With the installation of World of Warcraft’s patch 9.2.5, Activision Blizzard pursues peace. This has been introduced with a new and quite inventive social contract, which Blizzard requires total agreement with. The introduction of the social contract wants to overthrow the toxicity and make World of Warcraft a better place for MMORPG lovers.
In the contract introduction, Activision Blizzard claims that “Azeroth is a living world full of people like you – other players with different backgrounds, cultures, experiences, and histories who have all come together to play World of Warcraft. Every player deserves to have a world that they feel safe in, so please take a minute to read our Social Contract.”
The majority of players seem to be accepting the new rules with little fuss. Toxic behavior is very well alive and well throughout gaming communities at large, so this change shouldn’t come as too much surprise – yet another reminder that we need more than just words on the paper when dealing with online abuse, especially in video games.
I can’t help but feel that we’re overlooking an essential part of the equation here. The text might be enough to make some people uncomfortable. Still, it doesn’t address any underlying issues with the current level of toxicity problems unless Blizzard starts taking this more seriously and enforcing their social contract as a sign for change in unpleasant behavior.
You can find World of Warcraft’s Social Contract below:
