After years critiquing World of Warcraft, Blizzard’s recent decision to promote ideologies that are incompatible with the values and beliefs I hold dear, is a bridge too far for me to cross. As a result, I can no longer in good conscience continue to write articles about Blizzard Entertainment and their various video games. While I may include references to Blizzard or World of Warcraft in future articles, this will be my last piece that deals with them directly. I will also no longer purchase or play any product made by Blizzard or Activision.
The final straw came for me in August of 2017, when Kotaku reported that a leaked email memo from Blizzard company president Mike Morhaime who described the launching of a “global diversity and inclusion initiative” which seeks to increase the representation of women and other minorities at Blizzard. The article goes on to detail Blizzard’s efforts to achieve this via various methods.
As a person who has both worked in and covered the video game industry for over 12 years, I find this memo disturbing and chilling but sadly predictable given Blizzard’s recent leftist trajectory which I have chronicled over the past few years on this site. Now we have the smoking gun which proves Blizzard is a company run by virtue signaling leftists who seek to indoctrinate the identity politics/diversity/inclusion agenda upon their staff and the people that purchase their video games.
Blizzard has gone from mere public virtue signaling about inclusion and diversity to taking action with their introduction of a hiring policy that is based on diversity rather than merit. Blizzard is not alone.
The Misguided Drive to Attract More Female Coders
In recent years, there’s been a push in Silicon Valley, the tech industry and in the video game industry to promote the notion of social justice which is a warm and fuzzy euphemism for cultural Marxism. On the surface, the social justice warriors never fail to mention to everyone about how much they care about the seemingly benign and noble causes of equality, inclusiveness, and diversity. But in their zeal to achieve Utopia those who violate the commandments of this pseudo-religion are labeled as heretics to be shunned and ruined by social justice cultists who see racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia everywhere.
One recent thrust of this agenda is the campaign to motivate women to be coders and for companies to hire them. The proponents of this movement claim that women are underrepresented in the industry and they make it seem like they have been the victims of systemic discrimination by a conspiratorial cabal of misogynists. This is silly and absurd because imbalances are not always the result of discrimination.
One way to illustrate this is to discuss a similar imbalance between men and women: the gender makeup of the prison population. Recent statistics from the U.S. Government show that females in the USA make up 18% of the prison population compared to males who make up 82% of the prison population. Using the same flawed logic employed by the cult of equality, we must come to the conclusion that the American justice system, law enforcement, and the prison system must certainly be run by misandrists who hate men so much that they purposely seek to imprison more men than women. The real explanation is that men commit far more crimes than women.
Using the twisted logic of the social justice warrior, the solution to address the problem of females being under-represented in the American prison population would be to reduce the number of male prisoners incarcerated and increase the number female prisoners incarcerated. Of course, this solution is ludicrous. If this were ever attempted, it would be disastrous for American society but the very same logic is being used by social justice warriors in their campaign to promote female coders.
I believe the push for more women in the tech industry is really all about creating a workforce that is more left-leaning in nature. Watch the following video to learn more about how the “women who code” movement is really all about the promotion of leftist ideology.
(Note: this video has been made private)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DP6uyX9hDc0
Merit Matters
My central disagreement with Blizzard’s push for diversity within their company is that I believe that people should only be hired on the basis of merit. I believe in equal opportunity instead of equal outcomes. These are time-tested and enduring values that successful cultures have adopted. Unsuccessful cultures wallow in poverty and misery and they often result when cronyism, nepotism, and tribal loyalties are the order of the day. While these problems do exist in varying degrees in our culture, America is largely a culture based on the principle of merit.
Nobody should get special privileges because of their minority or alleged victim status. Just as you should not be able to fire someone because of their gender or race, you should not hire them because of their race or gender.
The social justice warriors who have recently invaded the shores of video game world are obsessed with Marxist obsessions of equality. Any imbalance of gender or sexuality is immediately seen as a sin that must be condemned. It is well-known fact that males are predominant consumers of AAA video games and MMOs. Therefore it stands to reason that the industry is staffed by mostly males because a higher percentage of males have expertise as gamers and also because they *want* to be video game designers, engineers, artists, and producers. Despite the stats (skewed by social and mobile games) that women make up the majority of video game consumers, males are the biggest consumers of AAA video games so it is reasonable to assert that the people who actually play video games would be best suited to creating them.
