World of Warcraft Developer Blizzard Entertainment is making efforts to make its company and its games more inclusive and welcoming, including “taking immediate action in Azeroth to remove references that are inappropriate for our world,” the studio announced on Tuesday. The statement comes a week after California announced it would sue Blizzard and its parent company Activision Blizzard for gender discrimination and sexual harassment of its employees.
“The last few days have been a time of reflection for them World of Warcraft Team, spent in conversation and contemplation, full of sadness, pain and anger, but also hope and determination, “said Blizzard in a Attributed to statement World of Warcraft team.
The statement posted on social media and on the game’s website appears to be the first public comment on the lawsuit made by a production team within Activision Blizzard – although it doesn’t make explicit or even diagonal reference to the lawsuit. This is in contrast to the company’s corporate communications department, which came out Wednesday with a statement that vehemently denied the allegations in the lawsuit. A statement that many current and former employees found “disgusting and insulting”, and not by chance.
Several former Blizzard employees, including former executives like Senior Vice President Chris Metzen and President and Co-Founder Mike Morhaime, have commented on the allegations made in the lawsuit over the past week. In statements posted on social media – statements with a tone distinctly different from that of Activision Blizzard’s official comments – Metzen and Morhaime apologized for their role in creating what the California Department of Fair Employment is and what Housing now dubbed the “Frat Boy” culture.
“I can tell you that there is almost no work being done on World of Warcraft right now while this profanity is unfolding,” Jeff Hamilton, senior system designer for the game, said Saturday in a Twitter thread.
In his statement that World of Warcraft
The Blizzard statement did not provide any additional information about these “references”. We have contacted the studio for a comment and will update this article with any details we receive. However, it is possible that the inappropriate references in question include non-player characters and items therein World of Warcraft named after Alex Afrasiabi, who worked on the game at Blizzard from 2004 to 2020 and is named as a serial molester in the California lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that Afrasiabi, formerly Senior Creative Director on World of WarcraftHe “may participate in blatant sexual harassment with little to no consequences.” Kotaku reported on Thursday that “at least two NPCs”, Field Marshal Afrasiabi and Lord Afrasastraz, currently bear the developer’s name, along with “a number of items”. As a result of claims in the lawsuit – including allegations that Afrasiabi “continued to make unwanted advances over female employees” after receiving a “slap on the wrist” penalty – numerous World of Warcraft Players have staged protests in the game and urged Blizzard to remove all references to Afrasiabi from the game.
Activision Blizzard employs more than 9,000 people in subsidiaries, including Blizzard Entertainment; the mobile game developer King; Major league gaming; and Activision studios like Infinity Ward, Sledgehammer Games, Toys for Bob and Treyarch. Hundreds of employees, led by a group within Blizzard, announced Tuesday that they were planning a work stoppage on Wednesday to protest the company’s response to the lawsuit and demand changes from the leadership. The strike will take place on the Blizzard campus in Irvine, California, as well as virtually.
