Activision Blizzard WoW fans go wild

World of warcraft bled players since the beginning of the year. Add to that the drama that swirls around a great streamer and the general toxicity that escalates in just about every online gaming community and you have a recipe for bad things to happen. Simply put: it’s hard to look at some corners of Wow and not to have the impression Communityby Donald Glover to carry pizza in a room on fire.

Even before Activision Blizzard became the center of a trial in california Alleging widespread sexual harassment and discrimination, the active player population of Blizzard’s flagship MMO has been shrinking year on year. Many players have been unhappy with recent extensions, and some have even tried to superimpose general complaints about the state of the game over a larger discussion of what’s wrong with Blizzard’s work culture.

The exodus seemed to get carried away in early July, however, when the hugely popular Wow Asmongold banner decided to start broadcasting Final Fantasy XIV: A Kingdom Reborn in place. If the frustration of the community because of a Domination chains update and generous free trials for the competing MMO provided Tinder, Asmongold was the match, and recently he and his fans took aim straight Wowdevelopers of.

It started when someone on the Asmongold subreddit posted an image of a Wow developer liking a tweet suggesting that Asmongold himself was partly responsible for creating the Wow community if “trash”. While some content creators have a collaborative relationship with the developers who create the game they cover, Asmongold has a reputation for being combative and hyperbolic in his reviews of Wow. The streamer, who regularly tours the r / subtitle Asmongold in its streams, blasted the only one Wow developer for suggesting he was a symbol of what was wrong with the community.

“I have to read this bullshit, right, I have to read this bullshit that gets the seal of approval from the people who work in the game, who make the game that way,” he said. “Before you call me toxic, take care of your own fucking game.”

Events only escalated from there. A heap of other messages targeting specifics Wow developer started to appear on the subreddit, many of which have now been deleted by moderators because they did not remain civilians or because they encouraged harassment. One person even sent the developer a message on LinkedIn telling them to “get fucked.” The developer took a screenshot, including the LinkedIn name, position, and city of his stalker, and shared it on Twitter. Asmongold fans then accused the developer of doxxing, despite no private information being released.

“The / r / Asmongold moderation team is made up of volunteers who act independently and our actions and comments do not necessarily reflect those of Asmongold himself,” said a moderator of the Asmongold subreddit. Kotaku in an email. “We do not tolerate any kind of harassment or robbery, no matter who it is directed to.”

Today Asmongold followed up on the controversy, write on twitter, “More recently than ever, I have been accused of harassment when I had the audacity to stand up for myself and my community. The idea that I should let myself be attacked is motivated by narcissism and the law. I don’t hit, I don’t hit, I hit back.

You can try to disentangle the potential legitimate grievances from the crappy crowd dynamics. Asmonor infamously encouraged players to spit on those in the game who spent money on fancy mounts in protest against Wowthe current updates and monetization model of. Blizzard then removed the spit emote from the game. At the same time, there is clearly a lot of environmentally toxic behavior in the game that has nothing to do with Asmongold. Blizzard has always been criticized for not having moderately aggressive hate speech in Wow and other games. it only started finally block certain racial insults quite earlier this year.

But beyond competing counterclaims of who is most responsible for WowThe toxicity issue of, the fact that some players took to nagging the devs during the last few flash points is just more proof of how bad the game is right now. Blizzard has recently started purge in-game references to a former developer accused of sexual harassment as part of an ongoing effort to “rebuild trust” following the California lawsuit. Even so, some fans and content creators still debating the boycott of the game and other Activision Blizzard products until the company agrees to employee demands for more equal and inclusive working conditions.

There is clearly a lot of soul-searching going on in the larger Wow community, and this latest shit storm will probably only add to it.