Dirty Jobs
Despite the culture of fun that is portrayed on the careers section of most studio websites, life in the video game industry is not a pleasant walk in the park. As I have noted in a recent article, people who work in the industry can expect to work long hours with little expectation of any semblance of work/life balance. While there may be some woman that may find this abusive environment and drudgery acceptable, most would not and this partly explains why there are so few women working in the industry, not because of alleged sexism and a lack of equality.
For anyone that ever watched Mike Rowe’s popular TV show, Dirty Jobs, it was obvious that men overwhelmingly occupied jobs that no woman in their right mind would ever do. This is as it should be. Men have always taken riskier jobs and occupations than men throughout the history of mankind in order to provide for their wives and their children. The woman’s primary biological role was the carrying and the raising of children and looking after the household when the male was out providing for his family. Survival of the species is paramount and the fundamental biological imperative in all living organism. Any ancient society that would be foolish enough to experiment with the luxury of feminism would soon find itself extinct.
There are other areas where women and minorities dominate yet the left is conveniently silent when their protected groups enjoy over-representation. For example, most primary school teachers and daycare workers are overwhelmingly female. This is because women who have a natural aptitude for raising children are attracted to these types of roles and men aren’t. In the realm of professional sports, American blacks who represent 18% of the population constitute 70% of the player base. But nobody is complaining that we need more men and white in both of these fields because women and blacks– who are both considered a protected group — dominate in this field. As George Orwell noted: everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.
From the standpoint of biology, men and women are clearly different. From a motivation perspective, both genders have different wants, needs, and expectations. It is utterly foolish and infantile to demand the Marxist requirement that every profession should have equal representation of both genders.
Diversity is Not Our Strength
What Blizzard and other companies who extol the false virtues of diversity is doing is engaging in social engineering. It is not based on merit or science, rather it is a form of cultural Marxism that divides and polarizes people and creates problems where none exist. The left is on a witchhunt to find inequality so they can virtue signal to show the world what wonderful people they are. The problem is inequality is in such a short supply in our culture it must be manufactured and invented as a result bias crimes hoaxes are at an all-time high.
The social justice warrior is taught by their leftist college teachers that the world — especially America — is an evil place where minorities are being oppressed and it is up to them to rid the world of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, insert cause of the day here. The recent unprovoked attack by social justice warriors on the video game industry is clear evidence of their crusade.
New convert to the religion of social justice and Blizzard VP Jeff Kaplan revealed in a recent Polygon interview, that he routinely asks job applicants for advice on how they can make Blizzard more diverse. From the article:
“I interviewed one of our artists, a woman, and I asked about how we can improve diversity. She said that what she most cares about is the level of open-mindedness and how much we build a team that is open to exploring other cultures and being respectful of people, no matter where they’re from.”
So now it’s just not enough to be an exceptional candidate with a set of skills and experience, now you must have the correct ideology in order impress Jeff Kaplan to land that dream job at Blizzard.
When identity trumps merit in the hiring process the quality of your product will inevitably suffer.
Recently it came to my attention that a major MMO studio was so desperate to have female representation on their team that they actively went out looking for a token woman so they could virtue signal to the industry about how inclusive and diverse they are. They finally found a woman with no game design experience but she had a blog. They put her in charge of combat and the result was the combat was universally panned by critics and players.
Seeding Your Organization with Ideologues
There’s an old saying in the computer programming world: garbage in, garbage out. Other variants of maxim are: you are what you eat. I believe this also applies to organizations too. The more radical leftists and feminists you bring into your company, the more likely that the content in the video game will reflect their ideology. Similarly, if you only hired old white, Christian conservative Republicans, the end product would most certainly be more likely to reflect their values.
Tech companies and video game companies — most based in the most leftist state in America, California — have been trying to increase female representation in their studios for the past few years. Qualified white heterosexual males who apply to work at Blizzard will suffer the most from this as they will be bypassed for minority status non-male applicants who will be token employees.
I think Blizzard should lead by example. Every male on the executive team should voluntarily resign and be replaced with a minority female or LGBT person. Let’s see if they really believe in diversity if it actually impacts them and their families personally. The old saying: Do as I say, but not as I do immediately comes to mind.
