I used to live with such guys at uni, had them as flatmates - you wouldn't catch them dead talking about video games, "nerd" was probably the worst insult for them, and they religiously bought every single Fifa every year to "play with their mates" and CoD to play some multiplayer. Year on year. So yeah, I'm absolutely tempted to believe those stats, and I'm also absolutely tempted to believe any backlash from this will be minimal to Activision.
Consumer backlash is not the intended means/outcome here. Blizzard is being sued and there is massive organizing within the company. They will likely end up paying out lots of money in compensation to the employees who were wronged, heads will roll, and the toxic culture will end up being cleared out forcibly (like what happened at Uber). Consumer backlash is an orthogonal concern.
Then I am very out of touch with the average having never bought any of those games, nor do I own a console. My recent purchases would be the Valve index and subnautica. The only "AAA" title in my steam library is ES:Oblivion. I'm probably not Blizzard's target market, but I am also not a broke kid. Give me a game I want to play and I will pay for it.
I know several current and former Team 2 (WoW) developers, from QA up to leads, and they are all unified in their rejection of their executives.
And I live nearby, so I'll be joining them on the pavement tomorrow.
From a fan perspective many are disappointed and/or concerned with the direction of WoW, Overwatch, and other Blizzard franchises from a gameplay perspective.
And from what I understand, the WoW community is talking about the recent news with many seeing this as the same leadership that is making poor decisions about the games they like as the same leadership behaving badly in the workplace.
They will stick with you through little fuckups, but if you want to make a big change, for better or worse, then you're going to hear about it.
It's why ex-smokers and ex-drinkers complain about having to stop hanging out with their old friends. It's not just the temptation to revert, there's also social pressure for you to be the old you. If you want to go the other direction and become an ass, you're in for a similar treatment.
The real danger comes when the project fails, for any reason at all. People who like the new direction self-select into the experiment, and if the experiment fails they are more likely to find themselves laid off, give notice, or be disillusioned and stick around anyway.
I am very suspicious, for instance, if this is what happened at GM with the EV1. Effectively the rabblerousers got put onto a project, which they cancelled it quite abruptly and then backed away from the green vehicle space for a very long time.
I think ultimately the workers staging a walk out or even stopping work would have the quickest and surest effect. The government setting labor standards isn't always the most effective, not to mention no one knows the pain suffered or actions needed more than the workers themselves.