Why are Blizzard Employees Allowed To Talk Like This?

[Lei]

The thing is, we also didn't have the other side of the problem 20 years ago: People being fucking assholes to this extent. Can't remember that back in the days people sent a letter to specific employees to tell them how shitty they think they are (with the occasional death threats, as at least a few of those always sneak in nowadays). We live in a time where game studios are also a lot more open about development.

Blizzard still has to learn a lot in that regard, but just thinking back to the days where you buy a game, you maybe (very rarely) join the official forums and criticize some stuff and you'd get the "deal with it" answer like 95% of the time while nowadays devs are at least in a conversation even if it doesn't result in an answer that people like. It's just a much closer atmosphere than 20 years ago and with that they also leave points for unnecessary personal attacks which are ridiculous.

This also has a lot of implications on the "Being professional" mantra. Back in the days being professional meant barely any interaction between companies and customers. But with the relationship becoming much closer in the past decade, we shouldn't stick to the definition of "being professional" of the 90s. An employee should have a certain resilience to douchebags obviously (I've worked in retail and my god some people are just fucking assholes), but the things that people say to your face and the garbage they unload on the internet are very different and things like death threats, personal attacks and harrass like creating multiple accounts and so on are not uncommon and there is a point where you can't just repeat the "just be professional". That's a two-way road where the other side also has to stop being assholes. Seems pretty basic as well, doesn't it?

Obviously, just from what Lore said on Twitter, it's impossible to say what exactly he received, although it's not unlikely that with such a big community the worst of the worst also come out of their holes. But this is just an ongoing problem that needs to be addressed and this whole culture of people being as idiotic and hateful as they can be just to brush it off as "it's just the internet bro, just be professional as an official employee" rubs me the wrong way.

Ok. So what changes with this kind of tweet? First rule of twitter is that you can't really change the world in 140 char. WHY was it necessary to put that out? Other than flaming people? A CM - a COMMUNITY MANAGER - can't possibly be this... clueless(?) about (the power of) social media and the backlash it can cause, and how carefully you have to use it, I mean he literally just came out of one - ending with an apology from him - on the wow forums. What did he learn from that? (remember the tone of his first comment on the azerite issue?)

[ramayana1423]

If he was even mediocre at his job he would deal with 90% less shit. He's horrifically bad at what he does.

[Deleted]

TBF there's a lot of hypocrisy going on here. A lot of people are held accountable by their job for their private Twitter and often criticized on here for their tweets. Why is this different?

[Ferg]

oh my god this thread is way too long why is this such a big deal

[Mafic]

oh my god this thread is way too long why is this such a big deal

Because that is the price for fame.

GG Lore.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Ain't people like him the reason why we never had a real beta?

How could it be he’s not a dev.

[Deleted]

"this is also part of why I don't use my personal Twitter as a platform for collecting game feedback, incidentally"

he doesn't want to use his personal twitter as a platform for collecting feedback, because he doesn't want twitter to be a constant slog through garbage spewed by anonymous dickbags with idiotic ranting.

if it's not a direct link between anonymous dickbags with idiotic ranting and game feedback, I don't know what it is. in blue he stay polite even with the obvious bad faith and passive agressive bullshit, but you see the unfiltered version on tweeter a little bit later. this, ladies and djents, is a community manager!!

[malviouz]

Can't blame him, this "community" is pure cancer.

[Imonaboat13]

The US would be in a lot better place if we didn't have a "the Customer is always right" approach to customer service.

Most customers are dickbags and should be called out on it.

If that makes you mad - you probably treat Customer Service folks like crap

[Xilurm]

if it's not a direct link between anonymous dickbags with idiotic ranting and game feedback, I don't know what it is. in blue he stay polite even with the obvious bad faith and passive agressive bullshit, but you see the unfiltered version on tweeter a little bit later. this, ladies and djents, is a community manager!!

Community managers are also people who aren't immune to all the cancer out there. The idiots who whine so much probably forget about it after 5 minutes. The people who receive all that cancer have to deal with it every day.

The US would be in a lot better place if we didn't have a "the Customer is always right" approach to customer service.

Most customers are dickbags and should be called out on it.

If that makes you mad - you probably treat Customer Service folks like crap

It's the whole world like that not just US.

[Great Destiny Man]

TBF there's a lot of hypocrisy going on here. A lot of people are held accountable by their job for their private Twitter and often criticized on here for their tweets. Why is this different?

The content of the Tweet matters. The times where there's public outcry of tweets are when there's a feeling of individuals crossing the line. A flippant comment from Lore about his frustrations with "dickbags" on Twitter doesn't hold a candle to things like Elon Musk accusing divers of being pedophiles or Rosanne Barr coming out with Racist comments.