In the Kotaku article, it was also brought to light that Blizzard has established separate LGBTQ and female advisory councils that meet monthly and gives Blizzard guidance. What is troubling to me is that I believe that these councils will inevitably end up influencing the content of Blizzards video games as they attempt to justify their existence. Blizzard’s recent reveal that Overwatch’s Tracer is a lesbian is a good example of the council’s growing pernicious influence. Expect to see more pandering and virtue signaling from Blizzard as more LGBTQ characters and stories are included in your favorite Blizzard video games in the future.
What was not included in the leaked Blizzard memo was any information about other minority advisory groups that advise Blizzard on Christian and conservative issues in their workplace or their video games. Seemingly, the only minorities that matter to Blizzard are the ones that are the current darlings of the progressive and left-wing tech and media establishment.
BlizzCon 2017 Opening Ceremony Diversity and Inclusion Propaganda
As I was finishing this article, I realized that BlizzCon 2017 was in progress. In predictable fashion, Blizzard opened the event with a cleverly scripted and slick propaganda video montage of gamers with the clear intention of virtue signaling the values of the new and improved Blizzard 2.0. The montage starts off with a sampling of seemingly average Blizzard gamers who exude an aura that they are just like you and me. I believe this was done to show that Blizzard games facilitate a sense of community with the intent of cloaking Blizzard with an aura of moral righteousness.
As someone who has long argued that MMORPGs are essentially about community, I agree with many of the sentiments and some of the stories are touching.
But all the propaganda aside, does Blizzard really care about community?
I don’t believe it for a second as the evidence shows the opposite. Over the years Blizzard has done all they can to reduce player interdependency which erodes community in World of Warcraft in order to broaden their demographics in order to earn more profits. Blizzard games — especially WoW and now Overwatch — are notorious for some of the most toxic communities in the video game world.
While bragging about how global Blizzard is, some of the players also talked about their friends all over the world but the fact that Blizzard’s WoW servers are region specific easily contradicts this.
As the opening video proceeded, you see a lot of geeky, nerdy, body positive, awkward people and some who I suspect are representatives of non-traditional gender expression and lifestyles. Somehow we are supposed to believe that the people in the video represent average Blizzard gamers. I’m not convinced at all. Who selected them? Was the new Blizzard LGBTQ and female advisory board involved in the making of this video? How were they selected? Who actually made this video? Who directed it? Who scripted it?
After watching the video, I got the feeling that Blizzard wants it known that they have provided a safe haven for the “marginalized” gamers of the world. Somehow we are supposed to believe that Blizzard are the white knights for the downtrodden geeks and bullied nerds around the world. This is a 10 on the virtue signaling and moral sanctimony Richter scale.
At one point, one of the gamers in the video says: “Blizzard is an open, inclusive, positive wonderful community.” Finally, we come to the real point of the video: the promotion of the inclusion and diversity agenda. Very clever Blizzard but we are not fooled by your sleight of hand. The devil uses a sea of truth to disguise a drop of poison.
I take great exception to this propaganda video. MMORPGs have always been inclusive and open to everyone. Anyone who’s played MMOs for the past 20 years already knows this. MMOs and virtual worlds have always had a level playing field designed into them from the start. Everyone starts out as a level 1 character. You are free to forge your own destiny and reputation for better or for worse.
Additionally, one of the great things about MMOs is that anyone can create a character, male or female, choose any race, and leave their real-life identity behind and create an entirely new persona. This is called role-playing and it’s the “RPG” in the MMORPG acronym. Nobody cares what your real-life age, race, gender, religion, sexual proclivities or occupation is. As a player, it’s your duty and responsibility to come to a virtual fantasy world to fit in and be a part of it. Whether it’s the virtual worlds of Azeroth, Norrath or Middle-earth, you do this by leaving your real-life baggage and politics behind you.
We don’t need to be told by Blizzard that MMOs are open to everyone, we players have always known this. Those of us who log every day to our favorite virtual world, we live it. This video comes across as patronizing and insulting. And in reality, it’s just more shameless virtue signaling to pander to the progressive and LGBTQ communities. And it’s not even original or courageous because Blizzard are robotic lemmings — doing precisely what every other California tech and entertainment company are doing.
BlizzCon did have some good news in that they finally announced the introduction of classic WoW servers. At this point, it’s too little too late for me.
