identify myself as an artist that is who i am not just what i do but more specifically us artists tend to identify ourselves by the style of art that we produce as well because that style of art is very often an extension of our passions and an extension of our personality this is one of the reasons why we take our art so personally why if somebody critiques our art it can be a bit of a hit to our personal ego not just a critique of our professional skills and this is something that is artists we need to navigate but there's a reason it exists it's because of how much of ourselves tie into what it is that we do now growing up as a young kid an aspiring artist blizzard didn't exist so i didn't identify with being a blizzard artist per se i was a disney artist and this is something identified with at a very young age probably around my lucas my son lucas's age around seven or eight i identified so deeply as a disney artist that i even fashioned myself a little disney business card of a of a guy sketching at a at a drafting table in kind of 1930s attire with walt disney cartoonist on the card and i kept that with me for years until eventually until the the paper that it was drawn on faded away like like tissue paper basically i don't know what ever happened to it it might be still lying around somewhere but this you'd think that as i grew up and as i got older and matured and became a big boy that this um identity of mine this pursuit this passion this focus this end game focus on being an artist would fade i would grow past it but i didn't and all through elementary and all through high school and all through college and all through university and well into my career i identified as a disney artist i got a degree in classical film animation because i wanted to become a disney artist when i was in high school people called me adam the disney guy in any disney movie i was there on the release date i was there on on the day a movie would open i was there at the first screening in the morning i would stand in line as if i was waiting for the first iphone okay i was that obsessive i could recite every single disney film verbatim from the first to the last word in the film because i watched them hundreds of times i still can't to this day and it'd be very embarrassing but don't ever sit down and watch a disney film with me because you'll see a grown man singing aloud in songs okay so just buckle yourself for that one but this is how i identified myself to me the ultimate achievement the dream job was to get a job at disney but when i graduated from classical film animation something i've spoken about many times on my channel my career took a turn and i realized it's not a linear line straight to disney in fact what i ended up doing was taking this very long detour and over 15 to 20-year detour through video games because i also grew up being a very big video game geek and let me stop for a moment and talk about video game geek that term when i was a kid during the days of the atari and the colecovision and the nintendo and the super nintendo and the and the the gamecube and the sega genesis and the dreamcast all of those early days of gaming gamers young kids who played games like me were not considered cool kids it wasn't a cool thing to be a gamer it didn't become cool to be a gamer until game careers started to re started to serve us up in things like you know like gaming competitions and and all that kind of stuff to service but up until that point you were just a kid who got in trouble for playing too many video games and should have been doing the cool stuff like being an artist or being an athlete and i i was a gamer i grew up being a gamer so so i kind of it was there was a bit of shame associated with it not anymore now nowadays if i tell my my kids friends that i'm a gamer i worked in the gaming industry i'd be the most popular parent on the street i know because that's what happens well you work in games oh my god you know they really freak out over that that's kind of new to me but back then that wasn't the case but being a disney artist was but what happened was i got my i got hired in video games my first job was actually very much doing cartooning it was very disney style stuff that i did and i drew character designs and key to the animation for 3d cd-rom game remember that cd roms that was me and that i had that job for a little while wonderful job loved the people i worked with a lot of fun and then i shortly thereafter got hired at a fairly big studio very early on in my career and i i feel like i was i was well positioned for a job like that in hindsight i realized i was well positioned for that because number one is i had a passion for games which was again it was a bit of a novelty back then yes a lot of kids played games but being a kid who played games but also was an artist and he was a trained artist was a much bigger deal in that regard not only that but i was a disney style artist and if you know anything about video games disney style of art is all over video games look at league of legends look at world of warcraft look at overwatch look at you know fortnite it's disney disney all over the place now a lot of other styles are surfacing but you can see how like if you look at blizzard art blizzard is unapologetically disney right there any person who's ever studied disney style art or studied animation knows very well if you want to get a job being a concept art and doing concept art at disney at blizzard disney style art is a very strong starting point career tip for all of you aspiring artists out there so i took this long detour through video games and i got my second job was this big studio and even though it wasn't necessarily my quote end game job it was a very big deal to me and um it was a very important career move it was something that was going to help me to pave my career moving forward and it was a very fancy looking studio with a lot of people working there and a lot of cool looking guys with dreads and tattoos and and beards and ripped jeans and [ __ ] not at all what i expected to to see in a very professional environment used to the suits and ties stuff like that so that was kind of a cool revelation and i started working there and i've told many stories about my job my job experiences in the past the good and the bad a lot of what i'm saying today i'm going to repeat but within the first it didn't take long i'd say within the first couple of weeks i with the first week i started to get bad energy from the place because for some reason my boss didn't like me just didn't like my face didn't want to talk to me which was weird because i thought he hired me but i guess for whatever reason but he was never particularly polite to me he was very anti-social with me but that wasn't a big deal that i can deal with what was a big deal was a few little different things number one is how the art directors how the management staff spoke to the artists in general particularly artists that had been there for a while they were very rude they were very demeaning they were very abusive i mean they would it wasn't just critiquing art it was critiquing people's character it was making fun of them it was there's a lot of really unnecessary uh uh aggressive talk to these different artists and stuff and another thing i