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By all means!
Ghostcrawler has officially joined the bandwagon of bad damage control tweets
https://gyazo.com/f367400d26523f661040d25c084c2da0
They’re honestly just making it worse each time they tweet…
Then again, that is the practice of executives and politicians these days, no? Never ever admit that you screwed up, and even if there is irrefutable proof that you did, still deny it?
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Reminder; this is a Whole Industry Problem.
Even the current poster child is not exempt from its own lingering issues, apparently;
https://twitter.com/hexatomic/status/1420525864823889928
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This is why I personally find the promotion of a boycott that we’ve seen time and time again throughout this whole debacle somewhat problematic. Even though I fully respect and understand those that not only decide to take that route but also why they do.
Hell, after the Kotaku article touched down earlier I was so angry that I was telling some friends that I was feeling as though it’d be the last straw for me. I get it.
And I respect those that take such a stance. No matter one’s reasoning.
However, it can become a half-measure to me if that reason is based on principle.
These issues are wide-spread in the industry as a whole, as you say.
Despite the fact that most of us likely have a very close emotional attachment to Blizzard Entertainment (as well as seeing some of the worst examples of harassment in the industry for a long time, granted) and we feel a whole range of emotions regarding these revelations and details because of that, I personally don’t see it’ll do much to focus those emotions solely towards Blizzard Entertainment in lieu of the issue at hand.
As an example, when the whole Blitzchung controversy broke in 2019 I think I had far too many acquaintances in gaming screaming bloody murder about it, “Free Hong Kong” and #BoycottBlizzard.
Meanwhile, they were playing League of Legends.
A title developed and published by Riot Games, whose owner and largest shareholder is and was Tencent, directly managed from China and controlled in part by the CCP.
Which is more than fine, I’m not saying they shouldn’t play the game. That’s not the point I’m making.
Yet I’d argue it dilutes and is in direct contradiction to the message they were trying to send. The same can be said in my opinion for certain groups that have been very outspoken regarding boycotting Blizzard Entertainment in light of the allegations and stories that have surfaced this past week.
It is a more than understandable reaction. And I’m not saying it’s neither right nor wrong.
But I believe it to be very dangerous to move from Blizzard Entertainment, screaming about this injustice, and then happily boot up another game and suddenly not care about the fact that the same injustices are likely just as present at whatever studio has developed that other title in turn and not treat it the same way.
Then again, with that mindset you end up on a path where you can’t buy anything. Right? Which is fair criticism to that kind of viewpoint, to call myself out a bit.
This is a very hard topic for any consumer to tackle and I’m not claiming to have solid answers.
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Consume what you want, don’t care about the opinion of some nobodies who you will never meet in your life. Stop feeling guilt, you owe it to none.
Anyway I just want the game to be good again. Fire all the cube crawlers and get the game good once again. Ultimately thats what I care about the most, I want the game to be good.
Ok. F*** all of them. They completely ruined any respect I’ve had for the company and makes me so angry that I played their games to which made me fall in love with the lore and the universe they created.
In regards and supporting Preach here, I said something in a discord server like this:
I just can’t stand to buy/play their products atm because I cannot do it in good conciousness until they actively change for the better and that all those harmed get their justice due.
Maybe it makes us hypocrites by going from one company to supporting another who may have be found allegations to themselves, but until then, unless that company who have allegations and have damaging evidence to it (Blizzard) actually proves to do themselves better and self-improve, regain their reputation or just else burns down and offers the IP rights of their game to a company worthy on taking on these beautifully created universes, I am not going to return to WoW anytime soon.
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I don’t think this makes you or anyone else a hypocrite. This might be present elsewhere too, but we can only act on what we know, and we know this to be really bad.
Not playing while they sort their sh*t out is perfectly valid.
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A healthy working environment should lead to a good game.
Secure, happy workers do more, projects are likely to run on schedule and things will pan out.
I’m hoping things are shaken up well enough that the people who need justice get it, and we can go back to a wow that we can enjoy like we used to.
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While they’re kicking out the harassers (good riddance), I wonder if they could also kick out the out of touch devs too. Like people who think that domination shards = set bonuses. Or people that have never even played the game they develop.
That’d be based.
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Activision Blizzard is being sued for sexual harassment, not poor in-game designs.
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Better clean up the whole team while they’re at it, I say. Might as well be efficient since they are at it already. The good (stay), the bad (kick), and the incompetent (kick).
They dont need to do that, from any sort of perspective? Stock value dropped by 7% based on the lawsuit and all together poor managment of the conflict, rathen than reveal of shards mechanics and poor storyline. They will continue milking the game exactly the same way as they did before and expecting in-game changes out of a real life lawsuit is beyond weird and wrong.
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Yeah now is probably not the time to fire people based off of a ‘performance review’.
Tbh you shouldn’t use these events as leverage for your ingame pet peeves. The best you can hope for is, as others as said, that if pride returns to Blizzard, then they will care more about the game(s) they’re developing again and that will show in the finished product.
Ok, and?
Surely since they are no doubt in the process of firing bad people out anyway, some of whom are no doubt bad game devs too, why not get rid of the rest of the people that either do not affect the team positively, or are a detriment to it?
The impact is already happening. Might as well go whole hog with it while they are at it.
It’s been proven to work.
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Because it isn’t even the part of the entire misconduct conflict and they have absolutely no need to do it?
Just because sexual harassment and horrible real life policies have the spotlight doesn’t mean that game will be changed to your own personal liking, Boush. You clearly care more about the state of the game than what happens to the real life offenders by trying to pile up everything that is happening.
EDIT: But then again - I am hardly surprised
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But these problems (the harassment kind) have been around for at least 15+ years according to the records of people. Maybe more. And Blizzard still managed to release several good expansions during that time. Only during the last 6-7 years things have gone down.
As a customer I obviously want the product to improve, and since the proof shows that not all of the problems are related to the harassment (though they are no doubt a great part of it), I say they should not only get rid of the harassers (based), but also the rest of the folk that are dragging the game down.
Now absolutely is the time to drive your own interests forward and I have already unsubbed with demands that I want the harassers gone and the game to improve. There’s not going to be a better chance than this for who knows how long.
Who knows, maybe we get some changes. One can hope!
In most companies Atalhalni you can’t just go round firing people on a whim because you are dissatisfied generally. With respect it’s quite a naive perspective to have.