A Personal Note From a Christian, a Gamer, and a Developer
Many years before our culture was obsessed with politics and the social justice warriors started complaining about video games, I worked with some amazing people in the industry who just happen to be non-white, women and others who were known to have same-sex attraction. They were outstanding artists and designers and valued colleagues. Their sexual proclivities and gender while sometimes obvious and sometimes hidden, were never part of the equation. They were hired because of their merit, their experience and they were well-respected because of their talent and contributions — not because of their gender or who they sleep with or the color of their skin and not because they looked good on our company’s recruitment website.
Back then, the concept of ideological neutrality was an unstated rule in the industry. Our publishers would expect no less from us. We realized that every gamer who purchases the video games we made had their own political and religious beliefs and that should be respected. Back then, before the social justice fad devoured the industry, it was just common sense to operate this way. Our goal as developers was not to lecture or indoctrinate people but to create the best possible video games we could.
In my bio to every post, I state that I am a Christian. Despite that, I have never proselytized my Christian faith in my articles. But now I can no longer keep silent. As a gamer and designer who is also a Christian, Blizzard’s policy to openly promote and normalize lifestyles that are immoral both within their company and in their video games is utterly incompatible with my religious beliefs. As long as this is the case, as stated at the outset, I will not be purchasing, playing or promoting any Blizzard products. I will not cooperate with evil. My allegiance is to God, not a company like Blizzard Entertainment.
I have received emails from other Christian gamers who are alarmed that they and their beliefs are being marginalized by the recent ideological crusade that has beset the video game industry.
Conclusion
As I take my leave of Blizzard once and for all, I will give them one final tip of the hat for their amazing accomplishments in the MMORPG genre. WoW was the thousand pound gorilla in the room that changed the MMO industry. While Blizzard did many things right but they also did many things wrong. But in the end, as Raph Koster has said so brilliantly, the stratospheric success of Blizzard with WoW destroyed the MMO genre by endless refining until it became something unrecognizable. Even as the crowds cheered Blizzard’s success, I felt compelled to point out the warning signs along the way but Blizzard in their swagger and arrogance refused to listen. They giddily marched onwards toward their goal of increased profits by ensuring that WoW would appeal to the lowest common denominator and as a result, the dumbed down WoW of today is a mere shadow of its former self.
Blizzard was once an amazing company that achieved great things. The highlight of my reverence for them was when I got a chance to speak to Blizzard developers at the Blizzard Burning Crusade pavilion at E3 in Los Angeles in 2006. Back then, Blizzard was the real deal. They broke the rules and had fun doing it. They were a video game company that cared about gamers. You felt that they were on your side. They weren’t promoting any kind of political or social ideology — they just made great games.
Today, studios that promote and seek to indoctrinate progressive ideology into video games making a terrible mistake. They are violating one of the central reasons why people play videos: escapism. Video games are a sacred oasis where players pay their hard earned money to escape the cares and troubles of the world free from the yoke of the 24-hour news cycle of social media outrage, real-world politics, ideology, and religion. Regrettably, the concept of ideological neutrality has been completely discarded by the tech and entertainment complex.
But for now, the titans of the video game industry do not care. As they wallow in their zealotry and self-righteousness, they will continue to shovel their leftist propaganda down your throats anyway. They will follow the well-trodden path of Hollywood who discarded the golden age of films and replaced it with subversive films imbued with leftist propaganda.
The lords of the new entertainment medium are also alienating half of the population who does not share their leftist ideology. Gamers aren’t as docile as the average American TV watcher and someday it will come back to haunt them.
Blizzard, I can not overstate this: you are making a grave error here. Cultural Marxism is a deadly cancer that will consume your company. Once it gets a foothold, it’s only a matter of time before the workplace will become an unbearable place of fear and the products you create will become riddled with leftist propaganda.
No area of endeavor is safe from these fanatical busybodies. These twisted social justice warriors have infiltrated almost every hobby and pastime in order to spread their cult of equality and identity politics. Even America’s favorite sport of professional football is seeing their viewers and spectators rebel against this madness by their refusal to attend and watch. Nothing is sacred to these virtue signaling fanatics. This will only get worse and eventually, they will drive out most of their fans and impact advertisers and drive the NFL out of business. Marxists and their ilk never build or create, they only destroy and vanquish, then they move on to another target.
Regarding Blizzard’s new diversity hiring practices. Be careful of what you wish for Blizzard. If you don’t already, someday you will have sons that will eventually apply for positions in college and in the workplace. How will you feel when a less qualified minority or a female applicant gets the position over your son? How will you be able to look them in the eye and tell them that you supported a similar policy that discriminated against heterosexual white males? What goes around, comes around.