noticed what i always found was very creepy in particular especially at the beginning was there was a secretary that our department was here and right outside we had a glass wall so we could see right out into the hallway and out in the hallway we could see the secretary and she also had a glass kind of office tour so we could see into everybody else's office and let the light pass through the studio and what i found particularly curious was even though the entrance the hallway to get past her to get to our department was in this direction and her boss's office was here it was kind of like the end it was like the dead end was the was the big head of the studio's office her desk was oriented towards his office which is kind of bizarre because the door was behind her so anybody walking in to meet the boss would be greeted by the secretary's back which is she's usually there to greet people when they walk in and set appointments and stuff like that so why the hell was she faced back i always found it a little bit curious but whatever right i didn't give it much thought and it wasn't until a couple of weeks later when i started to get to know people better and we have lunch together and we'd start to chat we ended up actually getting along and becoming friends and we ended up she ended up kind of confiding in me a little bit at a certain point when she started to trust me which is also curious learning to trust me why would she need to do that right but once she started to feel a little bit more comfortable with me that she could trust me she started to divulge a lot of her insecurities about the job in general she had been there for a couple of years already working under the working as the secretary under the under the main boss and she was a very attractive woman young beautiful woman really really good shape and everything like that dressed really professionally um really nicely very sharp looking woman and so she attracted a lot of attention when you work in a studio and there's a good-looking person of the opposite sex you're going to notice right and um she started to open up to me about how uncomfortable she was about the big boss her direct superior because one of the things was number one the reason he oriented her desk towards him is because he had a glass wall i couldn't see it from my vantage point i could see it once i entered the office once i went around and checked it out but he oriented her desk towards her and there was no back to the desk so he could see straight under her desk and any she said every single time i tried to cross my legs because your legs go numb if you keep them crossed in a particular position especially when you're doing it for eight hours a day his eyes would immediately glance over he was waiting for an opportunity to be able to check it out not only that he also dictated what she wore he said you know it's a gaming studio we want to look a little bit more young and hip and stuff like that so you know you don't want to go with the long skirts and slacks you know some nice skirt would be really nice and dress flatteringly basically i don't know how we worded it i've barely ever spoke to the guy but um she took this as she he would always have a comment to say whenever she wore less revealing clothing less longer skirts or looser clothing which imagine just put i want guys listening to put this in to think about this for a sec because guys don't get this right guys unless they wear something ridiculous but guys don't get this imagine your boss walking up to you and saying do you think you could wear shorter shorts you know you look you look a little bit bummy why don't you wear shorter shorts or wear that tight shirt you look really good in that tight shirt how would you feel like what the [ __ ] do you think you are telling me what to wear i mean i'm dressed clean i'm dressed professional leave me the [ __ ] alone who are you to tell me but women you don't realize from a woman's perspective particularly an attractive woman who's in this presentation spot where she's the boss's the face of the boss what gives somebody a right to dictate a person's attire furthermore very obviously dictating a more revealing more upskirt type of attire right and that's exactly what he was doing not only that but she was also oriented so anybody who worked in a management position all the art directors had offices around that same place and i could also get a nice view underneath your desk as well and used to make her feel terribly uncomfortable and i said well have you ever spoken to him about it do you ever bring it up she goes yeah dozens of times i said what does he have to say he goes no it's better that way she said well i don't feel comfortable with people looking underneath my desk and staring at my staring at my skirt and you go yeah no but you know it's we prefer to have it in this direction even though it was completely nonsensical to have it in that position in the first place if you ever if you ever took it further than that i don't know but that in and of itself is sexual harassment you're you're positioning your your employee and dictating what she's wearing so you can stare up her skirt that's an incredible violation but it was a good job it was a nice studio what's she going to do is she going to talk to hr about it well that's the thing isn't it hr should be there to represent the employees they're they're human resources but from my experience sadly enough from my only own experiences in this very studio as well um hr there's nothing humane about human resources they don't 99 of the time they don't represent the employees they should they know their job is to but more often than not they end up representing the company and the boss is the company they represent her or him and as the expression goes if the head of the fish stinks right if you want to complete that it's if the head of the fish stinks you throw out the fish right that means everything about the fish stinks and that's the thing she knew that she's smart she's a professional she was older than me and she knew that the h she knew from being somebody worked as a secretary somebody who communicate who's in a communications position that um hr would not would not support her and if she ended up making something public about it it's her job that would get lost he's been there for he founded the company if she complains she loses her job and she didn't want to lose her job so i have a feeling she was a strong enough character that had he pushed it a little bit further she probably would have lost he she would have left she seemed strong enough to do that but she wasn't in the same position that a lot of us artists find ourselves in but she wasn't a vulnerable enough position having a good job that probably paid a decent salary but there's more because i also had a male colleague of mine now i'm 6'3 i work out i've always been a big guy and being physically threatened is not something i've had to put up with a lot i have been physically threatened it's a terrible feeling but um it doesn't happen to me a lot just because superficially i look like somebody who can defend himself but i had colleagues who were smaller guys and i heard a lot of nightmare stories and these were stories that went through the whole this was like common knowledge that one