Dear Blizzard

Note for racial slurs.

Dear Blizzard,

I'm having some trouble with your customer service.

The other day, I was wasting time on the World of Warcraft website.  I decided to see what was going on in the PVP world and which classes were on top.  Looking over the top-ranked teams and players, I noticed something deeply unpleasant.

I contacted customer service.  (I'll post my initial complaint in full here, in the interest of accuracy.  I'll break it up into paragraphs for easier readability.  Names in bold if you want to skim.)

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/pvp/arena/rampage/3v3 

On this page, there are several arena team names which are completely inappropriate and break naming regulations. Rank #21 "iskall suk my deek" from Illidan, rank #22 "purpledrank is fo nagas" from Illidan, rank #23 "We pop Cherrys" from Kirin Tor, and rank #28 "iwnaputmybeefintourtaco" from Stormreaver. While you're posting highly ranked teams for the world to admire, please make sure that they're not a disgrace and embarrassment to the entire community. 

In the 2v2 bracket, rank #8 "shat on ur face" from Stormreaver, rank #18 "Helen Keller VS Traffic" from Stormreaver, rank #18 "cap yo shiz" from Kirin Tor, rank #24 "DAYUM DATASS" from Stormreaver, rank #35 "team nignig" from Stormreaver, and rank #44 "naga needs points" from Illidan.

In the 5v5 bracket, rank #22 "Shytsnmasterbations" from Stormreaver and rank #35 "Fandom Ruckin Comp" from Illidan.

On the "Rated Battlegrounds" page, there is #9 Jackslowfuk from Blackrock and #15 Rapiesroofie from Mannoroth, not to mention all of the player names listed which end in "LOL" or otherwise break the game's naming conventions. Please enforce your own rules for your own game.

Then I wrote this post.

My support ticket received a reply (my emphasis in bold):

Hey there! 

Sir Game Master Ranlim here. I hope this message reaches you in good spirits!  

Thank you for taking the time to submit a petition about those arena teams names. At Blizzard, we encourage and appreciate the role of the gaming community in keeping World of Warcraft a safe and enjoyable environment for all participants. ^_^ 

I want to let you know I am going to be personally investigating this mere moments from now! Following said investigation, I will take all necessary and appropriate actions to address this matter, as determined by our policies (which you can see here: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/policy).  

With the release of Patch 4.3.4 there is another way to report violation that will also provide a detail contextual report that will assist us to take appropriate action on them. This can be done by using the in-game right-click report option.  

To report bad language, a bad name, spamming, or cheating:
1. Right-click the player's name in chat.
2. Select Report Player For
3. Select the appropriate category for your report. 

To report a bad name or cheating you may also right-click report using the player's portrait. To report a player this way:
1. Right-click the player's portrait
2. Select Report Player For
3. Select the appropriate category for your report. 

Thanks again for your help! It means a lot to us. <3 

Regards,
Game Master Ranlim
Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment
www.blizzard.com/support

Great, I thought.  Ranlim's on it.  He'll take care of it.

I waited.

I checked the PVP pages again.

The names were still there.

I re-opened the ticket, keeping it simple:

They're still there.

I came back later.  The names were still there.  I checked my ticket.  (Emphasis mine.)

Helllo :) 

Once again we will need you to do this below in order to action these players as we do not take action on names like this and it needs to be sent in differently. 

Please do the following for the names bellow. 

To report bad language, a bad name, spamming, or cheating:
1. Right-click the player’s name in chat.
2. Select Report Player For
3. Select the appropriate category for your report. 

To report a bad name or cheating you may also right-click report using the player's portrait. To report a player this way:
1. Right-click the player’s portrait
2. Select Report Player For
3. Select the appropriate category for your report. 

While no response to the report will be possible, rest assured that we will investigate and take appropriate action to address the issue as they come in. 

Game Master Pyroidia
Blizzard Entertainment

"Right-click the player's name in chat?"  "Right-click report using the player's portrait?"  Those are in-game actions only; my problem is with names listed on the website.  I made that clear; my initial complaint begins with a link to the arena teams page.  At this point, I began to doubt the sincerity of that soothing "rest assured that we will investigate and take appropriate action to address the issue as they come in."  I was not assured.

