Update: Elly Johnson, a sound designer from Rocksteady, confirmed the veracity of the letter shared by the studio. It’s also coming to light that the original Guardian article and accusations were an agenda-driven one-sided narrative that failed to actually consult the women currently working at Rocksteady.
This thread.
Every voice in this situation is valid. If we’re fighting for women to have their voices heard, let’s not pick and choose the ones we do/don’t listen too, especially if they wish to retain their privacy. Its not about taking sides, it’s about listening to all of them https://t.co/oAlUzdio08— Elly Johnson (@preyalways) August 20, 2020
Multiple women at Rocksteady—both current and former employees—say they feel more violated by the press and the story that was run without their consent or comment than by the culture at Rocksteady.
All I wan’t to say is, in my 9 months at Rocksteady, I have been treated as nothing but equal. I’ve been given the support to speak openly, have my voice heard, and respected. I wouldn’t be complicit in any studio that I felt promoted otherwise, against any group of marginalised
— Elly Johnson (@preyalways) August 19, 2020
It seems that the letter may have been given to Rocksteady directly to share out due to distrust with how the press would continue to spin the narrative or pick and choose points that supported the story they were writing.
Original: Yesterday, The Guardian reported on claims that Batman: Arkham developer Rocksteady had failed to improve its work environment following claims of sexual harassment and other forms of impropriety. Such allegations stem from a 2018 letter that several female staffers sent to management. At the time, a meeting was held after the letter’s submission; yet, according to sources that spoke with The Guardian, little was done to prevent the continuation of bad behavior. Rocksteady responded to the publication’s report with a brief statement, and has since offered another update on the matter. The latest bit of insight comes via an “unsolicited letter” from current female staff members, which the studio shared in a Twitter post.
Rocksteady’s tweet, linked below, seems a strangely worded affair. Allegedly, the lengthy letter embedded within the post was submitted unsolicited, having been anonymously drafted by seven of the ten female employees who signed the original 2018 letter. Even stranger is that Rocksteady chose to close replies on the tweet itself. No sources have come forward to corroborate the letter’s legitimacy, and it seems curious that the letter was provided to Rocksteady itself instead of being issued to the press, so it remains under some suspicion by a number of people. (See update above.)
While working on our response to the recent news, we received the following unsolicited letter. pic.twitter.com/sozmsp6u3C
— Rocksteady Studios (@RocksteadyGames) August 19, 2020
According to the letter posted by Rocksteady, its drafting was allegedly independent of any influence from management or other workers. Its submission is a response to The Guardian report, which the new message claims doesn’t accurately represent the situation in 2018. The writers of the letter note that while it may have seemed the outlet’s sources represented Rocksteady’s female staff as a whole, that isn’t the case.
Apparently, when Rocksteady received the 2018 notice, a series of meetings were conducted to give employees a “safe space to talk.” Efforts were then shifted toward figuring out how to resolve issues noted in various complaints. The letter goes on, “continued efforts have been made to ensure that we have a voice within our work and within the studio, ranging from involvement specifically with how our characters are represented to workshops to help build self-confidence within male dominated industries.”
Rocksteady’s current female staff members weren’t informed about the 2018 letter’s leak to the press. As such, they feel their “privacy and wishes have been disregarded, and a private matter has been made public.” The staffers close the message by encouraging minority members of the industry to speak up, while also asking that studios take each claim seriously, “as Rocksteady did at the time and continues to do.”
This is all transpiring on the eve of Rocksteady’s full reveal for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which goes live during DC FanDome on August 22nd.
[Source: Rocksteady Studios on Twitter]
