A Message from the World of Warcraft Team

[Soon-TM]

100% gonna happen. Probably gonna chance the game's name to World of Craft since War is too mean.

Tbh we've just have had an expansion whose story went to great lengths to educate the playerbase about how war is bad and everyone should hold hands together

[MoanaLisa]

They can't fire people? What are you smoking? Do you really think JAB does all the hiring and firing? Jon Hite and Ion absolutely, 1000% have the ability to hire and fire, as well as people under them, like leads.

This is a meaningless gesture, because it doesn't address the real problem - their employees, especially the executive office and HR, and the drunken gropey boys who work there. It's not all they can do. Not by a long shot.

It's a token response, yes. I don't imagine they will do a lot else until the legal department has a better idea of where they are since it's only been a few days. And if they do start firing people, like most companies, they should do it without comment. Making a mistake and starting to fire people without any sort of even a pre-forma investigation is just asking for more legal problems.

On the other hand, if they said nothing, they would get pilloried for that too. It's a no-win and that's just the truth.

I know that this bit of common sense won't do anything for the outrage being expressed. I'm quite curious about how those who value content delivery over everything else will take the news that there is a walkout planned to protest their own and Activision management specifically. Given the hostility toward Activision that is expressed here daily logically I would expect to see some support for that action. Given my own cynical take on what I've seen posted here and elsewhere I know better.

[EyelessCrow]

Lazy unemployed people might still get offended over the word 'craft'.

Remove World because that is ableist language since lazy unemployed people can't travel it.

[Caradras]

dont think you know how things work at such companies. all hiring works via referals. good luck getting one if you quit because you think your boss is mysoginistic. your next potential employer will always call up the previous one to inquire about you. theyre all buddy buddy, trust me. ive worked for years as a developer headhunter.

and if youre low level and you speak up, your chances of being fired are high, while your chances of getting that positive referal for another employer are zero

Well with all this news coming out about blizzard i doubt ppl that want to leave will have much trouble finding new employment.

[DingDongKing]

Blizzard is behaving like that abusive boyfriend who's afraid of losing their girlfriend is just like 'I'LL SAY ANYTHING TO GET YOU BACK!'

But just fucking keeps falling flat on his face because he doesn't have a clue what she actually wants.

[MoanaLisa]

1. Fired Afrasiabi in 2020
2. Apology tour 2021 (with a top female exec also refusing to acknowledge the severity) after lawsuit is revealed

Something tells me Blizzard thinks they've already "fixed" this. No fucking joke.

We don't know for certain that Afrasiabi was fired although I would expect he was pushed.

On the second point, it's probably correct to separate out Activision responses (Santa Monica) from Blizzard's (Anaheim) responses. I know that's hard and requires some thought but it helps to keep down conflating different entities that may very well at this point have different agendas. Miss Townsend's inappropriate response was more representative of ATVI than what Blizzard management might have said.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Oh they were at 12 mill subs when Cata released so if they have kept growing the player base every year they must be at 20? 30? mill now. More?

Don't play cute, it's a trend since WoD, starting at its lowest. And growing the playerbase = new players, not necessarily retaining the ones already there. It's been an upward trend every quarterly starting with Legion though, throughout the pissing and moaning mentioned in my other post.

[TomBrokovski]

With all of the stories that keep coming out about how terrible the work environment was at Blizzard, I think ALL references to employees should be removed from the game, including any voices done by employees. Every reference to an employee just seems like a ticking time bomb at this point, if they didn't do anything themselves they almost certainly knew what was going on and kept silent to enforce the status quo. There's nobody truly innocent in this, there are only degrees of guilt.

[Easo]

Gee, I wonder which NPC's will be gone now. This is not the correct approach.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, deal with your shit internally. We dont need the game to be affected by any of that, i dont want sylvanas to become Fat and lorthemar to be refered as "them"

You are trying too hard and the lawsuit far from being even remotely connected to your imagination.

