Blizzard CEO Lays Gay Guild Issue To Rest

Edge Online reports that Blizzard CEO Paul Sams has responded to the GLBT Guild issue that flared up in World of Warcraft a while back. From the article: "... he again characterized the earlier decision to prohibit mention of real-world subjects in recruiting for guilds as an 'unfortunate mistake,' which only came about because the initial comments weren't properly analyzed before sending a warning. 'It is expected and accepted that players will discuss a wide variety of topics, based on both the game world and the real world,' Sams says. 'Players are free to discuss personal characteristics if they wish, to include their sexual orientations and gender identities.'

Comments

"Gay Guild"?

[gorbachev]

It wasn't a gay guild, it was gay-FRIENDLY guild.

Re:*sigh* Gotta be Politically Correct in fantasy.

[rabel]

*sigh* Care to explain what's so offensive about GLBT chatter on the public airwaves? If it's over-the-line sexual discussion, it should be banned outright regardless of the orientation. Isn't that what you really meant to say?

Re:*sigh* Gotta be Politically Correct in fantasy.

[Silent sound]

Here is what the terms of service say:

Language which falls under the following categories is deemed to be highly inappropriate. Clarification on what constitutes each category can be found by clicking on the links below.
...
Sexual Orientation
This category includes both clear and masked language which:

        * Insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players

If a player is found to have used such language, he/she may:

        * Be temporarily suspended from the game

There is a category in the table of contents of your link named "sexual orientation", but the actual text of that part of the terms of service refers only to insulting speech, not any speech having to do with sexual orientation at all.

Basically you're wrong-- you're either lying, or you didn't read your own link before pasting it-- you're misquoting the harassment policy, and no, this rule does not at all cover the GLBT chat used by the guild.

It's funny how you're basically saying that in order for World of Warcraft to not be "politically correct", in your way of defining things, World of Warcraft would have to purposefully censor speech which you find objectionable. Funny, sounds to me like you are the one demanding the gay people be "politically correct", by conforming their speech to your politics.

Re:*sigh* Gotta be Politically Correct in fantasy.

[d_strand]

No. They said they where gay/lesbian-friendly. Cracking down on that is the same thing as cracking down on a guild being rp-friendly or danish-friendly or whatever. It's so ridiculous it's not even funny.

I actually canceled my wow-subscription over this. To be honest I was looking for a reason to cancel but whatever.

Re:Huzzah

[dr00g911]

I'm also glad to see that the issue is put to rest acceptably for all.

There have been a couple of unforeseen effects that all the media attention has had, though... up until the incident, my main was level 60, alliance on Shadow Moon -- the server and faction that Oz was recruiting from.

I have the feeling that a ton of people have created characters on that particular server to speak both for and against the issue at hand.

Since then, the queues have been so long on that particular server, that my wife and I have both leveled up characters on another server as we couldn't get on Shadow Moon often or reliably enough to maintain pvp rank or participate in guild events.

Here's to hoping that the new hardware upgrades will alleviate some of the queue issues so I can see how different things are back home.