World of Warcraft players take another stand against toxicity after Social Contract test
Blizzard EntertainmentWorld of Warcraft players are taking a stand against the toxicity occurring throughout the community, urging players to report and ban any incidents of this nature. It comes after Blizzard promised to take more action earlier in 2022, including have players sign a “social contract”.
World of Warcraft players have been getting fed up with toxicity in-game as of late. While it’s always been an issue, the community has also taken issue to claims of harassment at Activision Blizzard perpetuated by some developers against others internally.
Blizzard has been trying to control it, introducing a new “social contract” in June 2022 that all players have to agree to.
However it’s not trickling through just yet, and players are now taking an independent stand. A Reddit thread titled “Don’t let toxicity slide anymore” has gone viral, calling on players to no longer tolerate any harmful, threatening or damaging actions from other players.
In the initial post, Reddit user drflanigan wrote: “If you are doing a key and someone starts insulting you, swearing at you, telling you to ‘get cancer’ or ‘kill yourself’, don’t just ignore them. Report them, and encourage the group to report them too, they will receive a ban.
“Group content shouldn’t be a breeding ground for miserable people to vent on others due to minor mistakes.”
The thread now has just under 1000 comments, with other WoW players sharing their own stories of harmful experiences they have had from playing the game. Moments when they were attacked online, wrongly kicked from a game or ganged up on by a group of toxic players.
WoW has garnered a reputation for how niche communities can incite hate, sexism and homophobia. Many big streamers have spoken out about this issue with Asmongold discussing how he no longer hesitates to kick people out of raids.
“This is the way I deal with things in World of Warcraft now,” said Asmon. “If somebody is doing something wrong, I just kick them out. That’s it. I don’t talk to them. I don’t negotiate with them.
“If you’re not here to play the game the right way, you’re kicked out. I’m not going to try to explain it to you. You’re just wasting everybody’s time. I’m not going to discuss this with you. I’ll get somebody new.”
This new Reddit thread is simply the latest attempt from WoW to have developers Blizzard address these issues in-game and do something about the toxic culture that continues to plague WoW.
In September 2021, a similar thread was created, this initial thread included comments from users expressing how “being told to kill myself over a mistake or a petty disagreement is not okay at all.”