of the directors and i think i might have even spoken about this in the past one of the directors had um was verbally abusive to this one particular artist who worked face to face with me and uh um he was verbally abusive to him all the time and one day he had decided to stand up for himself and say hey knock it off because he would do it right in front of everybody there was no kanjer to it he was just right out there and start insulting him and making fun of him and and humiliating him and all kinds of [ __ ] just basically using him as a verbal punching bag and he stood up for himself and the other guy walked right up to his nose shoved him on the floor right there on his ass and looked at him with the calmest look on his face and said do something about it right there in front of everybody and apparently everybody in the studio is they were all still working there right this had happened months before i started working there but apparently they're all just sitting there going what did i just see and he's lying there on the ground he said he he was laying on the ground for probably around 20 seconds in just a state of shock he never knew that line he never fathomed that that line would get crossed furthermore completely publicly in front of the face in front of the boss's face his direct superior everybody saw it and he just did it and he expected somebody to jump in and help him but the juniors the artists were afraid to and the management didn't give a [ __ ] they had all been there for a very long time and this is where the whole blizzard story starts to become very very nostalgic to me there's a lot of nostalgia associated with hearing these stories from all these different youtubers and stuff in the news and what i went through this whole bro culture this whole elite click culture this ecosystem that that encourages this kind of behavior like i said if the head of the fish stinks and if the head of the company is a misogynistic abusive piece of [ __ ] then he is obviously not going to hire management staff that work under him that will challenge his behavior because they'll oust him they'll publicly humiliate him they'll they'll damage the company's reputation so that that head boss is in a particularly solid position in terms of being protected and anybody who he hires is going to most likely fit into that ecosystem and you could tell because they would all on their lunch break they would go out and smoke cigars together and they would always hang out at each other's houses at night and have dinner with the misses and uh you know and meet the kids and smoke cigars and oogle each other's entertainment systems and come home we come back at work the next days stinking of cigars and booze half hung over laughing about the night before the [ __ ] was very common and you can see that there was this divide between the bosses and the artists it was like the the the elitist club the golf club they don't let anybody to touch their grass right that kind of thing and it was cringey it was annoying and it is if you followed my channel for any length of time one of the number one reasons why the elitist attitude never finds its way into my videos not in a million years this is the most anti-elitist channel art channel you're ever going to meet not to imply that my friends channels aren't but you're never going to hear me singing if you want to get into the if you want to do the big boy stuff you're going to have to do it like we do it over here all right now grab a beer and shut the [ __ ] up and daddy's going to teach you how it works around here that's not that's not how i that's not how i teach this it's not the channel i have it's pretentious you know uh wannabe alpha male [ __ ] is what i think it is and but it's not cute and it's not cringy when that behavior turns into what we're seeing in blizzard when it becomes physically abusive when it becomes sexually abusive when it becomes racist when it becomes anti-semitic when it becomes homophobic when it becomes any of the above when this ecosystem protects itself when it comes to abusive behavior well any kind of bad behavior in the in the first place you know you're walking into a particularly toxic environment i eventually started to be abused myself verbally emotionally they started to ridicule me all these different types of things and um uh i had my artwork sold right in front of my face and i was verbally i was verbally humiliated and insulted all the time by the same art director total piece of [ __ ] and one day he pushed it too far with me and i asked him after a meeting after he had claimed all of the work i spent the last six months doing was his i i asked him privately to go into into an office behind closed doors to be diplomatic about it and i said you know that's not cool i don't know why you've where you went where you come off thinking that you could rip me off and steal my work and not only that i'm sick and tired of the way you're talking to me i'd like you to speak you can you can you're allowed to not like my face you're allowed to critique my work you're allowed to complain about my artistic standards i'm perfectly cool with that i'm a newbie i'm a kid but you have no business talking to me like that enough's enough you're making it very uncomfortable for me and he sat across the table he looked at me right in the eyes and he said adam you're the dumbest most incompetent piece of [ __ ] i've ever had the displeasure of having to work with and i don't know what the [ __ ] you're talking about otherwise so get out of my face okay in other words he basically said i'm the boss go [ __ ] yourself and if you don't like it leave so and in my naivete i went to the hr department on a november 6th i know because it was november 7th was my birthday and on november 6 i told hr about it and she looked at me very reassuringly with a very soft spoken voice very reassuring parental type of tone and she said thank you i appreciate the fact that you went out of your way to tell me this and i think you did the right thing no it's not right what happened to you he has no business speaking to you like that um also he has no business stealing your work and claiming your works yours we all know you did it those are all your drawings we've been watching you do it for the last six months he she said thank you and we're gonna we're gonna deal with this right away thank god because i felt what the hell am i going to do i'm about to lose my job or either that or i'm going to have a nervous breakdown in this place because it's a very negative place to work and she went she did her thing and the next day i they piled the work on me it was my birthday but whatever you know they piled the work on me they just we need you to finish this we need you to finish that blah blah blah and then at 4 30 p.m canada please come down to the human resources department thank you and i went to the human resources department she said you're sacked what today's your last day that's why you got me to do all that [ __ ] because your your art director wasn't wasn't good enough to do the art himself so he needed me to do it so he could suck me you shout out of a [ __ ] i [ __ ] trusted you i didn't say that but i felt it and i just looked at her with this kind of gobsmacked look of amazement in betrayal and i went