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Blizzard Responds To Gay Guild Debate
Edge Online reports that Blizzard has responded to the issues raised by a gay guild trying to recruit in public chat. From the article: "We encourage community building among our players with others of similar interests, and we understand that guilds are one of the primary ways to forge these communities. However, topics related to sensitive real-world subjects -- such as religious, sexual, or political preference, for example -- have had a tendency to result in communication between players that often breaks down into harassment." We discussed this story when it first came up last week.
No this is exactly the issue , WOW is rampant with homophobic speech as has been conveyed to me by many friends who are addicted .
,simple as that .
.. instead of tracking down the bigots .
It is natural that people would want to avoid a hostile environment and try to become part of a community in a community where they are accepted and don't risk insult because of who they are , even if not directed at them it is still really irritating .
Imagine sitting through a conversation with someone who was insulting who you are .
As for proving it , well , I don't find men attractive
Basically what Blizzard are doing is trying to keep them quite as they are offering a safe haven , in case it offends some bigots
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
You must remember that Blizzard was not objecting to the existence of a GBLT guild, but rather to the public recruiting thereto.
IANA WoW Player, so I can't say whether or not these "Christian" guilds recruit as openly as the GBLT guild. In Blizzard's view (and, incidentally, in mine), it's irrelevant. If Christians were a hated minority, and I were a member of a Christian guild, I would also be hesitant to advertise/recruit openly.
Although it seems (and may be) discriminatory, we have to keep in mind a few things. First of all, this is a computer game. And like someone else already mentioned, Blizzard wants to keep the focus of the game on the gameplay, and not on the politics/religion/race/sexual orientation of the players. The intent of the game is NOT to recreate real life, but to create a fantasy world, and effectively entertain the players.
Secondly, Blizzard has a lot to lose from allowing a free-for-all on their forums & servers. Yes, we should encourage tolerance and understanding, but a fantasy online world is probably one of the worst places to do so. Besides, by allowing the free-for-all that would probably ensue if they maintained a hands-off approach, the persecuted members would probably leave because the harrassment ruined the game, some of the persecuters would leave out of disgust that Blizzard allowed the persecuted, and everyone would be a little turned off by the inevitable flamewars.
Thirdly, you must remember that Blizzard owns WoW. It's a business. And their priority is to make money. If that means asking some players with unpopular real-world views or characteristics to keep said views or characteristics to themselves in order to keep more people happy and paying, so be it. They are not infringing on those players' rights to free speech elsewhere, or their religion/race/sex/orientation/whatever in real life. It's a private institution, and they can set and enforce the rules as you see fit.
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Obviously, it's not that black-and-white. Sure there are gays who were "born gay", but it seems quite obvious to me that there are people who choose or are influenced to be homosexual.
Anecdote: A woman I know gave up on men after a third date rape. She started experimenting with women and is now happy in a long-term relationship with a woman. She admitted to me that she still finds men attractive, but she refuses to let herself be hurt again. She considers herself to be gay now.
There are plenty of cases where gay people didn't grow up feeling "different" or "out of place" or just knowing that they were gay. I know of gay men who went straight...I recall a Christian musician I heard about a while back who was gay, found religion, and is now happily married and raising children.
There's no one "cause" of homosexuality. Genetics, environment, and experiences all contribute to how a person is sexually attracted to others. Just look at the varying definitions of beauty in different cultures...what is attractive in one place is disgusting in another.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
I should probably have phrased it differently .. Perhaps they are not being intentionally bigoted . The word as an insult derived from the slur on homosexuals , just because they don't mean it in that way does not mean that it is not hurtful to someone who is Gay and has had to put up with insults like that .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
This does really highlight a difference between the population in EQ2 and WoW, in my opinion. A guild advertised exactly the same thing in EQ2. A couple players questioned their agenda, though only a select few were hostile. After this initial phase of discovering they're legit, they're willing to accept anyone, and they're not evil ghey folks out to convert your children, people stopped bothering them and the guild got formed. I kept seeing 'em around, so I guess they were doing okay.
Another thing that happened on a chat channel was that someone start making borderline racist jokes (being both drunk and stupid), and the guy's friends immediately did the right thing and told him to get some sleep and come back tomorrow. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen on the internet - no flame war, no cursing, no angry posts on the forums, it just ended.
As to WoW, if they want to handle everything real world by banning its discussion, I have no problem (though I'm curious if it's equally applied -- their policy might actually get them into legal trouble if it's not). I don't know, maybe they have a point with the kiddies, but I think most people in WoW have seen enough elves strip teasing and people talking about teh cybarsechs that it's not an issue. If we really need to head in this direction, I would absolutely love to see 18+ servers so that we could stop having to worry about offending the kiddies constantly.
And anyway... I can understand Blizzard's positon. I mean, you wouldn't be able to use 'camping fag' as an insult anymore, and that could cause the world of online gaming to grind to a halt.
There's some truth in your joke. Online games- WOW included- are primarily the domain of 14-30 old men, a group not known for sensitivity. Consider how much words like gay, fag, cocksucker, etc. are thrown around as insults in just about every online game (because as we all know, "noobs", "campers" and "hackers" enjoy having relations with the same sex.) Even if a gay player had a sense of humor about it I would imagine this would get very old very fast, and I could see why they would gravitate towards their forming their own guilds/clans.
You may think that, but you'd be suprised. The same sort of people who think like that often have an amazing ability to rationalize the most disparate behaviors into their worldview. For example, I have an uncle who I'm generally ashamed to admit I know. He's a member of the Promise Keepers, should have his daughter taken away and put in a foster home, disowned me because I let said daughter watch Harry Potter on TV while she was at our house, refuses to come into our house because he's fairly sure Dungeons and Dragons has been played there... ... and he plays Everquest. AND he can very clearly explain all the myriad reasons why it's ok for him to play Everquest, complete with scripture reference. He can also explain why it's NOT ok for me to play D&D or WoW, but I'm sure he has a counterpart somewhere who's the exact reverse, and I'm furthur sure that if you put them in a room together, they would recognize each other as members of the same faith and not deride each other for their hethen game practices like they would a nonbeliever (or a non-Promise Keeper, who my uncle calls "underbelievers" and who will still go to hell, I've been assured repeatedly).
The only problem I see with a gay guild is that none of the gay people I know would do something like that to call attention to themselves. I know a guy who has a shirt that says, "Sorry ladies, I like dick," but he only wears it when he goes to the sort of club I'm not secure enough in my own sexuality to go within six blocks of - the sort of place where that would be a foregone conclusion, and the shirt is just a witty joke.