Do we like Activision Blizzard?
Video game publisher behind Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Candy Crush; based in California, owned by Microsoft.
Our score: 4 out of 10. Mixed, leaning no. It paid out over $100 million in workplace settlements and fines, and its parent is cutting jobs. Union contracts at Blizzard are a real plus.
Activision Blizzard makes some of the biggest games around: Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Candy Crush. Microsoft bought it in 2023 in a deal worth roughly $69 billion. The US FTC fought the deal for nearly two years and finally dropped its challenge in 2025, after an appeals court sided with Microsoft.
The big stain is workplace culture. California's civil rights agency accused it of a "frat boy" culture in 2021. The EEOC settled for $18 million, with Activision admitting no wrongdoing. California later settled for about $54 million, with roughly $45.75 million going to a fund for affected workers.
The SEC then fined it $35 million in 2023. It said the company lacked controls to track workplace misconduct complaints, and that its separation agreements broke a whistleblower rule. Activision neither admitted nor denied the findings, and said it had since improved its processes.
Life under Microsoft is mixed. Blizzard workers ratified their first company-wide union contracts in September 2026, after two years of bargaining. At the same time, Xbox is cutting about 3,200 roles, and Activision is being given more studios to run, including the next Halo.
Our score is 4. The union deals and the settlement payouts count in its favour. But regulators found serious failures on harassment and whistleblowing, and the job cuts at Blizzard and across Xbox are continuing. We'd hold off on backing it.