Blizzard Entertainment’s president and CEO Michael Morhaime began his presentation at the 2014 Blizzcon this afternoon by addressing some recent controversial events that have occurred in the gaming community. He didn’t identify it as the Gamergate saga and everything that has happened around it, but come on: we all know what he was talking about, right?
Watch the relevant segment below:
“I’d like to take a moment to talk about something serious,” Morhaime began. “Over the past couple months, there’s been a small group of people who have been doing really awful things. They have been making some people’s lives miserable, and they have been tarnishing our reputation as gamers.”
“It’s not right,” he continued, as the crowd broke into applause.
“Blizzcon is a great example of how positive and uplifting gaming can be,” Morhaime added — speaking to his company’s long-running convention dedicated to its small but enormously popular handful of games. “Let’s carry the good the good vibes from this weekend out into the world all year round.”
“There is another person on the other end of the chat screen,” he continued, making a strong reference to the online harassment that has flared up unpleasantly in recent months. “They’re our friends, our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters.”
“Let’s take a stand to reject hate and harassment,” Morhaime concluded as the crowd again burst into applause.
“Let’s redouble our efforts to be kind and respectful to one another. And let’s remind the world what the gaming community is really all about.”
And with that, Morhaime started talking about his company’s video games.
Comments
11 responses to “Blizzard CEO Addresses Gamergate Saga In Everything But Name”
“we’re all tired of gamergate” continues to post about gamergate
Yeah, and the fact the are not a group of people ;_;.
Yeah, but it’s still a huge situation in the gaming community. It’s like saying we’re sick of hearing about Iraq in the news, but it’s still an important, newsworthy situation.
I agree, Anita Sarkeesian is making peoples lives miserable. We should all ignore her and her friends…
It’s pretty easy to avoid watching a video, it’s a lot harder to avoid threatening personal messages, emails, phone calls and people showing up at your house.
Don’t like her videos, don’t watch them. It’s worked for me and many others. I wasn’t even thinking about her until you brought her up.
Do you spend all your time watching her videos and thinking about how you don’t agree with her? Just play some damn video games and forget about her.
I agree that male journalists who write dismissive comments about females in gaming, or fail to write inclusively, are attempting to make people’s live miserable. I agree that male journalists who fail to take seriously concerns about sexism in gaming (eg Lara’s breasts.. I mean.. der.. how long did THAT take???) are attempting to make people’s lives that little much more marginalised out of the world of gaming. So we should all ignore those journalists and game developers.
Would have been better if he mentioned Gamergate specifically. Overall though, an important message.
he didnt because he was remaining netural to it while calling out the harassment thats been going on from both sides. the only person who tried to say it was about the pro-gg movement was Geoff Keighly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj4ghK3mFrk&feature=youtu.be&channel=TotalHalibut and you can mikes face when Geoff mentions gamergate in which mike didnt look very happy when Geoff mentioned it ( remember Geoff is mr dorito-gate after all)
This is what so often gets lost in this nonsense. NOBODY wants harassment in gaming, but both sides are too busy pointing the finger at each other to actually talk about it or any of the other issues at the table.
This issue on the table is a group of men who have a near pyschopathic disregard for women, and joy of harrasment and cruelty. One side is totally wrong, the other side is totally right. There is no middle ground where a bunch of aspiring rapists are suddenly not mouth-breathing rubes. These people need to be mercilessly run out of our community, not tolerated.
…And the majority of the internet still refuses to care.
What? I assumed he was talking about zoolock players in Hearthstone