Can you guys STFU and do your fcking job?! We are paying monthly, you imbeciles, do your fcking job or get replaced. Don't you dare implement WOKE BS into the game. There are only 2 genders. Don't bow down to the mentally ill freaks

Another one, ffs...

[exsanguinate]

This is so stupid. Why can't people just distinguish reality from games. Let gaming characters look like wh*r#s if they want to, whats the matter. It's not even real, it's fantasy. How can you feel attacked.

Varian got bigger bicep and tricep than me too, and? He's hitting the gym, me not. I'm fine with it.

[DingDongKing]

Don't be daft, it's a trend since WoD, starting at its lowest. And growing the playerbase = new players, not necessarily retaining the ones already there. It's been an upward trend every quarterly starting with Legion though, throughout the pissing and moaning mentioned in my other post.

Warlords of Draenor comes off like an award winning game compared to Shadowlands.

Get woke go broke, seems to be coming, would rather they give us details of patch 9.2

Yes, Blizzard went woke and went broke.

Because everyone knows one of the core tenets of being 'woke' is to foster a culture of discrimination and harassment.

[Queen of Hamsters]

Warlords of Draenor comes off like an award winning game compared to Shadowlands.

Mhm, let's see how it ends its run performance-wise.

I actually think WoD DID win an award. Music or art, I can't remember.

[Pum]

DAF if you remove NPCs. Start removing employees.

It's just more meaningless platitudes and nonsense from the WoW team. I wonder how many of the lower level members of Team 2 agree with this? Or have any faith real change will be made, considering an ATVI executive said yesterday on an internal zoom call for employees to rely on systems in their company that have already completely failed everyone?



Maybe I'm cynical, but that last bit? That's pure happy horseshit. This sounds exactly like more meaningless JAB/Ion "We'll do better" platitudes. This is a "Please don't unsubscribe!" post.

I’m pretty sure you’ll have a lot of employees who believe that a token gesture of removing certain individuals because of their position and transgressions will be enough to placate what they would perceive as justice. Conversely you have Blizzard employees staging a walk-out because they believe this will not only give themselves a sense of doing something for the people they think who are effected by a particular issue but also acting on behalf of the people who are primarily effected by that issue.

Walking out for one day does nothing, walking out for multiple days does nothing. In the long term none of these actions do anything but make people who are doing it feel good about themselves. As a gay guy what I have recognised is that very few people who are on ‘your side’ actually underhand what might benefit you, no matter how much they cheer you on, but the saddest part is a lot of the time when they think that they are the ones cheering you on through whatever means, a lot of the time their actions are actually writ large a massive detriment to you and what they are trying to achieve.

There are a lot of similarities with what’s happening now with how certain people want Blizzard entirely crippled because of the actions of a comparative few within the company, which is very in tune with the times, and how modern-day celebrities are brought down for similar sentiments. Afaik, an entire company being obliterated from these issues hasn’t really been seen before, but I will say that just because we are at a stage where there’s recognition for these issues, that doesn’t mean that a company deserves to be brought down because of it.

Be compassionate, and be rational. Blizzard does not deserve to die because of this, and I know I will probably be shat on for this, but everything that has happened in the last few days, there is most likely a very ‘normal’ middle ground that extends from the lawsuit, what has been accused, and what has actually transpired in reality.

[Railander]

wait, so instead of fixing internal culture they're going to strip things that can be considered offensive off a fantasy game? hello blizzard, the fiction part is implicit in the genre.

they think renaming enslave demon to subjugate demon is doing some kind of service to humanity, meanwhile they allow potentially rapists to roam free in their workplace.

[Voidism]

Maybe JAB should step down instead? How about that for activism?

I will not think Blizzard is better after this change (apart from removing Afrasiabi since he's an actual alleged abuser, but that can be done in silence - and should have been done months ago). Fact is I think it will be worse considering this is what they present as their first step. Really? California is a consistent contender for the state of the shallowest of performative activists together with people on Twitter/Reddit.

