‘Too many old white guys’: Kotick allegedly attracts yet another lawsuit against Activision

Activision Blizzard is facing yet another lawsuit in the state of California, in part due to comments made by former chief executive Bobby Kotick; however, it’s not what you think, with ageism this supposed central cause.

Former executive James Reid Venable has sued Activision Blizzard in an age discrimination suit, based on the claim that the company terminated him because of his age. First reported by Law360, the suit particularly mentions a statement made by Kotick at a leadership conference that the “problem” with the company was that “there are too many old white guys.” Kotick, who is not looked upon favorably by the wider game dev industry, retired and exited the company this past month.

The suit claims that at least two white executives in their fifties left the company shortly after because of Kotick’s “ageist” remarks. Venable, who led the Central Technology division at Activision responsible for aiding the development of the Call of Duty franchise technologically, claims one of those former executives, his boss, recommended him for promotion. Instead, “a substantially younger, less qualified, less experienced non-white employee” was promoted, according to the suit.

Venable also claims that the promoted employee, Jonathan Lee, became his interim manager and “created a hostile work environment,” and negatively affected Venable’s performance reviews so that he was given “the lowest percentage merit increase in almost ten years of employment at Activision, a 1.75 percent raise in base salary.” According to LinkedIn, Lee served as the vice president of Technology Strategy from April 2020 to August 2023 and was then promoted to the chief operation officer role at Central Technology.

The suit also includes claims that a female employee “made false, defamatory remarks about [Venable’s] ‘white male privilege,'” and accuses Activision’s HR department of not taking his complaints seriously. Finally, Venable alleges he was laid off in a retaliatory manner due to his age, while his termination statement cited “job elimination and restructuring needs,” which he claims is false. Venable claims six other male employees “ranging in age from age 47 to age 64” were let go.

It’s unclear whether or not Kotick’s comments were made around the time of or in response to the state of California’s lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for sexual harassment and mistreatment of female workers, which settled this past month. Both Venable and Activision Blizzard declined to comment to Law360.