https://www.cybersport.ru/other/articles/isterika-vokrug-blizzard-karnaval-licemeriya-pochemu-protesty-komyuniti-protiv-seksizma-vyglyadyat-tak-absurdno

It is worth making a reservation right away: I believe that harassing colleagues, let alone pawing them and persuading them to have sex, is unacceptable. This is an unhealthy situation. But in this article we will not touch directly on the stories of victims or assess the corporate ethics of Blizzard – the California court will do it for us. We will talk about what happened around this scandal: bloggers, streamers, activists and players. This is a story about people who desperately want to look good. And to be good today, sometimes it is enough to be very angry to condemn something bad. The recipe is so simple that it is a sin not to use it. What can go wrong?

Hello western press

Several English-language media, including the well-known TheGamer, have decided to boycott Blizzard, stating that they refuse to publish any information about the company’s games until it is “corrected.” Do you think such boycotts were announced by Ubisoft or Riot Games when they were accused of the same toxic atmosphere and sexism? Of course not. But this time the story turned out to be more hype: Blizzard has had a colossal list of flaws in recent years, which means that harsh criticism of the studio can easily add credibility in the eyes of the audience.

Boycotts in the media are a rare thing, but they do occur from time to time. Usually this is the publication’s reaction to inappropriate treatment of its employees or obstruction of their work. However, the situation in which the media immediately chooses a side in the conflict (before the trial) and openly declares a boycott looks strange.

The tl.net site, which is mostly dedicated to StarCraft, also expressed its solidarity with the protesters Blizzard employees. In protest, the resource stopped working for a day during a rally at the company campus. Whether Bobby Kotick suffered from this decision and whether he felt the full gravity of the tl.net threat is unknown. But hundreds of users from the already small StarCraft community have lost access to information about their favorite game for a day. It seems that the losers were on the wrong side.

We cannot be silent

This photo from the Blizzard campus made the rounds of all the media and social media during the protest. Hundreds of employees decided to disagree with the company’s position, or rather, its response to the lawsuit, considering it insincere and insufficient. There are so many caring people who, in one impulse, decided to stand up for the girls who were sexually harassed. An inspiring picture! Just a minute …

The toxic atmosphere, “male brotherhood culture” and sexual harassment at work have been denounced by both current and former Blizzard employees. But according to the victims themselves, such unethical behavior within the walls of the company is a long-term ingrained practice, which, moreover, was not hidden. It’s not about why the victims were silent, but about why those empathic colleagues were inactive. It seems incredibly strange a situation when, in front of your eyes, for months or years, the boss harasses a subordinate, and only years later you decide to stand up for her at a rally, showing off in camera lenses and changing the color of the page on Twitter. The question arises: did these people diligently close their eyes to what was happening around them, or did they really only now realize how unacceptable such behavior is?

World of Warcraft Protests – Clownery

Along with the picket on the Blizzard campus, an in-game protest took place in World of Warcraft. Groups of players gathered in Oribos, after which, at a certain time, they jumped down into the abyss and left the game. Thus, the gamers wanted to show solidarity with the employees who came out to the protest, as well as to show the company’s management their determination. However, despite the seemingly presence of coordinators and advertising of the flash mob on the main resource about WoW – Wowhead – not many people took part in the action. Large congestions of players were only on two servers (one European and one American).

The very idea of ​​holding a flash mob against the actions of a company in a game for which you paid for a subscription seems absurd. At the same time, the participants left the server not forever, but for a short period so that Blizzard saw a sharp change in online, after which they returned to WoW – after all, no one canceled the raids and keys, the content must be closed. Moreover, people really believed that they were fighting the corporate moloch and its tentacles in the form of sexism. In reality, however, this is nothing more than a pill of complacency, which gives a sense of false involvement in the events taking place at Blizzard. And most importantly, you can once again feel like a good person who cares. But who was that leap from Oribos made for: the harassing women, or the beautiful reddit video?

Another thesis that has been encountered on the Internet in recent days: you cannot distinguish between the internal problems of Blizzard and its creations. No, actually you can. And so it happens with many in our life. Martin Heidegger’s works were no less important for the development of philosophical thought in Europe in the 20th century because he sympathized with Nazism, just as Leni Riefenstahl’s paintings continue to be set as examples in terms of camera work, despite the fact that they depict the congresses of the NSDAP. And there are hundreds of such examples: from Roman Polanski to Ian Watkins.

However, abandoning a conditional subscription to WoW out of a desire to show their principled civic position is a completely understandable act. In the end, to play or not to play this or that title is everyone’s personal business. Plus, maybe many of the gamers are really that principled. In such a situation, you cannot just try to urge others to follow you and condemn them for refusal, otherwise you can drive yourself into a very unpleasant dead end. After all, you can always ask an ardent activist advocating the Blizzard boycott whether he abandoned Apple or Microsoft devices, which were accused of using child labor in cobalt caves in African countries, and most importantly, whether he stopped using the products of the Coca-Cola company, which was accused of pollution of the oceans. And then an awkward inconsistency may come out.

The flash mob that began with angry messages to Bobby Kitty and the rest of Blizzard’s leaders turned out to be much funnier. A number of active users decided not to stop at the jump from the top of Oribos and disconnect, but to express all the boiling complaints with the help of tickets to the support service. In them, gamers did not restrain themselves, because dirty sexists should know their place. Here is just a problem: Bobby Kotick will never see these letters in his life. Tons of bile had to be raked by ordinary hard workers, many of whom had just come out to protest at the office. As a result, the organizers of the actions near the Blizzard campus were forced to calm down the raging followers on an emergency basis, asking them not to send angry letters.

Streamers, don’t want to leave Twitch?

Naturally, content makers and streamers specializing in the studio’s games were among the first to discuss (and condemn) the situation with Blizzard. Almost all of the more or less prominent media people associated with World of Warcraft and other titles published videos criticizing the company. Some of them, for example, said they would not stream Blizzard games until the company “takes the necessary measures.” Naturally, the content-makers did not say exactly what measures they expect from the developers, but they clearly indicated their position against all the bad and for all the good. This statement was made, for example, by a WoW streamer under the nickname Towelliee.

Towelliee has kept its promise so far. In addition, it so fortunately coincided that right now the beta testing of a new MMO from Amazon – New World, is underway, in which the streamer spends all the time on the air. The streamer planned several broadcasts on the game even before the scandal at Blizzard, but promised that they would be only for a week – after all, not all fans would accept the change of discipline. And now, against the backdrop of accusations and a lawsuit, he finally moved to New World and even, moreover, began to participate in media activities related to the title, and in every possible way to promote it on his social networks. What if your conscience won’t let you play World of Warcraft … or does it?

One Towelliee subscriber asked the streamer never to play Blizzard titles again. In response, the streamer stated that he refused to broadcast on the company’s games, but … he continues to enter WoW without cameras, because he has a guild there that “needs him.” He even compared teammates to a family that cannot be left. As Dominic Torreto said, the family is more important than moral principles and the fight against sexism. However, it is always possible to atone for such a betrayal of the protest with a catchy tweet. Go ahead, brothers and sisters, fight!

Hearthstone streamer under the nickname Trump, for example, refused to announce new cards and broadcasts on CCG. True, only for a day, because the streamer simply does not play other titles. Although I could have tried to revive Artifact and protest a little longer!

There were also streamers who, unlike Towelliee, decided to tie up with World of Warcraft altogether, and not just with streams on the game. Perhaps the largest of these is Preachlfw. He canceled his subscription and said that he was leaving the game amid a scandal. The rhetoric of all streamers was roughly the same: it is impossible to support a company that has such low corporate norms, moral standards and values. Loud message. There is just one problem.

Almost all of these streamers stream on Twitch. But quite recently – in 2023 – a similar scandal erupted related to the streaming platform itself. The journalists talked about sexual harassment, inappropriate behavior, and the very “brotherhood culture”. The described picture was literally identical: the girls complained of harassment, insults, difficulties in career advancement (due to bias towards their gender) and obscene jokes. It even turned out that Twitch employees are dismissive not only of colleagues, but also of the streamers themselves, calling the girls “Boob Steamer” and not considering it necessary to try to protect them from harassment during broadcasts. All these facts were made public, and … none of the above content makers left the streaming platform. Exactly the same corporate sexism has caused much less righteous hatred, because, after all, if WoW has an analogue in the form of New World, then Twitch with worthy competitors on which you can earn decently, unfortunately, does not. The fight without donations and paid subscribers does not look so attractive anymore.

Why is all this happening?

The fact that there is a problem of sexism in the video game industry is nothing new to anyone. Over the past couple of years, there have been several scandals related to major studios such as Riot Games and Ubisoft. Everywhere there are about the same problems: inequality in wages, difficulties with career advancement for girls, insults, harassment, and so on. However, none of these scandals, perhaps, was as violent as in the case of Blizzard, and activists did not en masse to “cancell” other companies by deleting their games.

In the case of Blizzard, the train of scandals and mistakes that has been trailing behind the studio for the past couple of years has largely affected. Here you can also recall the notorious story with Hong Kong and Hearthstone, the failure of Warcraft III: Reforged, the news about Bobby Kitty’s crazy bonuses against the background of the layoffs of employees, and, of course, criticism of the latest patch in World of Warcraft. The combination of these annoying factors has led to the fact that Blizzard has gradually evolved from one of the most beloved studios in the community into a convenient target for attacks. In the eyes of many, Blizzard is now a huge corporate villain. And evil, as you know, must be defeated. Therefore, kicking Blizzard and finding a reason to boycott it is not a difficult task, besides it is pleasant, because due to this you can get bonuses to karma and be known as a good person. Great deal, isn’t it? Down with Blizzard!