I have spent hundreds of hours thinking about virtual worlds and MMORPGs and putting my thoughts into words here on this blog. While I have been very critical, I have also offered solutions. I have aggressively campaigned for more MMORPGs that appeal to a wider and more diverse group of player archetypes. I care deeply about role-playing and finding ways to make virtual worlds more alive and dynamic. I have written at length about the importance of community and player interdependency in virtual worlds and MMORPGs when most of the social justice warriors were still in diapers. I have advocated for non-combat activities for players to engage in like player housing. It’s not just me asking for these things. Many WoW players have also wanted Blizzard to care more about these things as well but they have been mocked, marginalized and ignored at various BlizzCons and by Blizzard in general.
It is now clear to me that Blizzard has passed the point of no return and finally gone over to the dark side. This once unashamed male-dominated company of rugged individuals that created games for predominately for males has fallen from grace and become feminized and hipsterized beyond the point of recognition. As a result, many veteran employees have left seeking companies that offer more artistic freedom and less political correctness. My heart goes out to those that remain at Blizzard. They are afraid to speak out lest they lose their prestigious jobs. I get it. However, life is short and life presents us with choices. We can choose good or we can choose evil. What we choose will echo throughout eternity. Choose wisely.
In closing, I never wanted to write about politics, ideology or religion on this blog. I started this website as a way share my thoughts about MMORPGs and virtual worlds. But the war waged against this industry by the vocal minority of radical feminists and the cultural Marxists has given me no choice but to defend the genre that I love. I am a reluctant soldier, conscripted into a war I never wanted to fight. I believe that things are so bad at Blizzard Entertainment that they can no longer be redeemed or saved. They are a lost cause.
I’ve said my piece. I fought the good fight. But now, I need to move on from the disaster that is Blizzard and World of Warcraft. So in the future, I fully intend to start writing again about the things that really matter to me: MMO design and virtual worlds. The MMO genre has lost its way and ended up in a dead end of mediocrity, banality and predictability. It’s like that kid you remember back in school who had so much potential but dropped out of school and somehow ended up in prison. Something needs to be done to take it off life support and to put it back on track to the glorious future it deserves.
-Woflshead
“Recently it came to my attention that a major MMO studio was so desperate to have female representation on their team that they actively went out looking for a token woman so they could virtue signal to the industry about how inclusive and diverse they are. They finally found a woman with no game design experience but she had a blog. They put her in charge of combat and the result was the combat was universally panned by critics and players”.
This wasn’t Elder Scrolls Online by any chance, was it?
Yes, it was.
Congrats on doing the same thing you accuse Blizzard of.
Congrats on missing the entire point of the article. Congrats on failing to see Blizzard’s hypocrisy of inclusion and diversity but only for the annointed voices they deem worthy. This article and others I have penned on this subject is in defense of ideological and political neutrality in video games. I’m not advocating for the inclusion of video games that promote Christianity, all I want are video games that aren’t created for the purpose of indoctrination of a particular (leftist) ideology.
So a rightist (is that a word?) ideology would be fine then? The fact that you specify leftist indicates pushing the opposite would be okay and supports his accusation of hypocrisy.
I don’t know which of you is right on this, and it doesn’t matter much since Blizzard IS full of out-of-touch morons. I just thought it funny how you ruined a perfect response by adding an extra word in parentheses.
Great article….liberalism is ruining everything……You can’t do anything online and enjoy it due to identity politics..
On a related note, yesterday a class action lawsuit was filed against Google today by James Damore and David Gudeman. You can read the actual lawsuit here:
https://www.scribd.com/document/368689407/Damore-vs-Google-Class-Action-Lawsuit#fullscreen&from_embed
From the Breitbart article:
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/01/08/damore-complaint-shows-allegedly-widespread-intimidation-of-conservatives-at-google/
I fear that the very same thing will happen to companies like Blizzard and others who foolishly embrace the toxic identity politics ideology and allow it to get a foothold within their organizations.
I’ve been reading your blog longer than I can remember and like you I’ve traversed and experienced more virtual worlds than I care to admit. I think the best point you made (and I’ll paraphrase) is how MMOs and gaming in general is about escapism and not having the real world forcibly shoved into your face when you log in.
