An Open Letter to Blizzard Entertainment
Jason Kuznicki on Feb 2nd 2006
Dear Blizzard,
Some months ago, my husband and I started playing the online fantasy game World of Warcraft. One of the game’s best features is that we can play with one another as well as with our friends who live in other states. We’re all in a gaming guild together, and we have spent many enjoyable evenings in the utterly stunning world that you have created. Truly, the World of Warcraft is a work of art. It’s the Sistine Chapel of online fantasy worlds.
Now here’s where things get difficult. My husband and I are both openly gay men, and we have recently learned some troubling news about the World we’ve come to love. From what I gather, gay and lesbian characters and identities are unwelcome in the World of Warcraft, and openly GLBT-friendly guilds are in some cases no longer being tolerated.
While I trust that this policy does not exclude real-world gay and lesbian customers from participating in the World of Warcraft, it is chilling all the same. Must I stop referring to my husband as “my husband” while I am in the World? And what about our guild, which welcomes all sexual orientations, and which frowns upon people who use bigoted language? Do we have to stop doing this, welcome the bigots, and shun gays and lesbians, lest we run afoul of your rules? We have never “advertised” ourselves as gay-friendly, but we most certainly are, and I think I speak for everyone in the guild when I say that we intend to stay that way.
I’m not the only one who is concerned, and I hope you realize that these actions have drawn some fairly high-profile criticism. I quote now from Boing Boing, a popular online weblog written in part by bestselling science fiction author Cory Doctorow:
Blizzard, the company that runs the massively popular online multiplayer World of Warcraft game, has banned the practice of gay/lesbian/bi/trans players mentioning their sexuality in their guild-descriptions. Gameplay in World of Warcraft (WoW) hinges on cooperation and guilds; many missions require several players to complete. The game, then, focuses on intense social interaction, and has benefited tremendously from players who move large parts of their social lives to the game.
But players who have advertised their guilds as “GBLT-friendly” have lately been warned off by Blizzard moderators, who cite a rule against sexual discrimination in censoring the players. When pressed for explanations, they offer the genuinely bizarre excuse that if queer players are allowed to tell other players about their sexual orientation, that it might arouse discriminatory or unkind remarks from those players, and that would violate the anti-discrimination rules of the game.
Boing Boing apparently isn’t making this stuff up, either. One individual advertised her guild as follows: “OZ [the name of her guild] is recruiting all levels ¦ We are not ‘GLBT only,’ but we are ‘GLBT friendly’! (guilduniverse.com/oz).” I understand that she received the following by e-mail:
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.
When another gamer wrote to complain, you replied — absurdly — as follows:
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.
It dismays me that so little attention was paid to the facts at hand. The guild advertisement explicitly welcomed heterosexuals, and to say otherwise is grossly dishonest.
Admittedly, advertising a GLBT-friendly guild may provoke some harassment from the less mature players in the game. I know this myself, because I routinely hear anti-gay slurs while playing World of Warcraft. But it is certainly not the gay players who should be punished here. Our freedom of association ought not to be curtailed merely because some others may say bad things about us. This policy gives the worst elements of your online world a bigot’s veto that they do not deserve.
If you would like your online space to be free from sexual harrassment, then I salute you. You’ve created the artwork, and you need not permit anyone else to scrawl graffiti upon it. In my own online space — a weblog called Positive Liberty — I invariably delete comments that harass people based on their sexual orientation. I understand what you are aiming for; I hope only that you choose the right means to your goal.
You may ask, how do my husband and I deal with the slurs that we sometimes hear in the World? Quite often, they can become teachable moments: When another character uses the word “gay” as an insult, we simply answer that as far as we are concerned, “gay” is not a term of abuse. If they ask, we reply that the people they’ve been playing with for the past few hours — you know, the ones who shared all those potions with them and who put new enchantments on their armor — also just happen to be gay. Minds are opened.
