Skip to main content

Blizzard Apologizes for Anti-Gay Warning

Blizzard Entertainment has officially reversed itself, apologizing for threatening to expel a World of Warcraft player promoting an in-game guild friendly to gay, bisexual, and transgender players.

The World of Warcraft massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) offers a feature called “guilds,” which encourage online community-building as well as providing a mechanism for players to help each other through obstacles and scenarios in the game. In late January 2006, World of Warcraft player Sara Andrews began using in-game text channels to promote a guild she runs, called “Oz,” as friendly to gay, bisexual, and transgender players. In response, an game administrator at Blizzard Entertainment threatened to expel her from the game for violating World of Warcraft’s terms of service by using such language.

Andrews responded that her actions did not violate World of Warcraft’s terms of service, that several other gay-friendly guilds are permitted to operate within the game (two wrote letters of complaint to Blizzard). Further, Andrews alleged Blizzard permits players to use homophobic language without challenge. Many other World of Warcraft players pointed out the game has a thriving in-game gay community, and game administrators have not challenged other discussion of players’ out-of-game sexuality.

Blizzard apologized to Andrews via email, saying she should not have been warned about her comments by a game administrator, but that Blizzard in general warns users not to disclose information about their personal lives to prevent out-of-game harassment. Blizzard also said it plans to create a separate chat channel in the game that guilds can use to look for new recruits.

Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
Bobby Kotick leaves Activation Blizzard next week amid Xbox shake ups
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick.

An internal memo from Microsoft confirmed that Bobby Kotick, the controversial CEO of Activision Blizzard, will leave the company on December 29.

Bobby Kotick has been CEO of Activision Blizzard -- the company behind popular game franchises like Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Crash Bandicoot, and Diablo -- since 1991 and is one of the most derided executives in the video game industry. Workplace conditions at companies owned by Activision Blizzard were problematic during his reign, with this all coming to a head in a 2021 lawsuit that exposed lots of misconduct, some of which allegedly applied to Kotick. He's stayed with the company through all that and is now leaving following Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Read more
Warcraft and Diablo devs reveal the focus of Phil Spencer’s Blizzard visit
Phil Spencer at BlizzCon 2023

Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October, and shortly thereafter, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirmed on the Official Xbox Podcast that he was going to visit Activision Blizzard studios in the coming weeks. Spencer did so prior to BlizzCon 2023, where he also ended up making an appearance during the Opening Ceremony to reaffirm Xbox's commitment to support all of Blizzard's major franchises. To get a better idea of what Spencer's studio visit and BlizzCon appearance felt like for Blizzard developers, we asked John Hight, Warcraft franchise general manager, and Rod Fergusson, Diablo general manager, about the experience.

"They actually came out a couple of weeks ago, Phil and a lot of his leadership team. What was nice about it was we had prepared all of these PowerPoints and stuff, but they just wanted to meet the teams," Hight told Digital Trends. "They had lunch out in our patio, the cafe. We had hundreds of employees and Phil made himself available just to talk to people. He just wanted to see some of the games and meet some of the people, so we gave him a demo of one of the areas in The War Within for a while, and then we had [game designer] Tom [Chilton] demo Warcraft Rumble. It was fun because we started to go through introductions and I said ‘Clearly you’re having fun playing the game, you can tune out and just play that.' They’ve been very supportive. I think they’re excited by the fact that, especially with Warcraft, we have a diversity of games and platforms that we’re building for.”

Read more
Why Overwatch 2’s show-stealing new hero took an extra four years to debut
Mauga poses in Overwatch 2.

With the switch to 5v5, Tanks became a make-or-break part of any Overwatch 2 team. While Support and Damage players can rely on another player of their class to pick up their slack when they struggle, tanks no longer have that privilege. As a more casual Overwatch 2 player who’s not competitively viable, this has discouraged me from playing as a tank. While I do like the abilities of characters like Junker Queen, I’m hesitant to play as them because I’m worried about being the player that causes my team to lose. Mauga, the latest Overwatch 2 hero, looks to change that, but it took years of ideas and concept reboots on Blizzard’s end.

Unveiled at BlizzCon 2023, Mauga is an aggressive Samoan tank allied with Talon that can tear through enemies with his two chainguns and dash that makes him invincible. That makes him enjoyable for those who like more offensive Heroes, but Support fans will find some stuff to love with abilities that can heal other players or give them infinite ammo. I had the chance to play Mauga at BlizzCon 2023, and for the first time since Overwatch 2 was released, I’m eager to go back and play as a Tank.

Read more