Blizzard Of GLBT Gaming Policy Questions

[Queersetti]

http://www.innewsweekly.com/innews/?class_code=Ga&article_code=1172

Alexander Sliwinski January 25, 2006

Blizzard of GLBT gaming policy questions

POPULAR MAKER OF ONLINE GAME WORLD OF WARCRAFT CITES A GAMER FOR HARASSMENT FOR USING THE TERM 'GLBT'; OTHER GAY GUILDS REQUEST CLARIFICATION

Sara Andrews thought it was a big misunderstanding when she received an e-mail from a game master in Blizzard Entertainment's popular online role playing game "World of Warcraft" citing her for "Harassment - Sexual Orientation."

Andrews had posted that she was recruiting for a "GLBT friendly" guild in a general chat channel within the game.

Believing that her notice had been accidentally flagged, she e-mailed Blizzard to correct the problem. Blizzard, to Andrews' surprise, upheld the decision.

Other gay guilds have been alerted and are planning to request clarification on the policy from Blizzard.

Blizzard's policy on "Harassment - Sexual Orientation," which is set forth in the games' "Terms of Use" and cited in the e-mail to Andrews reads, "This category includes both clear and masked language which insultingly refers to any aspect of sexual orientation pertaining to themselves or other players."

A series of e-mails back and forth concerning the incident, seems to make it clear that Blizzard may be inadvertently using a policy meant to protect GLBT people as a way to discriminate against them.

In Newsweekly obtained all of Andrews' e-mails between herself and Blizzard. Numerous requests for comment from Blizzard were not returned. Here's the sequence of events:

Andrews' original posting read: "OZ [the name of her guild] is recruiting all levels ¦ We are not 'GLBT only,' but we are 'GLBT friendly'! (guilduniverse.com/oz)"

In her follow-up letter to the company, Andrews explained that there was an obvious misunderstanding and that she was not insulting anyone, but merely recruiting for a "GLBT friendly" guild.

The response from Blizzard was, "While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a 'GLBT friendly' guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to 'be temporarily suspended from the game.' However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning."

Blizzard's stance was clear that recruiting for a guild using "GLBT" was inappropriate as, the company said, it may "incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game."

Gamer John Blatzheim, who heard of Andrews' situation, e-mailed Blizzard to express his concern of a double standard that game masters would send her a warning that she could not use "GLBT" as an advertisement to express a safe place for gay gamers after an incident a few months ago where a plague occurred within the game and players yelled in general chat, "Don't get the AIDS!"

"Many people are insulted just at the word 'homosexual' or any other word referring to sexual orientation," Blizzard responded to Blatzheim in an e-mail. "Also to discriminate against other players, such as not allowing any heterosexuals into the guild simply because of their sexual orientation, could cause extreme offense to a large percentage of our players and should be avoided."

Stonewall Champions and The Spreading Taint, two large gay guilds are currently formulating a letter they plan to submit to Blizzard requesting a more detailed explanation as to the intent of this reinterpretation and execution of the sexual harassment rule. As the spirit of the harassment rule seems to have been reinterpreted from protecting GLBT players, to keeping them silent.

There are various types of servers that players can experience the game on. One of the options is to play on a role-playing server where players actually play as their characters, rather than through their characters. "We have determined that advertising sexual orientation is not appropriate for the high fantasy setting of the World of Warcraft and is therefore not permitted" was another of Blizzard's responses. Does this mean that if a player has a character on a role-playing server that they play as gay that would be violating the policy?

Sara Andrews has stated that she will not be renewing her World of Warcraft account due to Blizzards lack of support for a GLBT friendly environment, "It seems to be OK for general chat to be flooded with, 'That's so gay!' and 'I just got ganked! What a fag!' yet advertising for a GLBT friendly environment where we don't have to deal with such language is deemed inappropriate."

Is the player's character an extension of themselves in the game world or an entirely new character? Although Blizzard has made their policy regarding recruiting based on a player's real world orientation clear, what does it mean for in-game orientations within a role playing environment? Should men only play as males in the game? Should gender identity be enforced as sexual orientation is? We look forward to exploring these questions and others in a future article

 

[mmcowboys]

to be honest i don't think sexual orientation has to be mentioned in world of warcraft servers or anywhere in the game. if WoW players are GLBT then that's fine! but what's the sense in advertising it on WoW servers when it has nothing to do with the game nor your character -- that is, unless Blizzard added a new "bareback" skill or something!

 

[DarkAurora]

The only reason she was trying to make the guild was because she wanted to be in a guild where she didn't have to hear "fag" or "dyke" or "That's gay"(in the bad reference). I don't see a problem with that at all. A lot of times too, especially on the role-playing servers, characters have an in-game love interest and it's nice to be able to be in a guild where people don't mind if your love interest has the same gender as you. It may not even be gay guy or girl playing. It could be a straight girl with a male character who wants to have a male love interest.

 

[exovick]

;;;..

.....