It’s funny, that: When you’re deep in a dungeon, and when the warrior and the healer both turn out to be gay, it can often bring forth a tolerance from the most unexpected corners. At the very worst, you don’t want to piss them off badly enough that they both teleport back home — which, by the way, we have never once felt obliged to do. While the use of anti-gay slurs may be pervasive in the World of Warcraft, the genuine bigotry is paper-thin. This is why I believe that allowing us to create guilds that welcome all people regardless of orientation will enhance rather than detract from the work of fellowship that the game really does perform. It will help create an artwork, if you will, that is true to life, true to your own standards of in-game behavior, and welcoming to all.
Lastly, I’d like to take you to task for another passage that I’ve read from one of your customer service e-mails. It runs as follows:
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.
To this I must object in the strongest possible terms. Yes, I know, you’re the artists, and if you find that same-sex love has no place within your work, then I’m pretty much out of luck. But you should be aware that epic and high-fantasy literature has always incorporated profound elements of same-gender love. From the earliest writings all the way to the present, love between two people of the same sex has been a part of the fantasy world.
Although Homer never said it in so many words, most classical Greeks would simply have understood that the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus was sexual. And the love between Enkidu and Gilgamesh leaves no room for interpretation:
Enkidu, you who do not know how to live, I will show you Gilgamesh, a man of extreme feelings. Look at him, gaze at his face — he is a handsome youth, with freshness, his entire body exudes voluptuousness. He has mightier strength than you, without sleeping day or night! … Even before you came from the mountain Gilgamesh in Uruk had dreams about you.
Gilgamesh does dream of Enkidu, and in his dream, he loves Enkidu “as a wife.” As we all know, Gilgamesh and Enkidu later met one another and had a series of fantastic adventures together, adventures that are the ancient ancestors of the World of Warcraft.
Meanwhile, in modern fantasy, award-winning authors like Ursula K. Le Guin and Philip Pullman have likewise explored sexual identity, same-sex love, and transgender themes, all within the context of fantasy worlds. Both write for young adults, and it should be presumed that even most young people entering the World of Warcraft will have some idea that, yes, gays and lesbians really can exist in a fantasy world. Characters who profoundly love members of the same sex have been a part of epic literature for thousands of years, they are a part of it today, and they will continue to be a part of it long after World of Warcraft (and Blizzard) have ceased to exist.
This is not to say that the game should in any sense be more sexually explicit. I heartily agree that it should not, and that if adults want a more erotic-fantasy roleplaying game, they are free to create one elsewhere. Sexually inappropriate behavior in the game still deserves to be punished (Can you please do something about characters dancing naked all the time? I mean, really…). Yet as Le Guin and Pullman have shown, the existence of GLBT characters does not make a fantasy world “adult.” All it does is make it lifelike.
Lastly, I note in browsing the World of Warcraft Forums that some gay-friendly guilds are apparently still recruiting, and perhaps this means your policies have not been so uniform as the news reports indicate. I hope you will give these guilds a chance and that they will prove their worth as part of the community.
Now, as I’ve said, you’re certainly not obligated to follow my suggestions. It’s your world, and it’s your creation. But I do hope it’s big enough for all of us.
Sincerely,
“Cupcakes” and “Xiaojie” on Lightbringer WoW Server
Update: If you’d like to follow reactions from the WoW community, you may do so here. Discouragingly, their server has blotted out every single instance of the word “lesbian.”)
Filed in The Bistro, The Boudoir
As an occasional player of WoW (I maintain my account mostly so my GF’s brother can play at this point) I have to say that I’m not surprised. I can kind of see Blizzard’s point, but at the same time the examples you cite don’t appear to be problematic to me. Advertising as “GLBT Friendly” is hardly equivelant to “No straights allowed!”, after all (and even if it were, why worry about it?). The game has a LOT of young players, and there’s very frequently a fair amount of gay name-calling and such from that group to others (whether those being called gay and gay-related names actually *are* gay is something I don’t know). It may be that Blizzard hopes to promote a “don’t ask, don’t tell” sort of policy merely in the interest of protecting those players who are, in fact, gay, from being “outed” and therefore subject to attacks by the bigots who undoubtedly inhabit that world just as surely as they do the real one.
