Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has stated that diversity and inclusion are “paramount” to everyone that works at the games company.
The comments were made by Zelnick during the firm’s earnings call on August 2 for the first quarter of fiscal year 2022 (via PC Gamer), where the Rockstar Games parent addressed the issues that have been plaguing the games industry.
Namely, the Activision Blizzard lawsuit that has surfaced in recent weeks, which accuses the workplace of harbouring a “frat boy” culture. This was followed by staff holding a strike to show their collective frustration with the company’s response, as well as Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack announcing his departure earlier today.
“Inclusion, diversity and common decency are of paramount importance to everyone here, and specifically highly important to me for the 14 years we’ve been around,” the full quote from Zelnick reads.
“I’ll say it in as black and white a way as I can: We will not tolerate harassment or discrimination or bad behaviour of any kind. We never have… We don’t think fostering an appropriate environment is a single set of actions or represents one day in a news cycle. We think it’s a constant process of introspection and improvement,” they add.
To further combat this, the Take-Two CEO explained how employees participate in anti-harassment training twice a year and when first taken on. According to the statement, Take-Two staff also have access to an anonymous third-party hotline, alongside other options to report any wrongdoings.
Many games industry workers have now been calling for unionisation, including a former Blizzard senior employee who has written an open letter addressing the topic.
Take-Two Interactive recently acquired Dynamixyz, a facial animation studio based in France that worked with Rockstar Games when developing Red Dead Redemption 2.
The post Take-Two CEO says company will not “tolerate harassment or discrimination” appeared first on NME.