[Deleted]

Community managers are also people who aren't immune to all the cancer out there. The idiots who whine so much probably forget about it after 5 minutes. The people who receive all that cancer have to deal with it every day.

it's their choice to put it out there on twitter. if you can't deal with it, don't use that shit that is tweeter and all the cancer that come with it.

[Featherogue]

I think both Blizzard and the community are wrong. They're fighting each other like the Horde and the Alliance lol. The community needs to learn to voice their criticism in a healthy way, with respect and compromise. Blizzard needs to learn to take that criticism with respect and compromise. It seems that both parties are particularly stubborn and set in their ways at this point, and emotions have really been playing into it ... everyone is so angry ... angry at the wrong people.

[Deleted]

IDK. Given that it's a public account, even if it's his *personal* twitter (not private, important distinction between PERSONAL and PRIVATE) account and not his work one, I'm not really sure ranting about and/or indirectly insulting people about my work is either professional or acceptable.

Like, if I go home and start talking on my *personal* account about how people at my workplace, or customers, are such dicks, etc etc etc., I fully expect that to come back and bite me in the arse.

When people want to talk like this or vent, they'd do well to buy a moleskine or heck a 99 cent spiral notebook, write it out, and then leave it, trash it, or burn it, idc. The era of oversharing and "everybody cares about my should-be-internal thoughts" needs to end asap

Not once did he reference the WoW community or its player base. People are just looking for any reason to rant at any Blizzard employee because they feel that Blizzard owes them....everything. This has been going on since beta and it is really quite sad. The people who are upset about this tweet are most likely the same people who are trolling/harassing Lore in the first place.

[Deleted]

No offense but "we" all know where Lore works and who he was talking about.

Unless you have no idea, in which case....

No, you are assuming he was talking about the WoW player base. That assumption is on YOU and not him. There are a lot of trolls out there and they just look for any person who does not share their own view to go after.

[FecundDecay]

I don't care that his twitter account is "private", that's a load of bull. He represents Blizzard regardless of whether he's "CMLore" or "Josh Allen". This kind of blatant unprofessional attitude and antagonism towards the WoW playerbase is extremely uncalled for. Before you strawman me with anonymous twitter trolls being unbearable, realize that he's condescending on the official forums as well, and you don't need a lot of brainpower to put two and two together that he's referring directly to paying WoW customers as "dickbags".

How the heck is that any way appropriate?

Too bad he wasn't showing antagonism towards "the wow playerbase." He was showing antagonism towards dickbags....
Which given your whiny attitude in this post, I don't blame him for in the slightest.

Being a "paying wow customer" doesn't give anyone free reign to conduct themselves like petulant toddlers.
Frankly - I would be thrilled to see MORE of the Dev and Community team members put idiots like that in their place.
If you're offended by that - you're probably one of them yourself.

[Tharkkun]

The US would be in a lot better place if we didn't have a "the Customer is always right" approach to customer service.

Most customers are dickbags and should be called out on it.

If that makes you mad - you probably treat Customer Service folks like crap

Honestly that motto went in the tank in the 90's. Companies don't follow that anymore but they will go to great lengths to provide customer service.

[Spookysheep]

So are you a representation of YOUR EMPLOYER on your off time too? Do you feel YOU should be fired if you sound off on YOUR PRIVATE social media about your job?

LMAO! YES, you SHOULD be fired if you dis your employer on ANY social media, public or private. No one OWES you job. God this generation is so full of entitled little brats.

[Deleted]

Heh, alright man. Clearly has nothing to do with his job, and what he does every day for a living. My assumption was entirely unfair and not, at all, based on ample contextual evidence and so on.

Evidence? What evidence? All I see is people making assumptions and then using the fact that since Lore has his employer in his bio (legal obligation btw) that he must be talking about the WoW player base. Yep, that seems totally fair that every comment he makes will only be about his work.

[Thimagryn]

His private twitter isn't customer service. It's his private twitter and he can do and say anything he wants.

Whether or not he gets reprimanded for being outspoken is another issue. Either way, that wouldn't be an issue of 'customers are right', rather it'd be about how Blizz representatives should act in their private social media.

I haven't seen anyone at Blizz get fired over these kind of remarks, and Lore isn't even the worse of it. GFraizer and Bashiok were much more aggressive in their stance and carried on fine for years.

- - - Updated - - -

Heh, alright man. Clearly has nothing to do with his job, and what he does every day for a living. My assumption was entirely unfair and not, at all, based on ample contextual evidence and so on.

If you actually read the tweets following his 'Fuck today' statement, he says the WoW stuff is only like... 8% of what has made his day bad.

So while WoW rants definitely contribute to his ire, it's unfair to imply that it's the main thing he's directing his frustrations at. As others have said, there was the whole political situation with Kavanaugh on the same day of the tweet, and Lore is very vocal on politics on twitter. So you're right, it's all about context.