and i got up she looked a little nervous she was afraid i was going to jump her i didn't i just turned around and walked out and as i walked out she says we i need your key card and i just took my key card off and i flung it over the back and i didn't even look back i just walked right out and i went in the elevator and that was it never looked back now here's the thing that job was a great job it was an unexpected job it was a fancy job it was an impressive job and it was a bit of a novelty too because back back then uh when i got that job a career in gaming was a very fresh concept to a lot of people never nobody ever thought that oh my god i'm getting paid to do what my mommy yelled at yelled at me for doing too much growing up this is actually like i'm actually benefiting from being a geek wow what a trip so it was really cool and it was very important but it wasn't end game for me my end game was disney because my end game was what my childhood passion was and when i was where the time i was actually working at that studio was around the same time that world of warcraft came out around that 2005 2005 uh period and i was a die-hard uh world of warcraft when that game came out it was like i didn't look back for a very long time i played every day um but i was already a professional it wasn't my childhood fantasy to work on world of warcraft it was just a really really cool awesome game that was revolutionary that that was very the influence to me moving forward but my end game was disney and it disney is what tied into my identity blizzard was just a very cool thing but here's the thing to a huge i'd say the majority demographic of my listeners on my youtube channel the majority demographic of my students that i teach were raised on world of warcraft it was their end game it is their end game and i can't i can't even count the number of portfolios artists that i've worked with where i where i where i would ask them what kind of art would you like to produce and they say well blizzard style art blizzard style art is a genre like soul's art is a genre that i adhere to myself but it's a genre people don't want to get a a career in gaming people want to get a career at blizzard blizzard is the great northern star yes there's a lot of other great companies but blizzard's always been regarded as this northern star this godly thing so you got to put it in context a lot of the artists that work at blizzard today that have been subject to this and a lot of the artists that watch me on my channel you in particular who's listening might very well be somebody who was raised identifying yourself as a blizzard artist the same way i identified myself as a disney artist and that is a very dangerous position to be in because you're putting your faith in an organization that is run by a bunch of people who could be wonderful and there's a lot of wonderful people who work at blizzard but there's also as we're discovering right now a lot of very dangerous people a lot of predators a lot of abusive people a lot of misogynists a lot of sociopaths and these people occupy incredibly powerful positions these are the elite these are the ones standing at the head of the table presenting games when there's a blizzcon that blizzcon that you have watched every single blizzcon that blizzcon that you might have been at you might have been to all of them you might own all the figurines you might know all of the backstory and the and the lore and the design and you've got you follow all of the instagramers that work at blizzard because you dreamed the same way i knew all of the all of the disney artists back to the original classics like fritz is it or freely okay like milt call like all of these old original classic artists and you deify these people these are your heroes these are the people that that have that they're kind of your beacon you never expect in a million years you can actually meet somebody like this and despite me identifying myself as a disney artist in a million years did i ever expect to get a job working on a disney show well i wished for it i dreamed for it but i never knew i could never say with any kind of certainty that i would have reached that goal that was like the end game for me where do i go from there that's how i felt so just imagine being somebody where you go to that that you go to that blizzard job interview you sit down in a meeting room with people who are arguably your heroes you might even know them already because you follow their social media and you've seen them on tv and you've watched every interview and after an entire life a childhood a teenage life and an adult life and an education schooling six to ten years and in the states hella expensive education hundreds of thousands of dollars that you've invested into getting into that amazing school getting into that club rubbing elbows with the elites that are gonna that are gonna get that job at that prestigious beautiful studio you have invested your life and your future into this place and here you are sitting at that table imagine how you'd feel when after you present your work and you despite all of your nerves you put your best foot forward and you try your best to make the best impression and they sit back in their chair what do you think [Applause] start monday how would you feel how would you feel if that happened to you i think you would be equal parts ecstatic but i think you'd be so overwhelmed with adrenaline from the excitement that you'd feel more like throwing up i mean this is every moment in your life has led up to this this moment this thumbs up from somebody who you almost you might even deify if you're that emphatic about your about your passion i wouldn't put it past you and he just said yes what do you do you go home oh yeah let's let's add something to this i remember when i got hired at ea this is big studios will do this to you too they got a lot of money and i remember when i was hired when i got the job as artistic director ea they they said they asked me the question what what you're asking like what how much you would you like how much money you want and i went i'll give you a random stupid number i'll go i would i think i said to them like 56 i want 56 dollars and they went how about 387 anyway whoa what eighty-seven dollars and you go no no no no no 387 dollars what are you drunk no four actually four four hundred actually why don't you just make it an even four hundred uh yeah okay i mean i'm thinking to myself i would have worked there for free but uh okay thank you wow not only am i not only did i reach did i actually achieve my life's goal my dream but they've just slapped a really pretty looking salary on top of that with benefits and outings and you name it all kinds of bonuses and [ __ ] i mean [ __ ] they're blizzard man [ __ ] got money you know what i'm saying these these companies have a lot of money and you go home you get your hair done you get new shoes get your you know buy all new [ __ ] new clothes get yourself all ready you get your nerves together you tell everybody about it because holy [ __ ] this is a big deal and you walk into that studio the following monday and there's your hero he goes come let me give you a tour of the studio and he walks you through the studio and he's so cool and he's so awesome and he's so calm and