Real change means removing abusers, not adding another rainbow person (which they will do instead) as a way to deflect attention towards the rainbow plight. Pink capitalism guys, they totally care (when they can make money) about us!

[DingDongKing]

Mhm, let's see how it ends its run performance-wise.

I actually think WoD DID win an award. Music or art, I can't remember.

For what it's worth, I haven't played Shadowlands. But having spent 10+ years doing WoW, I didn't need to play it to realise how creatively bankrupt the expansion is. Both content and narrative wise. It's just an utter shit-show, because they've basically run out of ideas at this point.

wait, so instead of fixing internal culture they're going to strip things that can be considered offensive off a fantasy game? hello blizzard, the fiction part is implicit in the genre.

they think renaming enslave demon to subjugate demon is doing some kind of service to humanity, meanwhile they allow potentially rapists to roam free in their workplace.

They're not changing the fantasy elements of the game. All they're going to do is remove Bridenbrecker and Afrasiabi from the game. The end.

[Queen of Hamsters]

For what it's worth, I haven't played Shadowlands. But having spent 10+ years doing WoW, I didn't need to play it to realise how creatively bankrupt the expansion is. Both content and narrative wise. It's just an utter shit-show, because they've basically run out of ideas at this point.

Hmm... Well I have and am playing it, had a long break, and it's... Meh. Resubbed the other week to amass 10 million gold so I can get the Zulian Tiger off the BMAH.

That's it. It's Meh. Not as starved of content as WoD, but I enjoyed WoD more as a raider. It also had a cohesive world and no BS systems to maintain outside of raiding.

[Skirdus]

Great, instead of actually doing something about the present, they're instead trying to rewrite history again.

There's a reason that old, culturally-insensitive films haven't been scoured from the face of the earth

[DingDongKing]

Hmm... Well I have and am playing it, had a long break, and it's... Meh. Resubbed the other week to amass 10 million gold so I can get the Zulian Tiger off the BMAH.

That's it. It's Meh. Not as starved of content as WoD, but I enjoyed WoD more as a raider. It also had a cohesive world and no BS systems to maintain outside of raiding.

It's fucking sad though that it's a mount that is the motivational factor to play the game. That's not a jab at you.

But holy shit, when the game's core gameplay is no longer appealing, it's a massive shit show.

And before anyone goes 'NYAAAH CANCEL CULTURE'. No, I don't want Blizzard to be a shit company. They set the standard.

But they've now really shat the bed in so many different ways. They need a Wednesday raid reset IRL.

[Gadzooks]

I’m pretty sure you’ll have a lot of employees who believe that a token gesture of removing certain individuals because of their position and transgressions will be enough to placate what they would perceive as justice. Conversely you have Blizzard employees staging a walk-out because they believe this will not only give themselves a sense of doing something for the people they think who are effected by a particular issue but also acting on behalf of the people who are primarily effected by that issue.

Walking out for one day does nothing, walking out for multiple days does nothing. In the long term none of these actions do anything but make people who are doing it feel good about themselves. As a gay guy what I have recognised is that very few people who are on ‘your side’ actually underhand what might benefit you, no matter how much they cheer you on, but the saddest part is a lot of the time when they think that they are the ones cheering you on through whatever means, a lot of the time their actions are actually writ large a massive detriment to you and what they are trying to achieve.

There are a lot of similarities with what’s happening now with how certain people want Blizzard entirely crippled because of the actions of a comparative few within the company, which is very in tune with the times, and how modern-day celebrities are brought down for similar sentiments. Afaik, an entire company being obliterated from these issues hasn’t really been seen before, but I will say that just because we are at a stage where there’s recognition for these issues, that doesn’t mean that a company deserves to be brought down because of it.

Be compassionate, and be rational. Blizzard does not deserve to die because of this, and I know I will probably be shat on for this, but everything that has happened in the last few days, there is most likely a very ‘normal’ middle ground that extends from the lawsuit, what has been accused, and what has actually transpired in reality.

I said nothing about Blizzard dying. Not one word.