 

[interface]

She was wrong, that simple. The fact is that being gay or heterosexual has nothing to do with the world of azeroth, and that advertising it would in fact cause harassment. Blizzard is a private company, that needs to do all it can to stop harrassment, and most politcal and religious issue brought up in game also cause harassment. Part of stopping fights and riots is to stop people from causing them, even if that is unintentional. She didn't even actually get punished or anything.

Yes, the harassers should be punished, but there is a difference between using the words dyke, gay, fag, etc. as a reference to negativity and outright insulting gays. For one thing, the age group that mainly uses these terms and that constitutes the game, doesn't even really mean a reference to homosexuality (for the most part). I call things gay and/or faggy all the time. I refer to annoying things when talking about gay. I refer to things that are intentionally annoying as faggy. Now, these slang words now mean that to more people than homosexual. If you recall, gay and faggy (along with queer) originally had nothing to do with being homosexual, and just because they became related to homosexuality before this current time, the gay community has no offical claim over these words as hate words. Nigger (or nigga or niggra) has full claim for the black (calling them all african or african american is so much more logically offensive to those who were never african or american) community as a hate word.

So, come off of your fight for your rights power struggle and look at simple facts. Double standard? Maybe. Is it the right thing for blizzard to do? Yes.

 

[sexy-girl]

i have played these games before ... and it is a problem the amount of stupidity you hear in the "out of character" chat windows ... also i know for a fact that world of warcraft has "christian friendly guilds"

so it does seem a little bit of a double standard

edited to say most mmorpgs do have glbt friendly guilds

i know everquest has/does

 

[cpicass0]

I play WoW and have heard a lot of the "That's gay!" kind of comments in general chat. It bothers me less now than it did when I first started playing. Sometimes I just turn general chat off so I don't have to see it.

Also when I first started playing, I joined a couple of guilds that were full of 17 year old idiots. They were not for me. I wanted a group of people about my age to play with. So is advertising for a guild with mature players descrimination against the kids??? Where is the line?

I understand that advertising that you are GLBT may inspire harassers to target you, but I think that decision should be yours to make. After all there is an ignore feature in game! If you're not being hateful to anyone, why should it be such an issue?

 

[interface]

The problem comes with the debate on wether the slang uses of the word gay were about homosexuality, and the amount of time/money spent/lost on policing such things. They have to worry about lawsuits about not dealing with harassment, and that's where the double standard is forced to come into the picture. Blizzard is a business, plain and simple. WoW is a game, plain and simple.

 

[CuriousNiceGuy]

uum..she isn't wrong..It's a public server isn't it.. putting as a character name 'fagbutcher' is okay but creating GLTB friendly guilds isnt?
Each player has the right to play as long as he isn't unreasonably rude to the other players. What's their problem anyway..
And Blizzard was so high in my esteem..

 

[sexy-girl]

reading about this on a mainstream gaming site and a lot of the people are sticking up for the guild ... so not all "gamers" are bigots

 

[sexy-girl]

just one more post ... this is taken from my "mainstream" gamer site

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/40606

it's a quite good sort of mini editorial on the issue by one of the sites owners if anyone is interested ... the comments are a mixed bag by 90% in support for the "guild"

 

[Queersetti]

She was wrong, that simple. The fact is that being gay or heterosexual has nothing to do with the world of azeroth, and that advertising it would in fact cause harassment. Blizzard is a private company, that needs to do all it can to stop harrassment, and most politcal and religious issue brought up in game also cause harassment. Part of stopping fights and riots is to stop people from causing them, even if that is unintentional. She didn't even actually get punished or anything.

Yes, the harassers should be punished, but there is a difference between using the words dyke, gay, fag, etc. as a reference to negativity and outright insulting gays. For one thing, the age group that mainly uses these terms and that constitutes the game, doesn't even really mean a reference to homosexuality (for the most part). I call things gay and/or faggy all the time. I refer to annoying things when talking about gay. I refer to things that are intentionally annoying as faggy. Now, these slang words now mean that to more people than homosexual. If you recall, gay and faggy (along with queer) originally had nothing to do with being homosexual, and just because they became related to homosexuality before this current time, the gay community has no offical claim over these words as hate words. Nigger (or nigga or niggra) has full claim for the black (calling them all african or african american is so much more logically offensive to those who were never african or american) community as a hate word.

So, come off of your fight for your rights power struggle and look at simple facts. Double standard? Maybe. Is it the right thing for blizzard to do? Yes.

The logical extrapolation of your argument is that discriminating against gays is acceptable. If that is the case, why should any gay person put money in the pockets of those who hold that position?

Why should gays, and only gays, feel compelled to "come off our fight for our rights"?

Your entire argument rests on the premise that, if we are harrassed, we "have it coming". That is simply not acceptable.

 

[silverwhisper]

blizzard was flat-out wrong, pure and simple.

if players choose to join such a guild, that's their choice. any player who joins such a guild therefore knows that he or she has put a bull's eye on his/her chest. and i would imagine that not all servers cater to puerile minors anyway.

it's absolutely a double-standard, esp in light of sexy girl's observation re: christian-friendly guilds.

i have a suspicion that call was made by some well-intentioned but misguided staffer.

ed

 

[cpicass0]

Yay!!!