confident and you're just a complete blithering mess and you're sweating and you're nervous and you're red in the face this is a really big deal to you and you meet this particular yeah i know you i know you yeah i follow you in instagram through pictures of cats are so charming i love them so much thank you that's so awesome oh and you yeah i know you those the the those designs you did for sylvanas are just like ah they're freaking dope i love you you're my favorite no thank you that's very sweet you freaking know everybody you're rubbing elbows you follow them on social media ah this is overwhelming and you sit down and they sit you down at your ass and you say get yourself settled in we're coming i'll see you in a bit all right have fun and you go okay here uh here i is it's exciting it's exhilarating it's amazing and you settle down and then they give you work they say let's start off slowly we don't want to burn you out on day one you know you'll let you let you you know warm up to it wean you in slowly and start to work and you get to meet some of your colleagues and you start to chat with them and they're super friendly and they're super kind and yeah and then you go home and you tell everybody about it and you're still star struck by this whole experience and then another day passes and another day passes maybe about a week passes or maybe two and one day that boss that hired you that big head hunch with the studio the one who you saw sitting at that blizzard panel who was there in front of hundreds of thousands of adoring blizzcon fans comes and stands up behind you and says so how's it going and you go oh it's great you got to twist your neck in an awkward way because they always stand behind you like oh really good it's i'm having such an amazing time everybody here is so awesome i'm having so much fun he goes oh don't twist your neck man you're going to hurt yourself he comes in he sits down on your desk next to you and he goes so tell me about it what's up because what are you working on right now it says i'm working on this i'm doing these designs for that blah blah i hope you like it i'm really i really want to impress you this really matters to me a lot because no you're doing an awesome job we think you're doing great i've been talking with the team you're doing a really dope job you're like thank you that really feels good to hear that because i'm so insecure i've got the worst case of imposter syndrome you've ever heard he goes don't worry about it everybody gets it he goes well let me check it out and he comes and he looks behind you and he looks and he puts his mouth right here next to you and he goes wow look at that you really are amazing that's insane wow that's beautiful work man we did it we made the right choice hiring you thank you so much yeah and you can smell it you can smell his colonies he's right there you can almost feel this stubble on your face and he goes yeah i mean really freaking good job man where did you where did you go to school where did you yeah of course did you ever meet that teacher and he's got start putting his hands on you i mean it's no big deal he's doing in front of everybody i mean it's not exactly i don't really know the guy well enough and he's he's kind of groping me a little bit but hey i mean it's not like he's assaulting me it's in plain sight for everybody to see right and nobody seems to be saying anybody but nobody's reacting to it but he does it and he does it for a long period of time and you know yeah so that kind of leaves a little bit of a dark seed in your soul doesn't it but i mean whatever he's just a touchy-feely guy some people are just touchy-feely right you know everybody everybody knows somebody's touchy feelings you don't give it too much thought that happens again and every single time he does it at the coffee you know going to get a coffee or you know going to get something to eat or sitting down in the cafeteria or meeting him in the hallway he always every single time you see me just seems to push it a little bit further he starts to talk about your clothes he starts to say hey why are you wearing that i think that color looks better on you why don't you wear that color that sweater you wore the other day with the thing with the the low cut one a little bit more it shows off your cute little body why don't you show it off you know don't be shy you got it flaunted right like thank you yeah thanks i'm glad you like that sweater what the [ __ ] am i what are you gonna say to somebody who starts to push his boundaries well think about it pissing this guy off hurting his ego is not just going to potentially embarrass well hey let's paint two different scenarios put yourself in that kind of a vulnerable position remember we're talking about your dream drop this is end game for you you are talking to your idol right now who's doing this to you and making you feel uncomfortable this way or any of the artists that you idolize you're part of the gang now right right wink wink what are the two possible scenarios that you're going to find yourself in 2.5 the first scenario the best case scenario is that they just don't take you seriously they brush it off you know maybe say hey you know you know i hope you don't mind but you know i'm not a touchy-feely person i'm kind of an introvert and stuff so i don't really like it when people grope me and talking about my clothes makes me feel a little bit invaded you know i know you don't mean anything by it but i just i appreciate it if you if you you didn't cross that line because it feels a little bit uncomfortable you're really desperately trying not to hurt this guy's feelings you don't want to piss off the big boy best case scenario he dismisses it and laughs it off oh man where do we just don't worry would you we're just touchy feely guys don't worry about it don't take it personally and bob bob's always got his hands on my nest look i grabbed bob's nuts look ah is this funny don't worry about it you still touch my nuts again i'll punch you in the throat yeah yeah whatever [ __ ] off hahaha it's a big don't worry we're all we're all a big family over here it's no big deal just don't worry about it no and you're like okay fine and they dismiss and they just brush it off and then they do it again and they do it again and maybe they invite you one day because you're the cute new one to the cosby room right whatever and it just keeps on getting worse or worst case scenario is they don't brush it off he does get annoyed and maybe you get that call from hr and he says yeah we just don't feel you fit into the company culture i've i've been fed that line before in the past two you don't fit into the company culture meaning you're not a willing you're not a willing assault recipient is what they're basically trying to say and we don't want you to make the big boy with tenure to look bad because we've got billions of dollars riding on that creeps shoulders right now so don't piss him off or you get a warning you get a smack on there saying if you [ __ ] up again this is the last warning what do you do what do you do do you go to hr about it if you go to hr about it it's game over nine times and hey look the head of hr the woman the woman who the woman representative of women's affairs at blizzard completely denied everything