Gay World of Warcraft Guild forced to change name by Blizzard
If Blizzard had to donate a single dollar for every time they’ve managed to mess up this week, we’re sure that we’d have at least 10 whole dollars. As if things couldn’t get any worse, Blizzard is once again under fire due to a Gay World of Warcraft guild being forced to change their name.
The guild was apparently called the ‘GAY BOYS’, and consisted of many members of who were gay. One member reached out to Ars Technica and confirmed that as of Thursday, World of Warcraft had changed the name to some complete, utter gibberish. What once was the ‘GAY BOYS’ is now known as Guild “ZFXPK”.
The excuse for the change was explained in an email, where Blizzard Customer Support stated: “your fellow players reported your in-game name as inappropriate multiple times.” Something which Blizzard apparently ‘investigated thoroughly’ before making their decision.
Only, according to guild member Ahmil Jilani, it wasn’t that thorough of an investigation at all. Speaking to Ars Technica, he said:
“If you reviewed my chat logs, you would see multiple messages from individuals through my recruitment process of getting us to where we are today, with individuals messaging “Fuck the gays, reported,” amongst other extremely hateful and discriminating comments…
These are the individuals that find our name inappropriate. Giving in to their demands only means that you are siding with them as a company, which, after a decade of playing your games, is a surprise to me.”
To quote Jilani directly, “to say there is anything inappropriate about the words GAY or BOYS is, in and of itself, inappropriate, childish, and discriminatory.” We couldn’t agree more, and it’s somewhat surprising that we’re in 2019 and companies still are unable to tell what is a community meant for LGBT folks and a hate-mongering group.
Whether Blizzard will change the group’s name back remains to be seen, but if their silence says anything, it seems unlikely.
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