What the eff, people.
[Trigger warning for self-injury, homophobia, misogyny on ALL links, especially the ones hosted on Blizzard's sites]

Blizzard recently had their yearly convention for their three franchises, Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo. Fans from all over the globe come to see it, and tickets usually sell out within hours (if not faster) of tickets going on sale. Many Blizzard employees have praised it for being a family event, but I've never been so I don't know how generally family friendly it is.

This year, their closing ceremony included a video from the lead singer of Cannibal Corpse, bashing alliance players in sexist and homophobic terms. Here is the censored version they played, and here are the uncensored comments. Megabitch provides the comments for those who don't want to watch Youtube.

Some of their employees replied to fan comments, although they mostly/only focused on the "Blizzard hates the Alliance!" complaints. Bashiok with a fauxpology, Zarhym with "It was just a joke!"

WoW_Ladies and Dear_Gnome both have mostly safe discussions but there are trolls and bigots. The WoW boards are not so safe, 1, 2, 3, 4 and oh god, so many more.

On a side note that could really get its own post but I have homework to stop putting off, a lesbian WoW player asked about Blizzard's intentions to have any canon gay characters and then posted about it and made a follow up. Her girlfriend also makes a post. Naturally, the whole thing triggered a lot of hate across the forums.

ETA: Worldofwarcraft apparently wants everyone to know that just because you're not on the WoW forums, you can still get plenty of douchery!

ETA2: Level 90 Elite Tauren Chieftan, the band made up of Blizz employees, has put out an apology. Except it's not addressing the homophobia at all, and could easily be about just the alliance players.

ETA3: Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard, put out an actual apology.

(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)

ekaterinv
2011-10-26 08:46 am UTC (link)

Everyone in my guild was like, "yeah, we're trying to ignore the pygmies... and the rape jokes... and the total lack of females in the Tol'vir... and the fact that the goblin race is one big classist joke... and the homophobic gender-policing crap that's suddenly appeared around male blood elves..."

And people in my guild and friends list quietly trickled away to nearly nothing before I finally said screw this, I'd have more fun reading my high school friends' 500th update about what the baby pooped.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	chikane 2011-10-26 03:48 pm UTC (link)
	and the homophobic gender-policing crap that's suddenly appeared around male blood elves..." Wait, what? You mean among the players, right? Because I can't see Blizzard pulling this themselves. Not even they can be this clueless...can they...? looks at the UFB post again Right. They can :/ (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2011-10-26 05:37 pm UTC (link)
	There are a few quests where male blood elves are mistaken as female, or identified as female by the 'real' Horde races. ...because I know when I think feminine, I think giant, thickly muscled arms and shoulders. Really. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2011-10-26 05:38 pm UTC (link)
	There are a few quests where male blood elves are mistaken as female, or identified as female by the 'real' Horde races. Are you fucking kidding me? Are those new quests? Somehow I missed those. Damnit, I love the male blood elves. They're so awesome. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

the__ivorytower
2011-10-26 05:44 pm UTC (link)

1 - When you're a new elf, if you're male, and you hand the quest into Garrosh, he refers to you as a female pronoun. I originally thought this was a mere coding error, but no, as it turns out, 'Garrosh can't tale male elves from female ones, wink wink nudge nudge'.

2 - In Hillsbrad, when you're questing as a male elf, some of the orc NPCs refer to you as female, or make elves-are-girly jokes.

3 - In the Badlands, when the three drunk friends are telling tall tales about Deathwing, the orc one has 'adoring female fans'... one of which is a male blood elf. While you can pick him, and they do kiss in the flying motorcycle, it's clear that, again, it's not out of deference to homosexuals, it's 'orcs can't tell male elves from female ones'.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2011-10-26 05:49 pm UTC (link)
	Aaaaah, my blood elf man hasn't done those quests/areas in forever. Funny how I've leveled numerous Horde women, arguably much more manly than the belves are womanly, but no one makes jokes about them. You'd almost think that masculinity is encouraged for both sexes and femininity for neither! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2011-10-26 05:52 pm UTC (link)
	Honestly? My female blood elf paladin wants a word with people who think being a woman is a code word for being weak and unworthy. She's going to hit them in the face with her shield. My kingdom for customizable body types, she's as muscular as elves get. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ecchaniz0r 2011-10-26 06:52 pm UTC (link)
	THIS. OMG. I would love to make my orc lady as curvy as she genuinely is in my head. (Reply to this)(Parent)

ecchaniz0r
2011-10-26 06:49 pm UTC (link)

The Badlands quest made me want to falconpunch, because FFS COME ON--and then GF pointed out that the orc goes 'i shared a tender moment with the strapping young blood elf'.

And I went, '...wait, seriously?'

So while it's still kind of stupid and still irritatingly gender-role 'hurhur u guise'...I'll give them this: they snuck in a bear/twink pairing. However, I suspect it only flew under the radar because of the premise and the other cracks at b'elf guys. It really is blink-and-you-miss-it.

I also took a little bit of comfort in the fact that it seems to only be nutcases (the batty mad scientist Forsaken at the sludge field), raving cloud-cuckoolanders (that !Quixote guy), and characters who are perceived as not real bright (Garrosh) who make the mistake now.

But at the end of the day? Old joke is old, stupid joke is stupid, can we get the fcuk out of grade school pliz. It's like, other gaming companies have realized the value in being progressive (Bioware, frex--they're not perfect but they fucking ACTUALLY TRY). WCIII was fucking amazing for trope-kicking. What the fuck is with the WoW staff that they've decided to hunker down and cater to the lowest common denominator? That group has a notoriously small attention span, and are very quick to judge people as trying too hard. That group is the one Coors Light tried to cater to almost exclusively, and because the commercials 'tried too hard', Coors was labelled by this group as 'gay beer'.

ARGGH my coherency has gone the fuck away. Regardless of how the jokes are framed they're still stupid, and while I can grin wryly at their making cracks at the playerbase? Those cracks don't matter much when the kind of stupidity they lambast is ENCOURAGED.

tl;dr I share your exasperation and desire to kick things.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ecchaniz0r 2011-10-26 07:26 pm UTC (link)
	*pff what am i saying KIND OF STUPID. I meant 'really stupid'. @_@ (Reply to this)(Parent)

	chikane 2011-10-26 08:46 pm UTC (link)
	The third could be funny, in the hands of a good writer. In other words, someone not employed by Blizzard. The other two...not so much. I'm amazed. I already thought rather badly of the blizzard folks, but gee, they just had to try to make things even worse... (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the__ivorytower 2011-10-26 08:47 pm UTC (link)
	See, I would have liked it if there was some kind of hint that they really did see a potential orc/elf pairing... but not, it's just 'haw haw, elves are all girls' bullshit. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	chikane 2011-10-26 10:26 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, such a pairing (especially same-sex) could have been done well. 'haw haw, elves are all girls' is not 'done well', and that should be obvious, unless the editor blizzard employs is Timmy, the 6 year old kid. (Reply to this)(Parent)

(Read comments) -