she doesn't have women's best interests in mind she has her job's best interest because blizzard pays for her yacht capisce and besides if she's a part of this she's a part of the she's a part of the head of the fish she stinks along with the big boss so if the big boss feels safe if a creep like that feels safe hiring somebody like her then chances are she doesn't she's not going to back you up she's not going to protect you you're just a new over-enthusiastic little girl who just walked in the blizzard who's all starstruck she's not going to there's no money riding on your shoulders you are very expendable and very replaceable now remember in this type of environment not in normal studios i've worked in studios where i've had a hard time and i immediately had management say are you okay do you need to sit down and talk let's let's talk about it i didn't even come to them for help they came to me and said if you need a break you ask for it we respect you and we're going to take care of you you don't worry about it but don't suffer in silence buddy okay i was very well taken care of in a lot of studios but i'm talking about these toxic environments there is little to no you can do when you're in when you're trapped in that stinky fish along with everybody else when you're in that toxic environment but if you give that up you're not just giving up that cool trendy job you are quite literally abandoning your identity because your identity has been all tied into this one thing and that's what makes your position so vulnerable it's that very fact so you are much more reluctant to speak out about it until most likely it's gone to such a terrible length that it's a make-or-break situation and that's what brings us to some of the most tragic outcomes such as that poor woman whose nude pics were circulated around at a party and she took her life because think about it she didn't take her life because she was just humiliated she took her life because her identity was shattered and humiliated in the most inhumane way imaginable it was shattered her life was taken away from her or so she felt and so you might feel too if you find yourself in this situation if you are trapped in this situation there is nothing more devastating than having nude pictures of yourself circulated around the internet when you look at celebrities that have had to endure this kind of [ __ ] and still be able to show their face in public with their chin up my hat's off to you because you've got you've got some serious courage but that this this woman did not have that strength she was vulnerable in a very vulnerable place the most vulnerable imaginable place just like all those young aspiring black women who wanted to make a name for themselves as actors and bill cosby offered them that opportunity but did so at a very very big cost okay and that's exactly what they did at blizzard as well they knew their power they knew their popularity they knew they were the hottest kid on the block and they took advantage of that because they knew how much of your life was tied into it and they used it as a tool to manipulate and control and abuse this is where i come in this is where this talk comes in because here's the thing and this is the thing that i've discovered having reached my end game i got that job at disney i did i work i was a i was a background supervisor for a disney show high five but so have mark brunet anthony jones bobby chu ross tran and all of these other well-known youtuber artists on the platform and countless other artists online all of these celebrities they've all worked there and the operative word being they have worked there and chris oatley he worked at disney in fact he might be back at disney again they worked there in the past but they're not working there anymore did that destroy their career no and in fact every single one of them said i worked at disney i worked at i worked at dreamworks i looked at i worked at blizzard i worked at riot games i worked at whatever but i quit my job because i wanted to do my own thing were they sacrificing their life no they all attest to that reality that eventually dawns on you after the novelty of working for this super dope company wears off it's just a job you wake up you brush your teeth you have a cup of coffee you hop in your car you drive to work you show up you sit at your desk you've got drawings to do you do them you communicate it with the art director the art director gives you art direction you polish it up you do more work you finish up you turn your computer off you get in your car you go home and you have dinner with your kids it's a job like every other job and by the time i got that job working on the disney show i had already been through 20 years of gaming career and i've had i'd had my good in my bad i'd work for big studios and small studios and the novelty wore off and what i realized was the most important thing that you need to realize that will prevent you from getting caught up in this vulnerable place the reason you got that job is not because it's the end game it's because your art and your skill reached a standard reached a quality that made it eligible to work for a studio like blizzard you were good enough to work at blizzard not because you knew all the blizzard stuff not because you knew all the blizzard history not because you were a fanboy or a fan girl you got hired at blizzard because you were good enough artists to get the job but by being a good enough artist to get a job at blizzard that also gives you the art good enough to get a job at lucasfilm or at uh industrial light magic or for magic the gathering or at riot games or for electronic arts or any freaking studio you can put your you can you can set your imagination to you can work in film you can work in gaming you can work in fantasy art you can do trading cards you can do anything you want you're good enough because you earned it through hard work and education and perseverance and passion and sacrifice you earned that position but the company never did and never will define who you are they're just an achievement they're a notch in your belt one of many notches in your belt and so long as you don't burn your bridges through poor behavior shitty attitude abusing other people like all these [ __ ] at blizzard or a lot of the [ __ ] that worked at ubisoft maybe even still some today who knows i'm not there but all of these idiots that are finally being ousted the top like la creme de la creme in terms of the in terms of prestige and note and popularity in the gaming industry they will never get a job again but you my dear can get a thousand jobs because you are not an abuser because you're not a misogynist because you're not an anti-semite because you're not a homophobe because you're not a racist you're not a misogynist you're just a really freaking talented artist and you just have this other notch in your belt when i stopped working at electronic arts when i stopped working at disney it didn't destroy me it didn't defeat me i was upset [ __ ] happens and the reason i left was because both they and i agreed that i wasn't a good fit how ironic is that so they told me i didn't fit into the company culture despite treating me like absolute gold they were wonderful people at the studio i worked at wonderful people one