The World Of Warcraft Community Shattered over Scandals

The recent news about Activision Blizzard could not simply go unnoticed by the community. It does not happen every day that a publisher of this tier ends up in court after a lawsuit by the State of California. The charges are too serious for an advanced employer of the XXI century, including sexism, frequent harassment of female employees, miserable salaries to junior employees, and other stuff that made Activision Blizzard toxic.

Arguably, it’s the atmosphere within the company that influenced the decreasing quality of games. The recent World of Warcraft update, for example, was mostly rated as lackluster. It probably has a lot to do with the toxic environment that drove many employees (including famous top managers like Jeff Kaplan, Michael Morheim, or even the President J. Allen Brack, though many of them are claimed guilty for what’s been happening).

It’s not the case when the art and the artist go separated; neither does the public stay neutral. While some users remain loyal to the publisher and its projects, others express their disapproval and even disgust publicly. Maybe the loudest explosion in this war was made by Asmongold, a famous streamer that this year expressed a lot of criticism towards Activision Blizzard. As the last drop, in May 2021, he preferred to stream Final Fantasy XIV Online instead. No wonder thousands and thousands of WoW players migrate there: rather Activision Blizzard losing than Square Enix winning.

There is but one small detail indicating how the scandal split the community. In summer 2021, another update removed the Spit emote from WoW. Now players cannot spit at each other (though other slurs are still here). If Activision Blizzard thought it could put out the fire between players like this… A big mistake. There’s still a scandal going on, and we’re in the middle of it – a role-playing game that makes WoW pale.