World Of Warcraft Removing Inappropriate References Following Lawsuit
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick issued a public statement regarding the allegations approximately an hour and 20 minutes before this article was posted. The article has been updated to reflect Kotick's statement.To get more news about safe wow gold, you can visit lootwowgold official website.
The official World of Warcraft Twitter account posted a statement today detailing its team's new commitment to removing inappropriate content from WoW Classic and Shadowlands. This follows player protests both within World of Warcraft and on social media regarding allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination at publisher Activision Blizzard.
A recent lawsuit by a California state agency detailed the findings of a multi-year investigation into Activision Blizzard workplaces. It alleged a culture of widespread discrimination against women and marginalized groups at the company, including wage disparity, inappropriate behavior, and flagrant abuse. After the lawsuit's filing, Twitter accounts for Activision Blizzard games went silent, and both official statements and leaked executive responses have drawn more criticism from many fans. Many found an internal email from executive Fran Townsend to be dismissive and insincere, and it was mentioned directly in an open letter signed by Activision Blizzard employees in support of the lawsuit.
The World of Warcraft Twitter account is the first of Activision Blizzard's to post since the lawsuit. The tweet posted today states the development team will be removing "references that are not appropriate for our world" from both WoW: Shadowlands and WoW Classic "in the coming days." Along with the allegations, fans have criticized World of Warcraft's references to Alex Afrasiabi, the game's former creative director alleged to have engaged "in blatant sexual harassment with little to no repercussions" by the lawsuit. It's unknown whether the WoW team's actions will involve the removal of this specific reference.
After the lawsuit was announced, Activision Blizzard released a statement, saying the lawsuit included, "distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past," and that the company has, "made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams." The statement did not affirm any of the allegations in the lawsuit as truth, only saying that, "In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue." Then, following the World of Warcraft team's statement, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick sent an open letter to employees, saying, "Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf," and laying out a list of five action items related to change within the company and its games.
If restoration of trust with the World of Warcraft community is its team's goal, it may need to be more direct and transparent with its actions. Neither the WoW team's statement nor Kotick's confirmed any specific items being removed from World of Warcraft, though it's likely safe to assume the references to Afrasiabi are among them.