I cherish game companies that ignore the outside world’s bullshit and focus on just making a great game. GGG (Grinding Gear Games maker of Path of Exile) is a studio that comes to mind. I used to think ArenaNet was another one until they threw lesbians into their storyline. What people don’t seem to get is that no one gives a rat’s ass if you’re GLBT or whatever the hell you want to shove your wang into on a given week—we care about the quality of the game and the friends we meet / play with.
Anyway, great blog entry.
Spot-on.
As much as I enjoy reading your perspectives on the Irvine madhouse; I’m very much looking forward to reading your thoughts on MMO design.
@Wolfshead
The writing has been on the wall for some time now. Which begs the question on why Gamer’s are so slow to react and actively boycott certain elements of the game industry. The direction you allude to has been going on for at least a decade, especially at Blizzard, so knowledge of such a memo should not spark outrage more-so than it should provide support those who have already pulled out and boycotted Blizzard, Activision, EA…etc. Voting with one’s wallet is still the best voice any of us have. It’s even better if it’s Divinely Inspired. =)
Yesterday, an individual who has never posted here before, posted a number of replies to this article which after reviewing them, I have chosen not to publish. This person made various ad hominem attacks against me which are a violation of my posting policy. This person is not welcome on this site. I will simply not allow people to insult me on my own website.
I offer readers the opportunity to reply to my articles and reply to others if their posts follow my site policy, are made in good faith and contribute to the discussion. This is a courtesy not a right. Many major websites are removing the ability for readers to comment on their articles. However, I will continue to offer this to my readers because in an era dominated by orthodox views and group think, I believe the polite exchange of ideas and freedom of speech is vitally important.
I would love to respond to ever reply and email I get but I just don’t have the time. Thanks for understanding and thanks for your continued support of this website.
-Wolfshead
@Wolfshead
I feel like you are reading too much into Blizzard’s “diversity” initiative, or whatever they are calling it. Just because a company wants to be more inclusive of women does not mean it is “far-leftist” or promotes “cultural Marxism”. Your position that hiring should be a pure meritocracy is a respectable position, and in many ways I agree. However, I don’t think you can so easily dismiss hiring practices by which underrepresented groups are given a slight leg-up. In my work experience, I have never encountered a peer who has been given a job SOLELY because of their minority status. Are there times where an “A+” white candidate was passed over in favor of an “A-/B+” non-white candidate? Absolutely. I have seen it. And it’s not fair to that white individual. Yet in corporate America, a company is not going to waste its resources on an employee who is totally unqualified (e.g., choosing a “D” non-white candidate over an “A” white candidate), so I think you are creating a strawman there.
The reality is that hiring practices that give a slight leg-up to minority candidates are a conscious policy decision by companies. The rationale is that companies would rather have a marginally less technically capable workforce in exchange for being able to market an image that reflects an increasingly diverse American population. And the impetus for this policy is not ideology, as you argue. It is the bottom line. Corporations have one job, and one job only: to maximize shareholder profit. If profit and the PC-zeitgeist happen to align, then so be it. But the suggestion that a massive corporation’s #1 concern is political correctness or cultural Marxism is not tenable.
Personally, I identify as a Democrat, and would consider myself as a run-of-the-mill liberal. While I have met SJWs who fit the mold you cast, they are rare. And by the way, I hate SJWs, as do most of my liberal friends. Most American liberals believe just as much in entrepreneurship as American conservatives. Please don’t buy into the Limbaugh-esque worldview that anyone who votes Democrat or is a liberal promotes cultural Marxism, or wants to indoctrinate the rest of the country to submit to a system where talent takes a backseat to diversity. It just isn’t true.
That being said, Blizzard is a garbage company because it caters to the lowest common denominator, as you have articulated many times (not surprisingly, the reason for this is also corporate profit). I just think you are ascribing too much meaning to their hiring practices and diversity PR. When bona fide racist/misogynistic/xenophobic scandals can drop a corporation’s share price by 10% in a single day, it’s hard to blame a corporation for wanting to invest in a little teflon, so to speak.
While many companies are engaged in diversity hiring does not negate the fact that the intellectual and ideological basis for it comes from cultural Marxist theories and academics who hold sway at most institutions of higher learning. The notion that every corporation must hire people based on the racial, ethnic, gender and now sexual makeup of the population is madness and serves no business purpose other than to serve as virtue signaling to avoid lawsuits from identity politics pressure groups and the subsequent public relations problems that are generated from our leftist media media and entertainment complex.
