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.

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the__ivorytower
2011-10-26 05:02 pm UTC (link)

The only thing I can think of is that originally the Pandaren were going to be Japanese-themed and the Chinese government freaked out at them until they changed them to be Chinese-themed, and interestingly, one of the threads I saw was complaining that this expansion was designed to appeal to the Chinese. Certainly, this one might not require two years to release like Wrath.

(None of this is a defense, and 'asians' have been in the game before: aloof, foreign, beautiful fetish bait, we name thee elf.)

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	ecchaniz0r 2011-10-26 06:54 pm UTC (link)
	...And suddenly, a lightbulb goes on, and I now think I know why they de-Amazon'd the Night Elf women. =_= (Reply to this)(Parent)

lovecoconuts
2011-10-27 05:32 am UTC (link)

The Pandaren culture was originally based on Japanese culture? I can see why the Chinese government said NO! Mainland China is very serious business about pandas. Personally speaking, I wouldn't mind if the Panderans were more Japanese than Chinese, but neither could I disagree with the folks who would consider such as offensive to the Chinese. Had indeed Blizzard stuck with Karate Panderans instead of Kung Fu Pandas, I would be all "Blizzard, either you're really ignorant about Sino-Japanese relations or you're just trolling."

That said, even though it's very unlikely I will reactivate my WoW account, I am RELIEVED that they didn't westernized the pandas.

As for the complaints about MoP being made to appeal to China, yes - I've come across such as well, and I had to keep myself from informing-reminding the complainers that WoW has more or as many subscribers in Asia than both in US and Europe combined. Last I read, it was 2m in US, 2m in Europe. 5m in Asia. Something like that.

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the__ivorytower
2011-10-27 05:43 am UTC (link)

Yup, saw that myself. I genuinly hope the people of China *do* like it. I hope it's *not* tired, offensive stereotypes. I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed... because I'm going to be playing the shit out of any expansion if I want to level all of my characters.

(And let me tell you, Cata content on 14, going on 15, and eventually the full 18 characters? Fucking tired.)

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lovecoconuts
2011-10-27 06:31 am UTC (link)

Lol, though I do think you are crazee (in a very nice way) for leveling 14-18 WoW characters, I haz also much respect for the effort you're putting into it. It may just be gaming, but it's not easy. Requires a lot of love and commitment.

I wouldn't worry much about Chinese stereotypes and such, cause the Chinese market is just too damn important to Blizzard to risk their panda expansion being offensive enough to ban. I also wouldn't be surprised if every thing in the expansion was already reviewed by Chinese consultants personally recommended by the PRC.

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