World of Warcraft Team Addresses Recent Events

world of warcraft team addresses recent events
  • Author: Spannah
  • Date: July 27, 2021
  • Updated: July 28, 2021
  • Expansion: World of Warcraft

Following the recent news of a lawsuit being filed by The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing against Activision Blizzard, the World of Warcraft Team has issued a statement.

The statement mentions “to take immediate action in Azeroth to remove references that are not appropriate for our world”, which may mean the removal or renaming of certain NPC characters, referencing members of Activision Blizzard.

Blizzard Entertainment – (Source)

It was clear from our team conversations that we wanted to put forth a statement that was representative of the World of Warcraft team’s sentiments. We asked all members of our team to send us their suggestions and feedback on how best to address the community and this is the result.

The past days have been a time of reflection for the World of Warcraft team, spent in conversation and contemplation, full of sadness, pain, and anger, but also hope and resolve. As we heed the brave women who have come forward to share their experiences, we stand committed to taking the actions necessary to ensure we are providing an inclusive, welcoming, and safe environment both for our team and for our players in Azeroth. Those of us in leadership understand that it is not our place to judge when we have achieved our goals, but rather for our team and our community to let us know when we still have more to do.

While we turn to our team for guidance in our internal work to protect marginalized groups and hold accountable those who threaten them, we also want to take immediate action in Azeroth to remove references that are not appropriate for our world. This work has been underway, and you will be seeing several such changes to both Shadowlands and WoW Classic in the coming days.

We know that in order to rebuild trust, we must earn it with our actions in the weeks and months to come. But we go forward knowing that we share the same vision as our community about creating a place where people of all genders, ethnicities, sexual orientations, and backgrounds can thrive and proudly call home.

 

–The World of Warcraft Team

About the Author

Spannah

Long time World of Warcraft player, I'm always looking for new music to listen to, and weird facts and news to share with friends. I mostly play retail World of Warcraft nowadays, with some occasional Hunt, League of Legends, and Dead by Daylight.

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Tyler Casper
Tyler Casper
2 years ago

It’s a win for the community as a whole when all individuals are held accountable for their actions. On the flip side, the specifics of the communication on this matter from the team at Blizzard create a host of problems – perhaps as many problems as they solve.

To prevent situations such as the Afrasiabi debacle from balooning to such terrible proportions, people who feel threatened — physically, sexually, or otherwise — need to publicly and immediately voice how they feel and know how to (and to whom) communicate that effectively. And in order to voice these concerns, those same people need to feel personally and professionally safe in doing so and feel that the social and professional structure in place will protect them.

When we are publicly made aware of small fragments of the overall picture, e.g. when all we hear is that some manager made romantic advances toward coworkers and was encouraged by “bro”/”pickup” culture, the result is a public that is mislead and distracted. The problem isn’t this guy or his friends, or the things he or they said or did. And the solution isn’t to retroactively punish and/or censor him/them. The problem is the environment in which the accused and his accusers and their superiors and friends operated, and the systems that were (or weren’t) in place to ensure that acceptable social and professional standards exist and are adhered to.

Tyler Casper
Tyler Casper
Reply to  Tyler Casper
2 years ago

Wow, a 30 second time limit on edits?

Revised post:

It’s a win for the community as a whole when all individuals are held accountable for their actions. On the flip side, the specifics of the communication on this matter from the team at Blizzard create a host of problems – perhaps as many problems as they solve.

To prevent situations such as the Afrasiabi debacle from balooning to such terrible proportions, people who feel threatened — physically, sexually, or otherwise — need to publicly and immediately voice how they feel and know how (and to whom) to communicate that effectively. And in order to voice these concerns, those same people need to feel personally and professionally safe in doing so, and feel that the social and professional structures that are in place will protect them.

When we are publicly made aware of small fragments of the overall picture, e.g. when all we hear is that some manager made romantic advances toward coworkers and was encouraged by “bro”/”pickup” culture, the result is a public that is mislead and distracted. The problem isn’t this guy or his friends, or the things he or they said or did. And the solution isn’t to retroactively punish and/or censor him/them. The problem is the environment in which the accused and his accusers and their superiors and friends operated, and the systems that were (or weren’t) in place to ensure that acceptable social and professional standards exist and are adhered to.

Tyler Casper
Tyler Casper
Reply to  Tyler Casper
2 years ago

Seriously?

Misled*

Last edited 2 years ago by Tyler Casper
Furious
Furious(@furious)
Admin
Reply to  Tyler Casper
2 years ago

The time limit on edits is 15 minutes. Perhaps it was a caching issue preventing you from seeing the edit option, we’ll look into it.

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