Current Events > Blizzard goes woke. Drops $15 fee to change gender in WoW.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2020-07-09-world-of-warcraft-will-drop-the-fee-for-changing-gender-in-shadowlands

Executive producer John Hight told me in an interview yesterday you will no longer have to pay to change your character's gender in the upcoming expansion Shadowlands. Instead you will be able to do it at a barber shop for free.

"A long time ago, we had the ability for players to go in - it was actually a paid service - and change their character. Much of that is now in the barber shop in the game," he said. "And as we were adding things up in Shadowlands, we realised, 'Gosh the only way you can change your gender in World of Warcraft is to go through this paid service.' And we felt like that's not the right message.

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They were charging for this before?

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more selective pandering from a shit business, who cares.

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Most of their "services" like gender swaps, faction swaps, server changes, etc. are predatory and shouldn't be charges.

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I can't imagine feel angry about this.

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Fucking hell that was $15?!
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MyTummyHurt posted...

Fucking hell that was $15?!

Thats what Im saying.

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garbage company pandering yet again

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who cares about this shit fucking company anymore

blitzchung and warcraft 3 reforged buried them

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Damn that's a terrible barber. You go in to get a trim, wind up losing something else.

Purple_Cheetah posted...

Damn that's a terrible barber. You go in to get a trim, wind up losing something else.

sounds like a bargain to me!

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Did people really pay $15 to change an imaginary character gender

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Awesome. Literally nobody with any semblance of a brain should be upset about this.

Rika_Furude posted...

garbage company pandering yet again

Shut the fuck up. You know damn well if they just dropped the fees on everything you'd be celebrating.

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ASithLord7 posted...

You know damn well if they just dropped the fees on everything you'd be celebrating.

Yes i would. But they didnt, did they? So why dont you fuck off instead?

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Were people actually upset that it costed money?

Kinda dumb that it cost money to begin with.
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Wii_Shaker posted...

They were charging for this before?

Not entirely. They charged you to change how your character looked (not race, that was a separate thing). As mentioned in the OP, they're revamping that with the next expansion to the point that the only thing left in this "service" was gender change, so they just threw it in too. Which is why...

Rika_Furude posted...

garbage company pandering yet again

...this is such a dumbass thing to say.

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FinalFantasy462 posted...

Were people actually upset that it costed money?

I was

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pegusus123456 posted...

Not entirely. They charged you to change how your character looked (not race, that was a separate thing). As mentioned in the OP, they're revamping that with the next expansion to the point that the only thing left in this "service" was gender change, so they just threw it in too. Which is why...

...this is such a dumbass thing to say.

Wrong again.

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pegusus123456 posted...

Not entirely. They charged you to change how your character looked (not race, that was a separate thing). As mentioned in the OP, they're revamping that with the next expansion to the point that the only thing left in this "service" was gender change, so they just threw it in too. Which is why...

...this is such a dumbass thing to say.

Well, it's Rika.

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pegusus123456 posted...

They charged you to change how your character looked

Pre-Cata, barber shops only allowed you to change your hair / color. Then Cata came out which brought new druid forms + colors. What color cat/bear form you had depended on skin color, so druids were able to change their skin color at barber shops. This made many nerds rage. Then MoP introduced a service that could change how your character looked but not many people used that service, so they updated barber shops again when BfA came out and anyone could change how their character looked. The only thing you can't change is gender which is what they're doing now.

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This might be the first time since the Activision merger that Blizzard reduced/removed the cost of something instead of increasing it.

Politics or not, it's a positive thing.

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i wanted a zero fade and walked out with a vagina

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Weird thing to be upset about if you're a normal human.
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Compsognathus posted...

I can't imagine feel angry about this.

Im only offended by it insofar as its low-effort pandering that speaks to how deeply predatory and anti-consumer this company is; it is a basic, low cost feature of a game, it should not have had a fee in the first place. Companies shouldnt feel proud or get credit for not nickel-and-diming already paying players for minuscule shit, because that is just basic fucking decency and nothing at all worthy of commendation.

If Blizzard really wanted to get woke, theyd stop supporting violent and oppressive regimes and human rights violations. Fuck Blizzard. Fuck em in half.

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butthole666 posted...

Im only offended by it insofar as its low-effort pandering

It's not.

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I just tried playing hearthstone for the first time in 2 years and damn i opened a booster pack and had no idea what half the cards referred to. Now you hafta worry about a card's poistion in your hand and how to invokoe things and wtf

and wtf is this rush mechanic they tryna say they nerfed an existing mechanic and sold it as something new? JFC blizzard

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butthole666 posted...

Im only offended by it insofar as its low-effort pandering that speaks to how deeply predatory and anti-consumer this company is; it is a basic, low cost feature of a game, it should not have had a fee in the first place. Companies shouldnt feel proud or get credit for not nickel-and-diming already paying players for minuscule shit, because that is just basic fucking decency and nothing at all worthy of commendation.

If Blizzard really wanted to get woke, theyd stop supporting violent and oppressive regimes and human rights violations. Fuck Blizzard. Fuck em in half.

That's the worrying trend about a lot of this. Companies are making calculated profit based decisions on what social causes they do or don't support. This isn't a problem per se, but they market it in a way that makes people think they're actually on their side and not just trying to make more money. Academia in the US is very similar to this. They're constantly removing workers rights/reducing pay/decreasing the quality of service while running things that would be called slavery in most other settings (student athletes, research assistants, etc.) but they distract from it by pretending to support various causes. It's really frightening actually, because of how well it seems to work. You forget they only care about money and start thinking they actually care about what's right and wrong.

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I'm kinda curious how many more outraged paragraphs ya'll are going to type over a company retiring a feature they've rendered obsolete.

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pegusus123456 posted...

It's not.

I mean, it is. Its getting rid of a greedy, pitiful charge that never should have existed in the first place to win brownie points with The Wokes after a particularly morally-objectionable couple of years. Fuck Blizzard. As long as they stand for human rights violations, as long as their company drives employees to mental breakdowns, as long as they prey on paying customers, this means nothing. This fixes nothing. This is the equivalent of companies making feel good statements on Twitter while still being a part of and benefitting directly from the perpetuation of oppression.

Hell its not even the equivalent of it, its just what this is. Fuck Blizzard.

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elective cosmetic surgeries should not be free

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Oh, I feel dumb. They are framing it as wokeness. That's what I get for talking shit without reading the article.

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Purple_Cheetah posted...

Damn that's a terrible barber. You go in to get a trim, wind up losing something else.

Back in the days, the barbers were doctors.

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i dont understand the people trying to spin this as not-pandering. may as well literally bury your head in the sand instead of figuratively. but then again, its drizzt ...

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Wii_Shaker posted...

They were charging for this before?

For a decade.

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