Diversity ideology based on immutable characteristic is a sham and the snake oil of our generation. If diversity was really a wonderful thing, then homogeneous non-diverse Japan, one of the most prosperous, peaceful, civilized and industrious nations in the world would rank in last place.
The only diversity that matters is ideological diversity. If we can’t express dissent or new ideas for fear of the wrath of the orthodoxy then Western civilization will decline. Ideological diversity is not welcome in the tech world. Anyone who is found to be a conservative or a Christian is hounded out of most tech and entertainment companies.
Not every corporation is practising the diversity/inclusion religion. Not all corporations are publicly owned. Not all corporations are in the highly visible tech or entertainment fields where the diversity/inclusion agenda and progressive virtue signaling is a major part of their marketing strategy. I have spoken to people who do actual hiring in corporate America and for global companies and they hire based on merit. They don’t care what color your skin or your gender is. They are in highly competitive fields and they could not afford to hire candiates who are not at the top of their game. Billions of dollars of capital are at stake.
Discriminating against qualified white and asian males is wrong no matter how good the intentions are. We see widespread discrimination, open hostility and abuse directed at them from companies like Google which the James Damore lawsuit has revealed.
Look at what happened to Google and to Facebook. Both companies were not particularly ideological in their formative years. That has completely changed as both companies are now populated by radical leftists. As I stated in my article, the same thing will happen to Blizzard in the coming years.
Sadly, many companies are embracing the diversity agenda but that does not make it right. This is the appeal to popularity fallacy also called argumentan ad numeram.
Cultural Marxism has poisoned the academic well in the West. It is not something to be take lightly as a boilerplate conservative talking point against the left. Although I’m a big fan of Rush Limbaugh and used to listen to him many years ago, it wasn’t him that awaken me to the pernicious influence of the Frankfurt School who invented cultural Marxism and corrupted academia with it. I was aware of it from other sources. One in particular is Andrew Breitbart. Here’s a video conversation with him on how he too found out about it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIO4oSLwK3A
You said you consider yourself a Democrat. But you have to admit that the Democratic party has gone hard left in the past 20 years. Would JFK or Lyndon Johnson be welcome in the Democratic party today? No, they would not. The modern left has all but abandoned economic theories on how to improve the lives of people in favor of identity politics that divides and polarizes people — ergo you have the election of Donald Trump.
You make a lot of good points. Like you, I too believe that many companies are going along with this ideology to buy some teflon. I admit, part of me wants to believe that Blizzard is doing this to keep up appearances in the tech world. Does Blizzard really care about imposing cultural Marxism on it’s staff and into its video games? I don’t really know but no one can deny the ideological shift at Blizzard over the past few years and it’s now manifesting itself in their products. They are taking this very seriously. They are now hiring a diversity and inclusion manager.
https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/global-diversity-%26-inclusion-manager-at-blizzard-entertainment%2C-inc.-539134017
The diversity and inclusion that the left wants to impose on the West and that Blizzard seems only to happy to agree with, will not make video games better, they will do the opposite. Ignoring your target audience of white males is a recipe for disaster. It’s not just Blizzard, the entire left-wing aristocracy is peddling this poison too. The recent Star Wars film that marginalizes males is a prime example of this. Bishop Robert Barron has some good analysis of this in the following video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cql5JYKeTjU
I play video games to escape the politics and concerns of the real world. I will never allow myself to be indoctrinated by Blizzard or any other video game company. At some point, we have to make a stand and have the courage of our convictions.
That guy doesn’t understand how cultural Marxism works, it starts from the grassroots. The elephant in the room that everybody forgot to address is social media being used in a manner akin to mob rule. Just like with this #MeToo crap, the social media just whips the plebs up into a frenzy on Twitter and the other platforms, forcing the companies to cave in. Any due process whatsoever is bypassed.
As for Star Wars, the admiral in charge of the Rebel Fleet looks like a fruitcake? Wtf?
Just compare it to how well the officers under Vader in Empire Strikes Back were written. I’m sure we all remember the internal politics between them at the very opening of the movie?
P.S. Just love how Jordan Peterson fucked up that SJW bitch. Teach those two bit intellectuals to try yellow journalism tactics on someone with a PhD from Harvard.
This has got nothing to do with marxism or any school of thought on the left. This is pure free market capitalism. It’s just the fact that it doesn’t work the way you (american conservatives) thought it will. Disney, Marvel, Blizzard, all the champions of something that you label “left” – they are making record high profits form year to year.
