Blizzard Fired WoW Screenwriter for Capitalist Jokes?
Eric Covington, a screenwriter who worked on World of Warcraft, claims he was fired from Blizzard after he wrote a dialogue mocking „corporate greed” for characters in the game.
Another scandal is brewing at Blizzard Entertainment. This time a former employee of the company is accusing his employers of firing him because... he was doing his job (via The Gamer). It sounds a bit like a grim joke, but a joke it absolutely is not, at least not entirely. However, to better understand the situation at hand, let's start with a post recently shared on Twitter by a screenwriter of World of Warcraft - Eric Covington.
In the published message the developer in charge of writing the game's dialogues stated that he had been fired from the company after he wrote several texts making fun of "corporate greed" for so-called loot goblins. Although the artist most likely saw this as nothing more than an innocent joke, the bosses had a significantly different feeling. As a result, after 9 years of working for Blizzard, Covington had to say goodbye to the company.
Which specific dialogues proved to be the proverbial thorn in the developers' side? That's what we don't know. The arsenal of aforementioned characters included such texts as: "another record quarter of revenue," "it looks like another yacht to me," or "time to go back to the office."
Interestingly, the developers themselves used the characters' capitalist texts in materials promoting the game. The videos were removed only after Covington pointed out the hypocrisy to his employers. The former employee also added that the dismissal came after someone from the company saw themselves in the dialogues of greedy goblins.
|No interest in at least asking me what my intentions were regarding the character (was it aimed at anyone? No).
No polite request to let me deal with it and correct some of the lines because of the circumstances (I would have gladly and understandingly helped)," the bitter creator added.
Of course, one should not judge the corporation too early, since we only know one side of the events. It is just as well that the case may have a second bottom, which we have not yet learned. Although Blizzard's complicated past certainly does not make it easy to look at the case objectively.
