Video game giant Activision Blizzard has been hit with multiple lawsuits alleging gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace, tarnishing its reputation and seeing the exodus of numerous top executives. Various companies have said that they are reevaluating their relationship with Activision Blizzard in the wake of these lawsuits and associated allegations, and now it's been confirmed that the company will not be present at The Game Awards on December 9.
This was confirmed by Game Awards host Geoff Keighley, who made the announcement on Twitter after facing some backlash. Initially, Keighley seemed reluctant to condemn Activision Blizzard, which resulted in widespread criticism online. Multiple people pointed out how Keighley was quick to criticize Konami years ago for not allowing Hideo Kojima to attend the event and accept an award, yet wouldn't provide a direct criticism of Activision Blizzard. This caused both "Blizzard" and "Konami" to trend on Twitter.
Keighley has since confirmed that Activision Blizzard will not be at The Game Awards beyond its games that are nominated for awards. As it stands, Activision published game Call of Duty: Warzone is nominated for Best Ongoing Game, while the Call of Duty franchise is nominated for Best Esports Game. Otherwise, the company doesn't have much representation in terms of nominations at The Game Awards 2021. Rob Kostich of Activision is still listed as being on The Game Awards advisory board, however.
It's possible that Activision was meant to have some kind of presence at The Game Awards beyond Call of Duty's nominations. The Game Awards is known for its big world premiere trailers that spotlight upcoming games, and Activision Blizzard has a number of titles in the pipeline that could have potentially been shown off at the awards show. However, that's just speculation at this time, and it's just as likely that Activision Blizzard was not going to debut any world premiere trailers.
Activision Blizzard's upcoming slate of games is a little dry thanks to some recent high profile delays. Both Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2 have been delayed so that they are now not expected to come until 2023 at the earliest. Considering how far out both games are, it's hard to imagine that they would've been featured at The Game Awards anyway. It also seems unlikely that Call of Duty would've had much of a presence beyond its award nominations, as the Warzone Pacific map Caldera drops on December 8, a day before the ceremony.