The Cosby Suite
One man named specifically in the lawsuit was Alex Afrasiabi. You might remember this little foreskin of a fellow from the Battle for Azeroth write-up, as the aggressive and alcoholic ‘mastermind’ behind the burning of Teldrassil.
Here is the exact wording off the allegations.
”Alex Afrasiabi, the former Senior Creative Director of World of Warcraft at Blizzard Entertainment, was permitted to engage in blatant sexual harassment with little to no repercussions. During Blizzcon, Afrasiabi would hit on female employees, telling them he wanted to marry them, attempting to kiss them, and putting his arms around them. This was in plain view of other male employees, including supervisors, who had to intervene and pull him off female employees."
Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the Cosby Suite’."
If you’re thinking ‘that can’t be real’, then you’re about to be disappointed.
According to Kotaku, ‘It was reportedly a booze-filled meeting place where many, including Afrasiabi, would pose with an actual portrait of Bill Cosby while smiling. It was also a hot spot for informal networking at BlizzCon, three sources told Kotaku, where people looking to make inroads at the company would go to meet and hang out with some of its top designers.’
Another image from the same Facebook album shows a screenshot of a 2013 group chat called the “BlizzCon Cosby Crew.”
In it, former Blizzard designer David Kosak writes, “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.”
“Bring em,” replies Afrasiabi.
“You can’t marry ALL of them Alex,” Kosak writes.
“I can, I’m middle eastern,” responds Afrasiabi.
Jesse McCree, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, “You misspelled fuck.”
“Possibly the greatest group chat in the history of mankind,” Stockton wrote in a Facebook comment at the time, based on the screenshot.
Several employees claimed the Cosby Suite was just a play on Bill Cosby’s ‘iconic ugly sweaters’, because the room looked dated, and had no sexual connotation. Another insisted it was a reference to an ‘ugly boardroom’ at Blizzard HQ, which had a similar pattern to the sweater. Yet another said it referenced an ugly hotel room at a different gaming convention entirely.
Of course these were all lies. The room was generic and nondescript, and there were no ‘ugly boardrooms’ at Blizzard HQ – it had been freshly decorated in 2008. Other employees (who spoke privately to Kotaku) confirmed that it was a reference to Cosby’s sexual crimes, because of course it was.
In one image procured by Kotaku, a group of women are sitting on a bed in the room with the Cosby portrait. One of the women appears to have a hand on another’s breast, which is cheered on by the men in the comments. According to the images procured by Kotaku, and two sources with knowledge of Afrasiabi’s alleged predatory behavior, Cosby’s reputation was apparently the point of why the group of men gathered around his picture in the photos.
Gradually an image began to develop of Blizzard as a company led by a few close friends who scratched each-others’ backs and protected each other from consequences. Afrasiabi was just one rotten apple among an entire orchard of rotten apples.
“WoW makes money, so the people at the top of WoW are untouchable, which means they get away with lots of shit.” A Blizzard source said. “Also if you were there a long time, which most of the WoW team leadership was, you were ‘in the family’ and pretty much untouchable, which is the breeding ground for behavior like this.”
Here are a few fan comments from the time.
”jesus christ, this is like watching the trainwreck of a trainwreck in a middle of a trainwreck”
[…]
”Just burn it all down. I mean if ANYONE stays at this company that’s named in this suit, this article or any future articles acting this way stays they will NEVER regain trust.”
One of the most upsetting accounts came from Anne Armstrong, who described Afrasiabi’s behaviour at a corporate event.
“He was getting very touchy-feely and kissed me passionately in front of everyone after this declaration. It was totally inappropriate.
Alex leaned down and kissed me and put his hand inside of my dress and cupped my breast inside of my bra. I was honestly horrified and shocked and hope that nobody saw this. I excused myself and went to the restroom.
Alex shocked me by boldly sticking his hand inside of my dress and grabbed me, pushing my underwear aside. I pushed his hand out, furious. This was completely shocking and unwanted. I knew right then he did not value me or respect me.”
The public were shocked and horrified.
”It's like the flood of stories wont stop. Jesus.”
[…]
”Honestly drunk or not drunk. I will never understand what has to go through someones head to just stick a hand down a womans dress.
Like how on earth do you think to yourself that thats an acceptable thing to do.
No wonder he deleted his twitter and went into hiding after leaving Blizzard. Probably knew about the investigation and what was gonna come out it. What a scum of a person.”
[…]
”I guess I overestimated Alex. I thought he was a perverted dickweed asshole that has no right working at Blizzard, but I didn't realize he was also dumber than a bag of rocks.”
Around the same time, an old video surfaced.
During a Q&A panel at Blizzcon 2010, one female player nicknamed ‘Xantia’ had asked,
“I love the fact that you have a lot of very strong female characters. However I was wondering if we could have some that don’t look like they’ve stepped out of a Victoria’s Secret catalogue?”
A distinctly female cheer went up, before immediately being drowned out by a roar of boos and jeers, which the executives encouraged.
“Which catalog would you like them to step out of,” responded game director Tom Chilton at the time.
I feel you, and we want to vary our female characters absolutely, so yeah we’ll pick different catalogs,” said Alex Afrasiabi.
The rest of the panel laughed. Brack tried to keep the joke going. Xantia was eventually prompted to move out of the line, her question unanswered.
Xantia later commented on the video to Kotaku.
“It’s hard to have your voice heard when there are that many guys setting the tone,” Xantia said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why that video has gone viral. It just exemplifies so much of what’s wrong right now with the industry at large. There is me being utterly dismissed by a panel of men who run the company and at the same time having a small, small group of women in the audience cheer and then that immediately being drowned out by men booing.”
That was a polite way of putting it. Others were a lot more blunt.
“This aged like milk.” Guys the milk has always been rotten as heck.’
[…]
”Brack is grease personified. He turns any building he enters into a fire hazard.”
[…]
”You can just feel her discomfort and dissatisfaction with the answer she was given.”
[…]
”Can’t believe these are grown men giving answers like this.”
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