of the best bosses i've ever had they were incredibly fair to me but they just they had a demand of me that i wasn't willing to give which is so ironic when i spent my entire life dreaming to do just that but i'm okay and i and since then i have continued to thrive and i started my own business and here we are today all these years later and i couldn't be happier with my life and i couldn't be happier with my career but i know for a fact i am very much aware just like those guys at blizzard are that when i told you a couple of minutes ago that i was an art director at electronic arts and when i told you that i was a background supervisor at disney and i worked for a multitude of different well-known studios as well which i'm not going to talk about because i don't want to oust them but um that when i said that your ears perked up didn't they you took notice you're an artist you probably played games you paid attention didn't you and as soon as i told you that i worked at disney or as soon as i told you i worked at ea you immediately went this guy knows what he's talking about this guy's been there he's done that and i know that but here's the truth here's the deal out of all of the jobs i've ever had working at electronic arts was quite literally the worst job i've ever had it was a big fancy extremely well-paying job and i couldn't i couldn't get out of there fast enough i hated that job it was it hey it won worst company in the world to work for it won that award two years in a row they earned it okay it's a [ __ ] company to work for period nothing good ever came out of that company when i worked on the disney show it did it was not a [ __ ] company it was a wonderful company but it didn't click for me it was not my favorite job the companies that i hold in the highest regard are not the biggest ones they are the small companies the ones where i had intimate relationships with my colleagues where we were friends and we we went out for drinks at after work and we sat close to each other and we were all very we all held very important positions in that studio because we were just seven of us and we were accountable for everything that that that that job was and we we took our job really seriously we really cared and looked out for each other those are the jobs that mattered to me in the end the most those are the ones that helped me to grow they're the ones that gave me art direction opportunities that got me into jobs like ea in the first place those are the jobs that i hold in highest regard but i know full well that when i said that i worked at ea when i told you i worked at disney you took notice the only thing that those companies ever gave me was bragging rights i worked at disney now everything i say matters doesn't it but it doesn't because everything that i say can be just as much full of [ __ ] as any other any other artist out there i'm just name dropping that's all it's just a name drop it's like me saying oh yeah you know i've got the vanity transplant one encore is right over there is audio file headphones and i'm right now speaking into a rode ntg5 and here's an aperture 120d mark ii and recording into a mixpre 3 that's name dropping what matters in the end is how i sound and how i feel to you and whether i'm recording it on a six thousand dollar microphone or whether i'm recording it on a shitty little live mic how i make you feel at the end of the day is what matters and that's exactly what it has to do with a job and if you've got a real if you think about a job like a relationship the only thing that a company like blizzard has is the fact that they're really really attractive they're really sexy and they dress well that's it but they're douche bags they treat you like [ __ ] they're abusive they kick their cat and they they embarrass you in front of your friends on all accounts you're the worst [ __ ] relationship you could ever get yourself into but they're really cute aren't they so for you as an artist i need you to know to understand particularly for young aspiring artists with a very strong focused mind i want you to understand that your i want you to redefine at least your end game not as being a location i want you your end game to be a standard a quality in and of yourself that you adhere to that you respect and that's it that's your endgame i want to work for that level of quality i want to produce that level of quality that is it that is an achievement that is entirely controllable by you furthermore it's an achievement that will give you the versatility it'll give you the freedom to be able to work in any goddamn studio you want it doesn't have to be blizzard it doesn't have to be uh ea it doesn't have to be frame store it doesn't have to be riot it just has to be a place that stimulates you and a place that excites you on a personal level and when you approach a job from that perspective number one you end up usually really finding your style and your identity as an artist far more far more quickly and far more efficiently you discover yourself artistically a lot quicker because you're not trying to fit a mold that doesn't necessarily suit you but it also protects you because the next time uh big head honcho that that god that you saw at blizzcon winks at you gropes your shoulder invites you into the cosby room you can look them right in the eye and say buddy i love working here this is a great studio and i love it here and you smell really really good and i'm really impressed with all the things that you've achieved in this studio but if you ever put your [ __ ] hand on my shoulder again i'm walking out of here so fast i'll leave flame tracks behind me i'm an artist and i'm a professional capisce and if you lose that job if you get fired from that job then you'll find another one but you won't spend the rest of your life in shame and pain and fear okay and just as a little disclaimer here because i don't want you to put yourself in a dangerous position if you feel you're that the person that you're dealing with is could potentially hurt you if you're in a vulnerable scary spot use your smarts use your survival instincts gently carefully try not to insult this person's ego because you don't know how they're going to lash out or retaliate against your embarrassment and walk out with a smile and get out of there and go home and have a good cry and then call the police because you're not walking back into that place again you're not walking back into the lines then after you've put up with something like that and trust me like i said if the head of the fish stinks throw out the fish because if they've been there and if they have tenure in that studio there's no [ __ ] way you're gonna be you're gonna get them out of there so by continuing to go and walk into that space you are basically setting the trap for yourself you're putting your leg in a bear trap and eventually it's eventually you're gonna suffer a very serious consequence like that tragic story that happened to that woman who ended up taking her life okay remember that if you've made it as an artist you've made it and no blizzard or electronic arts defines you you do okay so with that said sorry for the serious tone of today's video but i thought it needed to be said and of course i love you all with all my heart and happy painting take care you

