It’s a very dark time for Blizzard right now. Their reveal last year of Diablo Immortal triggered a lot of die-hard fans, the recent reveal of Soldier 76 in Overwatch being gay has causes a little backlash, and most importantly, the company seems to be losing money at such a rate because of decisions of their parent company Activision that some don’t know if they’ll be around much longer. And now, a former employee has come out to say that the company allowed racial abuse. Both to him, and to others.
This came from Jules Murillo-Cueller, a confirmed former member of Blizzard who worked on both the Hearthstone eSports team, and the eSports business side of the company. He notes that while at first the job was hard, but everything was fine. But then…
“When I was hired fulltime that’s when the mood in my team changed . . . we were no longer a unit, but two people—Drew and Gemma Barreda-Mirkovic—and me.”
“It all changed when Gemma would joke about my sexism, or natural inclination to be sexist, due to my heritage: having been born Mexican and raised in Mexico, Gemma would experience “Mexican culture” as an exchange student . . . The assumption then became that I was just like everyone else, and that my attitudes, beliefs were that of a Mexican machista (male chauvinist). I didn’t make much of this since she said it “in jest” but this would weigh on me, and I would later confide in my Mrs.”
He noted also that this abuse continued, and it started to affect his mental health:
“The “jokes” regarding my “machismo” and me being Mexican, would only become more frequent, and finally culminate in the events that started my descent into literal madness.
His TwitLonger post went into great detail describing the abuse and the lengths it almost drew him to. These events continued until he left apparently. If this is indeed true, this is yet another black eye on a company that can’t afford to be this way right now.