Gay rights win in Warcraft world
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News website


The maker of the hugely popular online game, World of Warcraft, has changed its policy on gay teams following an outcry from many players.

Blizzard was accused of being heavy-handed by threatening to expel a player for advertising a gay-friendly team or guild.

Blizzard has officially apologised to the guild recruiter, saying the warning should never have been issued.

More than five million people regularly play World of Warcraft worldwide.

Team play

Warcraft involves players taking a character adventuring so they become more experienced in their chosen class of warrior, mage, rogue, druid, hunter, shaman, warlock, priest or paladin.

The row blew up around Warcraft player Sara Andrews, who plays a high-level mage called Shimmre on the Shadow Moon server. Each server runs a separate duplicate of the Warcraft world.


World of Warcraft is a social phenomenon too
Warcraft players are spread out across the realms to make sure the game worlds do not get too crowded.

When adventuring, many players join "guilds" to get help from other players in regions filled with dangerous monsters, get quick access to good magical items and, just as importantly, so they can stay in touch with friends and make new ones.

Many guilds use Warcraft's text chat channels to recruit new members.

In late January, Sara Andrews used these channels to say that the guild she helps run, called Oz, was set up to be gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender "friendly".

But an in-game admininstrator issued a warning saying that such talk was a breach of Warcraft's terms of service.

She was threatened with being banned from the game if she continued to advertise the Oz guild using such language.

Ms Andrews challenged the warning and the claim that it broke the terms of service. She said many players used homophobic language in the game that went unchallenged.

To publicise her plight, Ms Andrews visited many discussion sites and forums where Warcraft players gather. The debate that followed largely criticised Blizzard for its heavy-handed treatment.

Many pointed out that Warcraft has a thriving community of gay players, or gaymers, and that it made no sense to censor talk about players' sexuality outside Azeroth.

Gay pride marches are known to have taken place in Warcraft and there are many other guilds in the game that are known to be friendly toward the gay community.

Two such guilds, Stonewall Champions and The Spreading Taint wrote an open letter to Blizzard criticising its policy.

Sensitive area

World of Warcraft has become hugely popular
The uproar has prompted Blizzard to officially apologise to Ms Andrews. It said that her comments should not have produced a warning.

In an e-mail to Ms Andrews, Thor Biafore, senior manager of Blizzard's customer service, said: "Please accept our apologies for the way our staff characterized your conduct, and rest assured that your account will not be penalized in any way for this occurrence."

The 1,000 or so in-game administrators Blizzard uses to police Azeroth are also to get training to help them deal more sensitively with such issues.

Blizzard defended itself by saying that information about players' real lives can lead to harassment in the game and its warning was only intended to limit such harassment.

The game firm also said that it would create a separate chat channel in the game that guilds can use to advertise themselves and look for recruits.

 

[Queersetti]

Good for them.

I had the impression all along that they wanted to do the right thing, but were just clumsy about it.

 

[John Doe]

uum..she isn't wrong..It's a public server isn't it.. putting as a character name 'fagbutcher' is okay but creating GLTB friendly guilds isnt?
Each player has the right to play as long as he isn't unreasonably rude to the other players. What's their problem anyway..
And Blizzard was so high in my esteem..

Not at all. There are a shitload of rules Blizzard has regarding the creation of user names. Can't use anything offensive, or any copyrighted fictional chracters, or any public figure's name, etc. It took me fifteen minutes just to come up with a name that fit all the rules.

Anyway, WoW is a little cartoonish for me. I think I'd like something more serious, or possibly in a sci-fi context. I'll check out EverQuest II and some others.

 

[Wolfman1982]

Screw Blizzard, they ruined the fun in Diablo2 with the lastest patch, heck they could just do it better by securing, B-net agains´t hacks, but no way. They had to "tune" (bullshit !) the skills.

So before the new patch , if you had a great character, you could help others, but now you can do shit when you try to help others.

Sorry, but I am not going to pay a monthly fee for something like WoW.

 

[CuriousNiceGuy]

Not at all. There are a shitload of rules Blizzard has regarding the creation of user names. Can't use anything offensive, or any copyrighted fictional chracters, or any public figure's name, etc. It took me fifteen minutes just to come up with a name that fit all the rules.

You mean you can't insert an offensive name?
Ok not 'fagbutcher',but 'f4gbutch3r'. It doesn't change the meaning at all, but it DOES override the 'rules' of not setting anything offensive..
I haven't played WoW, I've only played Lineage2 and there are similar rules, and some other mmorpgs where swearing isn't allowed.
By putting one more 'a' in fag, it becomes faag.Or by putting 4 instead of 'a'. Wow.. I can't even recognise it.. There are a lot of ways to go around the rules without actually breaking them. Btw sorry for saying so many offensive words. Someone may be annoyed, but I just want to give an example.