Please read my initial ticket more carefully. These are names on the website. I cannot right-click to report names featured on the website; I am not in-game. The first CSR who replied to the ticket claimed to be looking into it. What happened to that?

As you can imagine, after that your customer service representatives began to read more closely and provided more accurate replies.  (Emphasis mine.)

Greetings!  

If you encounter such names in the game itself, negatively effecting your gameplay experience, please report them to us. 

We cannot accept such reports from examinations of the armory. The opinion of a realm itself, and players who encounter such names from within the game are the required impetus for our investigation into whether a name is requiring a change or is a vioaltion.  

An additional technical reason for this workflow, is the beta functionality of the armory itself. It is not updated regulary or instantly (even requiring actual characters to log into the game before an update occurs often times), meaning such reports via 'armory hunting' are at times out of date or innacurate.  

Thank you for your time and patience. Should you need further assistance, please hit the Need more help button below. For any game play questions, please consider visiting our official game forums. 

We now have a one stop shop for all your customer service needs. Ever need to review how a petition was handled? Submit one out of game? Stop by your new 'Support' section of Bnet today to see all the new features available! 

Game Master Mykyroro
Customer Services
Blizzard Entertainment

Oops!  No, instead, I was accused of "armory-hunting."

The link I supplied at the very beginning of my first ticket was not to the armory.  I didn't have to "hunt" through anything to see those names.  They're showcased by you in the main body of your website.  They're the top-ranked PVP teams and players featured in the PVP section under "community."  I didn't look them up; you showed them to me.  You offered them for all of the world to see as the kinds of players we should strive to emulate and overcome.

I don't blame the Game Masters specifically.  I don't blame Pyroidia or Mykyroro for their poor customer service.  I blame you and the corporate policies you set in place and the corporate culture you establish.

You should have a watchdog system set up to catch at least some of the worst names.  While I agree with encouraging the use of the "right-click to report" feature, you should allow GMs to accept other kinds of reports as well.  If someone with an atrocious name runs past me in-game and disappears or logs out before I finish right-clicking and reporting, I should still be able to report that name.  How many reports does it take to get a GM's attention?  Names with obvious racial slurs should only have to be reported once before you take action.  I don't believe that your GMs have poor reading comprehension; I believe that they're rushed, harried, overworked, and too intently focused on closing tickets to be effective at their jobs, and I can only guess that it's because you're emphasizing closed ticket rates over genuine customer service.  Do you see why that's maybe a problem?

You rely on your players to clean up the game for you instead of taking an active approach to it yourself.  You install a new feature and then won't allow any other method of communication to be used.  You set up RP naming conventions and then don't enforce them, and when we ask you to, we're ignored.

In the last GM's message to me, I was instructed to "hit the Need more help button below."  Handy advice, but that proved to be impossible.  Someone closed my ticket so that I cannot reply or re-open it.  If I want any hope of action on your part, I'll have to start all over from the beginning.  Is that really the best method of customer service?  Discouraging us until we give up?

I don't know what happened to the first GM's efforts to help.  I don't know why the conversation deteriorated to accusations of "armory hunting."

I do know that "team nignig" is still proudly listed as a highly ranked team, though.  I suppose that's not a problem, right?  According to your GMs, you need "the opinion of a realm itself" to decide whether a name's inappropriate or not, and you couldn't possibly tell, without taking a realm-wide poll, whether or not the name should be changed.

That's the worst of this.  The racist, misogynistic element of gamer culture is loud and proud.  You know that it's a problem, and I would hope that you would want to counteract it, to make cleaning it up a priority.  The more welcoming gaming is to more kinds of people, the more subscribers you'll gain, right?  But when staring proof of it right in the face, when being asked to clean it up, your employees are too busy insisting on irrelevant protocol to help.

That leaves the racism and misogyny of gamer culture featured on your website for all to see.  Because as far as you're concerned, properly filling out form 32, section B, paragraph 5 is more important than censoring racial slurs.

Or do you think that "purpledrank is fo nagas" genuinely refers to the in-game humanoid and "iwnaputmybeefintourtaco" is a compliment?

With love,
Frank Lee