Blizzard Says Ongoing World of Warcraft Content Edits Being Done In Service Of Being “Inclusive”
Spencer Baculi
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Amidst their ongoing effort to stealthily edit various World of Warcraft elements now deemed too ‘uncouth’ by the game’s more offense-prone players, Blizzard has finally addressed the situation and revealed that said changes are being made in pursuit of their “goal of building an inclusive and welcoming game world.”
Source: World of Warcraft Old Soldier Cinematic (2018), Blizzard Entertainment
Speaking to how they’ve been updating “a small number of old quests, art assets, names, and dialogue that we identified as outdated and inconsistent with our values as a team,” in a blog post published on September 30th, Blizzard noted that “these updates are a relatively small part of a comprehensive, company-wide effort to improve the WoW team and Blizzard as a whole, but they’re important to us as developers.”
Source: World of Warcraft Reckoning Cinematc (2019), Blizzard Entertainment
“Player feedback influenced many gameplay improvements we’re working on for patch 9.1.5, and our internal feedback identified some in-game content that is inconsistent with our goal of building an inclusive and welcoming game world,” the development team continued.
Recognizing “that these updates will amount to very few total changes overall,” the team simultaneously but conversely admitted, “Nonetheless, we believe these changes are worthwhile.”
Source: World of Warcraft: Shadowlands (2019), Blizzard Entertainment
“World of Warcraft is meant to evolve over time, and every day, new players from every walk of life and every corner of the world experience our in-game content for the very first time,” they continued. “As a team, we want the world they see to stand as an expression of our talents and principles.”
Though they attempted to assuage fan fears by assuring them that “goofy jokes and occasional mature innuendos are part of WoW, and probably always will be,” the team further maintained that they “want to remain mindful of whether certain elements of that world are welcoming to all players.”
Source: World of Warcraft: Shadowlands (2019), Blizzard Entertainment
“In short, we want our jokes to be inclusive and not punch down,” they declared. “It’s important to us that we ensure Azeroth is the best place it can be for everyone, and we will continue to improve our processes when it comes to this kind of decision-making.”
In conclusion to their post, the development team promised that they would be introducing “wide range of options for players to represent themselves,” offering up their “creation of an incubus demon, which we can add to places where succubus models currently appear,” as an example of these upcoming cosmetic choices.
“As WoW continues to evolve and grow, we’ll keep discussing, reviewing, and acting on this kind of feedback,” they promised. “As always, we’re immeasurably grateful for your input, and we hope you keep it coming.”
Source: World of Warcraft: Shadowlands (2019), Blizzard Entertainment
What do you make of Blizzard’s reasoning behind their ongoing content updates to World of Warcraft? Let us know your thoughts on social media or in the comments down below!
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