Thanks for this. Blizzard has been my favorite company and Diablo my favorite game series, but I am done with them as well.
Thanks for an informative and well thought-out article (among many!). Myself, I’ve considered staying on the Light’s Hope server (if they stay open, of course) and not move over to WoW Classic once it launches. And not just because it’s likely to not really be that… Classic – but also precisely because of the issues you mention. I don’t want to pay for being fed this seemingly ever-growing kind of cringe, radical-leftist mumbo jumbo. I hope that we who are right-of-centre (or whatever people wanna call it), no matter flavour or religion… or simply want pervasive social justice ideology to stay away form our virtual worlds, will eventually develop our own communities and spaces – maybe even companies – to show our strength as consumers.
This development inside the industry seems to have correlated with the dumbing-down and streamlining, throwing originality into the trash can in favour of the generic and puerile, and WoW is far from the only series affected (Elder Scrolls was bought up as an example). I suppose gender issues and “LGBT+ inclusiveness” is the only thing that remains when art no longer matters… -.-
Finally found your blog again:) Wonderful article Wolf, I being a christian gamer myself have wondered for years why more and more studios seem to be pushing certain issues that have nothing to do with a virtual world where we like to escape for awhile.
Nice to see you are still writing, blessings to your family.:)
I have read and bookmarked many of your articles in regards to Overwatch and Blizzard ruining it by appealing to SJWs and their disgusting ideologies. I have written several of my own articles that go even deeper in regards to the game and even sourced your articles as well.
Blizzard censored aka “silenced” me for an entire year for calling someone a retard on chat. It has gotten so bad that even when I bought a new account that I was even reported when I never even typed anything into the chat. The voice chat alone by triggering to these autists tat voice chat alone is enough to get you in trouble for hurting their precious feewings in their safe space.
I have a list of my own articles of my own.
https://tacticalknight.com/overwatch-will-never-become-an-esport-and-how-blizzard-ruined-it/
https://tacticalknight.com/overwatch-slow-development-blamed-by-censoring-toxic-players/
https://tacticalknight.com/blizzard-censoring-overwatch-players-by-labeling-them-as-toxic/
https://tacticalknight.com/blizzard-killed-overwatch-by-enforcing-their-sjw-ideology/
I came here to contact you directly in regards to an article that I read about on your website called and wanted to contact you if you could share my article on your website about other dirty sinister secrets in regards to Overwatch that you won’t find anywhere else. I have a lot of articles similar to yours on my website and I know for sure that you would like to read. Hope to receive your reply soon. You can find me at my youtube here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTMTII22As_7W9SdSHwjP_A
https://tacticalknight.com/how-overwatch-punishes-skilled-players-for-profit/
inequality is manufactured? Is that what you think? Well I am sure that women and minorities who have suffered lower pay than men (and still do in many industries not just the tech industry or gaming industry) would strongly disagree with your conclusion or premise. But let us put aside that for a second and consider Blizzard is aiming to give women and minorities opportunities to be coders, yes by all means, let’s boycott them..what evil bastards. Sorry, what you call social justice is just a term invented to disparage those who try to improve their lot in life. Thank you for your wonderful gaming blog, I am done with it myself.
Typical SJW response – can’t see the trees for the forest
I don’t think you used the word “Leftist” enough. Not sure how you can be a Christian and not also a leftist, modern day Republican ideology is totally incompatible with Christianity.
I guess this is why VALVe has been much more likable in the recent years.
There’s nothing leftist about close-mindedness and censorship. Hatred of humanity is the domain of the right. That said, I’m not intentionally boycotting, just too disappointed to play any more. It used to be a nice game. Now it’s just depressing.
I’m a longtime Blizzard fan who, because they have a negligent, flippant policy on banning people in Overwatch, is now likely to boycott them, and I was looking for a place to post about it where others discussed such a boycott. I found this, and disagree with the person’s attacks on things like treating people with equality and respect, attacking those as bad leftist policies, that it makes me want to go back to spending on Blizzard just to counter them.
They said they don’t want to be insulted on their own web site, so maybe this won’t get posted, but it’s sent to the site.
So Go…!..Nobody should be forced to do anything..Games are for fun and not teaching how to be good boys and girls..You believe people should be forced how to treat others.
hello Comrade!