Activision Blizzard Pulls Nickmercs Skin From ‘Call Of Duty’ After FaZe Clan Co-Owner Calls For LGBTQ Activists To “Leave The Kids Alone”
Activision Blizzard has cancelled their collaborative partnership with FaZe Clan co-owner Nicholas “Nickmercs” Kolcheff after the popular streamer voiced his belief that LGBT activists groups should “leave the kids alone”.
RELATED: ‘Overwatch 2′ To “Revisit” Established Characters’ Sexual Identities In Honor Of Pride Month
Kolcheff, who joined what is arguably the world’s most well known esports team in May 2019 before subsequently becoming a co-owner sometime in April 2021, offered his opinion on the current state of LGBT activism in response to a recent protest against the Glendale Unified School District’s proposal to formally recognize June as ‘Pride Month’.
On January 6th in Glendale, California, the school board meeting in which officials would be voting on the resolution found itself inundated with parents – primarily from the local Armenian and Hispanic communities, both of which are highly conservative – who sought to voice their discontent with the district’s goal of teaching and promoting LGBTQ-related topics.
Though the parents were allowed to speak and freely voice their opinions to the board, this opportunity only lasted roughly 42 minutes until local law enforcement locked down the entire event due to a deteriorating situation directly outside the building.
This situation, as captured on video, involved a violent clash between the parents and LGBT activists, the first punch of which is believed at this time to have been thrown by one of the conservative protestors.
Though it ultimately prevented the vote from being held, this brawl was quickly shut down by local law enforcement, with reports on the matter presenting a final event tally of zero injuries and just three arrests (However, the identities of those apprehended currently remain unknown).
Anti-LGBT protestors attack Pro-LGBT demonstrators outside of a Glendale, CA schoolboard meeting.
The schoolboard is voting on recognizing June as Pride month. pic.twitter.com/T1zqZMTn7D
— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) June 7, 2023
Later shared to Twitter by independent journalist Brennan Murphy, said video of the physical altercation (as seen above) would eventually draw a comment from veteran esports caster Chris “Puckett” Puckett, who noted, “This happened 4 blocks from my Overwatch League apartment.”
“Americans are in a sad place right now,” he would then opine. “Let people love who they love and live your own life.”
It was then that Kolcheff would author the Tweet that would, in short time, land him in hot water.
Replying to Puckett, the FaZe Clan co-owner declared, “They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue.”
In turn, Kolcheff’s Tweet was met with a wave of backlash from the general public, many of whom took his statement as a pedophilic generalization against all LGBTQ+ members rather than a commentary on the group’s aggressive activism.
Two days later, Call of Duty-centric Twitter news account @charlieINTEL would discover that Activision Blizzard had seemingly “removed the Nickmercs bundle from the Warzone and MWII store this evening.”
“Activision has not commented on why it has been removed,” they explained, “but the removal of his bundle comes a day after Nickmercs’ recent comments about the LGBT+ community.”
Released on May 31st, the aptly named Tracer Pack: Nickmercs Operator Bundle included two different in-game skins – one featuring the esports personality wearing a spartan helmet and the other a ‘hooded’ variant – two gun blueprints, one finishing move, a charm, an emblem, a sticker, and a loading screen, all of which was themed after Kolcheff’s online persona.
Roughly two minutes later, the official Call of Duty Twitter account would respond to @charlieINTEL and confirm, “Due to recent events, we have removed the “NICKMERCS Operator” bundle from the Modern Warfare II and Warzone store.”
“We are focused on celebrating PRIDE with our employees and our community,” they concluded.
Kolcheff would address this whirlwind of events on June 8th, explaining to viewers during a Twitch livestream that, “I do not feel [anti-LGBT], I just simply feel that I want to be the one, and my wife wants to be the one, to speak with our child about stuff like that.”
“And that was the tweet,” he continued. “You can take the tweet if you want, and you can spin it, flip it, flop it, quote tweet it, you can put 10 paragraphs on top of it, you can do whatever to it to make you feel better if that’s what you want to do. But that was the tweet.
Though he would then recognize, “I didn’t mean to upset anybody, I know that I did,” Kolcheff ultimately declared, “I’m not apologizing about the tweet because I don’t feel like it’s wrong.”
“I’m gonna stand by what I said,” said the streamer. “I’m not gonna delete the tweet. I just want to make sure everybody understands the point I was trying to make by tweeting my response.”
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