Hopefully no ill will come to (the accounts of) those who happen to be gay and feel that’s something they want to have known in the WoW universe for social reasons. Given the focus on gaming by idiot busybodies like attorney Jack Thompson in the last couple of years, though, I am not at all surprised that game companies are doing all they can to keep even the *mention* of sexually related concepts out of their games.
Jason
Interesting. Please follow up with the response you get. I would hope they’re capable of thinking things through to their logical conclusion.
Wow. Great letter, Jason. Hits all the right points. I hope Blizz revises their policy. To turn the “GBLT-Friendly” label around and say that it might incite anti-gay rhetoric is insultingly paternalistic. “Just stay in the cyber-closet and everything will by fine.”
One of the guilds that I play with has some problems with gay slurs. I try to gently correct.
Brings to mind when I used to play D&D. I gave that up long ago. Comic books replaced D&D to satisfy my fantasy impulse.
D&D probably led to my love of comic books. I first became enamoured of mythology from the characters I saw in the “Deities and Demigods” D&D book. I was fascinated how they took those concepts and integrated them into the game. Then I saw that Marvel did the same thing (before D&D) with Thor. And they did a pretty credible job of staying close to the Myth (with some artistic license changes).
Bravo. Oddly enough, through random circumstance, my guild came under the false impresison I was one half of a lesbian gaming couple (my warlock was female and my fiance plays a female char too). I was impressed at how my guild handled the idea, mostly by quashing gay jokes in guild (a common occurance, along with the phrase “raped” being used in a positive fashion). Even though it was based off of a misunderstanding, it showed a lot about how hard people will try if the discussion is out there. Shame on Blizzard for getting in the way of that type of conversation. In some areas, this is about as close as people will really get to interaction with LGBT individuals and they should be allowed to meet with them on honest terms.
[...] Follow-ups I: The Washington Blade is reporting that World of Warcraft has changed its policies regarding gays, lesbians, and online guilds. It’s not entirely clear to me that the new policy represents a victory, but it sounds encouraging, and I like to think that my letter to them may have done some good. I’ve been approached in the virtual world several times by other players who have read it; most have actually been far more supportive than I expected. [...]
On Anetheron realm a guild called “bite the curb” continues to get reported for the extreme violent act it is named after, not to mention to racial tension it creates. Yes, Blizzard refuses to do anything…now the guild in constantly bragging in the forums about themselves rubbing their existence in everyone’s face. Nah nah we didn’t get banned, etc.
I know this has nothing to do with the subject here, except that maybe you could direct me where to complain, an email or snail mail address to someone at BLizzard.
I’m also sick of the constant sexist comments and racist jokes in general chat…is there any recourse at all?
Thanks
riot_grrrl,
I know nothing at all about racism on your server, but violence is just a part of World of Warcraft, especially in PvP mode. For me, it’s not a good day if I haven’t hacked at least a couple dozen of my fellow gamers to bits.
“Bite the curb” seems pretty tame by comparison. (And is this necessarily a racist phrase? I don’t think it is, but I may be wrong on this.)
As to sexism and racism, I do agree with you, though. That’s why I have joined a guild (on Gul’Dan) with friends of mine who are not sexist, not racist, and not homophobic.
I play the character “Gustave,” and if you want a guild invite, we’d be happy to have you. Priests are preferred at this point, but anything goes (except for rogues, we’ve got too many of em as it is).
