san francisco employees at activision blizzard planned a work stoppage on thursday to protest sexism at the video game company according to a rallying cry echoing on social mediathe activision blizzard walkout for equality is to last through the work day with a live event during lunch time hours at the firms campus in the southern california city of irvineorganizers expected about 50 people to take part in the campus protest with others joining virtually due to the covid19 pandemicit is the responsibility of leadership to stamp out toxicity and harassment in any form across all levels of the company activision blizzard chief and cofounder mike morhaime said in a post over the weekendto the blizzard women who experienced any of these things i am extremely sorry that i failed youmorhaime acknowledged in the post that harassment and discrimination are prevalent in the video game industrythe call for a walkout came as workers blasted activision blizzards response to a slew of sexism and harassment complaints in a letter calling its reaction abhorrentemployees at the company demanded that executives recognize the seriousness of these allegations and demonstrate compassion for victims according to the letter posted onlinethe letter had been signed by more than 2000 employees by tuesday according to media reportsthe california department of fair employment and housing filed a civil complaint last week claiming the maker of call of duty and world of warcraft violated state laws by allowing a pervasive frat boy workplace culturein the latest case highlighting claims of sexism in the video game industry the lawsuit said the company fostered a sexist culture and paid women less than men according to a statement from the state agencyactivision blizzard pushed back on the allegations saying that the lawsuit includes distorted and in many cases false descriptions of blizzards pastin cases related to misconduct action was taken to address the issue it saidthe game company said it had been cooperative with the state agency but that it rushed to file an inaccurate complaint as we will demonstrate in courtthe employee letter condemned the remarks made by activision in its defense as abhorrent and insultingactivision did not respond to a request for comment on the letter