As a lawsuit from the state of California accusing Activision-Blizzard of a "frat boy culture" and sexual harassment has sparked a new wave of #MeToo stories across the games industry in recent weeks, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has responded to an inquiry about what the publisher is doing to ensure it is not propagating the same culture.
The company's quarterly earnings today include, right at the top, a line stating that Take-Two has "deepened our focus on corporate responsibility," with the company saying it has recently made key hires related to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
When asked for more detail as to what the company was doing to prevent a culture at Take-Two similar to that detailed in the Activision-Blizzard lawsuit and subsequent reports, Zelnick said the following:
"We've had that concern on a daily basis for as long as I've been at the company, and even now we're proud of our environment. It's an environment of inclusion, respect, and common decency. And yet, we know we can do more. We have and have had for a very long time a highly diverse board of directors. We have a diverse workforce. And the communication internally is phenomenal. Even with 6800 people, I hear from people directly and I'm completely reachable through Slack, through text, through email and phone calls and, personal visits.
"We don't think we're immune to issues. We do think we're very focused on the health and wellbeing of all our employees worldwide, and we think people know that here. But there's more to be done at any given time, and our focus has been heightened and I suspect will continue to be heightened."
IGN was unable to follow up on this statement by Zelnick, but Destiny developer Bungie released a similar statement publicly in the wake of the lawsuit.
Meanwhile, Activision-Blizzard employees held a walkout last week demanding an end to mandatory arbitration, new policies to improve representation, publication of relative compensation data for all genders and ethnicities at the company, and an empowered company-wide task force. The company has since hired a union-busting law firm and has reportedly canceled all-hands meetings, as employees of the company continue to push for change.
Update: Zelnick was asked a similar question during today's earnings call with investors, and gave a more detailed response outlining some of the company's efforts toward diversity and inclusion:
"We don't think that fostering an appropriate environment is a single set of actions or reflects one day in a news cycle," he said. "We think it's a constant process of introspection and improvement. There are always ways that we in the industry can do better. We'll listen to our colleagues and we'll work in this area over time.
"But I want to be very specific because you asked the question about what we do around here and what we've always done. The first is, and I'll say it in as black-and-white a way as I can: We will not tolerate harassment or discrimination or bad behavior of any kind. We never have. We set those expectations when people come on board here through our code of conduct and our anti-harassment and anti-discrimination policies, all of which our colleagues are required to review and sign when they are hired. All of our colleagues take anti-harassment training at hire and bi-annually after that. And we make it clear through our training and our policy that if anyone does experience any inappropriate contact, there are multiple avenues to report that, and they'll never be retaliated against for doing so. Those options include the management chain, anyone in HR, an anonymous complaint by phone or online through our third-party hotline and website reporting tools.
"Take-Two has a director of diversity and inclusion, and that remit includes developing, executing, and leading the global DE&I strategy, and that supports our business objectives. We also have multiple employee resource groups inside the company and we have more growing all the time."
Zelnick concluded by noting that the publisher's turnover rate for the last 18 months has been "roughly half" of the overall game industry's.
[poilib element="accentDivider"]Rebekah Valentine is a news reporter for IGN. You can find her on Twitter @duckvalentine.
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