I don’t see how a Gay and Lesbian friendly guild has anything to do with sexual harrassment. I see all the time male players going around flirting with women.. I mean come on .. there is a /flirt. I think the word lawsuit could scare blizzard. LOL. As long as gay players don’t go around being profane there is no since in blizzard doing anything about it. It needs to be equal opportunity; meaning, if gay players aren’t allowed to say anything to each other or start a guild that accepts both gay and lesbian and bi and str8, regular guilds shouldn’t be allowed to even utter the term gay. I love world of warcraft, my husband (yeh, I’m gay) doesn’t, so I don’t have this problem. It’s bad enough that we get discrimminated against by the United States of America, why should we be discrimminated against in an online world. Geez. I hate the fact that people are so quick to judge us, throw bible versus at us (and I’m religious myself) but don’t listen to other important stuff that religion has to offer like don’t judge, love one another, etc. I just don’t understand this. If WOW ever gets out of hand, they will lose a lot of money from all of their gay players and supporters that support gay rights. What’s next discriminate against a troll? The word gay should be blotted out, freedom of speech in the game should be taken out, unless its a true form of freedom of speech for all. Grrr.. let me leave before I keep going on a tangent :P
Bravo!
As a guild officer of one of these “gay-friendly” raiding guilds on a European server, I wholeheartedly support our American friends in this.
While RPPVP (and I imagine, RP) servers tend to suffer less from juvenile taunting like this, it’s not entirely absent, and it has been nice to create a place where this is strictly not permitted. We didn’t set out to make our guild gay-friendly, it just happened that way with only about 15% of the members being gay themselves, with varying degrees of openness. But those of us who are gay appreciate being able to say things like “My husband just me a lovely dinner” without having to play the pronoun game.
Don’t let them make assumptions, don’t let them react without thinking it through properly.
Well done.
Apparently WoW has taken down your page on the WoW community boards. All you get if you follow the link is a “Page Not Found”. Sadly it looks like you’ve been erased.
Thought I’d post this from another blog where I commented on this subject a year ago. For some reason I thought of it this morning and decided to hunt down more of the individuals who made a big deal over a rather small subject that does not represent Blizzard’s policy - mostly as a result of anti-gamer sentiment and general ignorance, as well as an instinct to ‘find fire’.
Blizzard banned the guild because the environment of World of Warcraft is one where sexual orientation is not to be discussed in any way shape or form. I agree that EULA’s are rediculous, but it is stated several times in the EULA not to make any references about sexual oriention in character names, guild names, and chat. Not a stupid move on their part, since it will keep this GLBT guild from creating more controversy and issues around themselves.
I like gay people. I have several gay friends that are pretty cool. But I do not support this “look-at-me-i’m-gay” mentality that so many gay people have adopted in recent years. They simply try to create an issue in an attempt to appear righteous. Let’s not get into the fact that your article generalizes against gaming companies, and game players. You are insulting an entire class of people who have probably dealt with an unfair ammount of insults from Oprah, Hillary Clinton, etc. Feel free to stay on the mainstream bandwagon, just leave us gamers alone to compete with one another and have fun.
As for ‘race’ in WoW. They might as well have called it ’species’, especially since the opinionated irrational elite go into seizures at the mention of the word ‘race’. Choosing between races in WoW is not a matter so much of racial preference, but a matter of playing with your friends, looking cool, and creating a race/class combination that augments your combat abilities.
A great many individuals complain like you do and threaten to leave, or bask in their glory as they choose not to play WoW and deprive blizzard of a small peice of coin on top of their millions. There are common sayings to people like yourself that flaunt their ‘customer’s rights’ within the WoW community. We tell them blizzard won’t miss one player, especially one that raises a fuss; Nobody will miss you, and more players will play longer in your absense making blizzard more rich; and last of all, can I have your stuff? I guess that last one is irrelevant since you haven’t played yet, but if you can’t return the game to Amazon, send me your game discs, I have friends that would want it. Oh wait, this is postdated, can I still have your stuff?
