I don't really consider myself a WoW content creator nowadays, though I guess strictly speaking I am, what with having this blog dedicated to WoW... and with that comes this weird feeling of having to make some sort of miniature PR statement on recent events at Blizzard.
At this point, they are sadly no strangers to PR disasters and scandals, but having a government agency file a lawsuit against you for institutional sexism and mistreatment of employees is a whole new level of yikes. It also hits closer to home for me than previous stories, because while I've been lucky enough to never have experienced sexism in a work environment myself, I think every woman past a certain age has at least met men who are somewhat sexist and/or creepy towards women, making it easy to sympathise with just how crappy this situation must have been for the victims.
People are talking about "sending a message" via unsubscribing and if that works for you, great. I can certainly understand the sentiment behind it, but personally it's not for me at this point. I think Taliesin of Taliesin & Evitel once again did the best job at articulating the emotional complexity of a situation like this (though I'm nowhere near as passionate about Blizzard, WoW and its community as he is):
In short:
What do I think about this whole thing? It's horrible, obviously, though it being brought to light is a step in the right direction at least. One can only hope that something good will come from that.
Will I unsubscribe over it? I currently have no plans to do so.
Will I stop blogging about the game? Also no plans to do so currently, though I might take a bit of a break from it, because writing about that funny thing that happened to me in Korthia the other day feels kind of inappropriate/tone-deaf under the current circumstances (to me at least). We'll see how things develop.
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That's cool. I know some people can be judgemental about this, but I for one don't know where you'll find a "pure" game that isn't written by a bunch of jerks in some capacity, so the choices seem to be either keep playing, or play nothing at all, and that's not an option for me. Gotta wind down somehow, ya know?
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to know what to say in this sort of situation, even if it matters.
The whole thing is just horrifying.
I don't have any problem with folks wanting to continue to enjoy the games. There are many situations where the maker is reprehensible, but the creation is enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteFor me, this was the last push to moving on. I haven't been enjoying the game so why continue out of inertia? I may come back if things at Blizzard improve, but that's both the company and the game.