Channel: Adam Duff LUCIDPIXUL

Views: 143,685

Rating: 4.952795 out of 5

Keywords: blizzard entertainment, blizzard sued, protecting from sexism, how to defend yourself at work, when is friendliness too much, what is appropriate at work, the dark side of the video game industry, what's wrong with the video game industry, being a woman in the video game industry, being assaulted at work, how to protect yourself from predators, professional video game industry advice, how to handle conflict at work, how to succeed in video games, activision, worldofwarcraft, gaming

Id: Ldw7BKgk09Y

Length: 60min 2sec (3602 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Sudo3301]

Human Resources exists to protect the company, not the employee.

It's a shame people have to find that out the hard way.

[u/FestiveGarbageHuman]

as someone in art school who wanted to work with Blizzard at some point since I loved their games and adored the artists there, this video really gave me a reality check, its just too fucking cruel, fuck em

[u/PetraArt]

I hope Asmon and everyone watch this because this is extremely in-depth in detail on how some employee got push around and literally on push down on the floor and how Adam Duff stands up in front of the director and got fired pretty fast.

[u/Ekter_Dood]

Very insightful video. It saddens me that people who's childhood dream it is to work at Blizzard have to go through facing this disgusting reality.

[u/TheGokki]

Yap, like others, Blizzard is an ACTUAL sex cult/club. Disgusting. /spit

[u/Remake12]

Holy shit that was terrible to listen to. I can't believe Blizzard is run by such unbelievable bastards.

[u/Kupogasm]

You just reminded me that Brom's son works for Blizzard.. they had an utterly heart warming co-interview during Blizzconline

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/Worth_Living7866]

I love how he says we should not let our endgame be defined by where we work. I think the same goes for what game we play.