I’m not a WoW fanboy. I can’t stand what Blizzard has done in the sense that they have made a game that requires an improper ammount of gameplay to even begin to enjoy upper level pvp content. I am all againt the rpg levelling system, and all for a renewable, non repetitive experience. In many ways, I wish Blizzard would make a better MMORPG than WoW. However, even my dislike of blizzard wouldn’t provoke me to turn against the truth that your article is misinformed, prejudiced, and childish.
Tyler,
I think it’s pretty funny that you write, “Nobody will miss you, and more players will play longer in your absense [sic] making blizzard more rich; and last of all, can I have your stuff? I guess that last one is irrelevant since you haven’t played yet.”
First, learn to spell.
Second, learn to read. I signed the post using my character names and WoW server info. You might have done better to realize this before accusing me of never having played the game. If you meant these accusations for the “other” blog, then fine… but try to understand, if you’re able to, that they don’t apply to me.
Third, I am astonished that you are still so agitated about something that happened so long ago. But very well, suit yourself. Who’s the one who is making a big deal of things now?
I think it might help to point out that I, personally, approved your comment this evening just after I logged off of the evening’s session with my… same-sex spouse who plays right along with me.
As to your claim that “the environment of World of Warcraft is one where sexual orientation is not to be discussed in any way shape or form,” it’s false.
People still use anti-gay language all the time; they still talk about sex — straight, gay, and far stranger things — in the channels. And no one ever gets banned for it. So if this is Blizzard’s policy, they’ve sure got a funny way of enforcing it. I’m almost tempted to wonder whether you ever play the game — I mean, how can you fail to notice the nearly constant sexual banter that goes on in guilds and channels?
But anyway, I don’t let it get to me. I said what I believed above, and then I found a guild that was friendly and accepting. And that’s that. I’m happy.
WoW has been a constant hobby of mine both before and after writing this post. But if you can’t understand what I’ve written above except by chalking it up to “anti-gamer” prejudice, then… well, how seriously should I take your opinion, when it’s clear you haven’t even considered what I’ve written?
Again, bravo, Jason!
More than your absolutely FLAWLESS knowledge of Blizzard and it’s claims, I’m impressed at your ability to debate. You’re a (dare I say it?) “master debater.”
I have to say, Tyler, that your perception of gays as aggressive attention hogs is shared by many, and I have to say, some gays are exactly that way. However, who are you to brand _anyone_ you don’t know with that label? All the GLBT-friendly guilds mentioned are exactly that–GLBT friendly. They do not in ANY way force their views on any players (except, perhaps, on those who wish to shield themselves from gays in all ways, and, frankly, screw them), and what’s wrong with seeking to play with other players who share their interests (namely, being gay)? It’s a very common tactic used in guild advertising.
Jason, all the power to you, and again, nice work!
Brian, *GAY* (oh, wait, does that offend you, Tyler?) WoW player
Does anyone know if there’s a lesbian (or more generally glbt) guild on skywall, my wow server? I cannot change servers because my son and his school friends all play there, and the reason I started playing wow in the first place nearly two years ago was to watch over my son, this was his first (and still only) online game. I have two lvl 70 characters in the same guild my son’s lvl 70 and his best friend’s lvl 70 are now members of. I won’t switch those chars, but I have another lvl 70 (lvl 70 is the current max, informing those of you who have no clue what I’m talking about :) and two currently 66’s free to move to other guilds (but not change servers). If you know of any such guild, please contact gail_elaine@yahoo.com. Thanks.
Greeting Gail
I have a number of toons on Skywall server
Kannal lvl 70 Shaman
Sierrasnow lvl 70 Rogue.
I have a toon on Shadowmoon lvl 10 Warlock in the OZ guild.
Don’t have time to play the little toon
So spend my time on Skywall
The guild I am in now is very GLBT frendly but I am
thinking very serious about starting OZ on Skywall if the guild name
is available.
I am Lesbian
Give me a wisper on my toons and lets chat about starting a GLBT guild
on Skywall
We are not alone!