Source: Kotaku

Everything Wargaming touches at the moment seems to turn to shit

If you’ve been having a bad few weeks, and really in 2021 who hasn’t been, it’s important to sit back, take a deep breath, take stock of your surroundings, and realise that you’re probably making smarter decisions than Wargaming.

We’re going to need to recap before we go any further. First, last month, players went into “open revolt” after Wargaming released a fan-favourite ship then botched its implementation, the drop serving as a “last straw” situation for a fanbase fed up with the increasing levels of monetisation being forced on the game.

In the wake of that whole mess, a Wargaming employee was suspended for sending out an abusive message disguised as a promo code:

…an employee thought this would…be the perfect time to send an insulting message hidden in a promo code about a streamer (I’ll explain this in a minute) who has had a contentious relationship with Wargaming. That streamer’s name is Turry, someone who instead of leaving Warships’ community program voluntarily was actually kicked out for being critical of the developers.

The code, sent out as a freebie to some Russian fans watching a stream of the game, was “W0LAXU5FKUTURY5″, and it didn’t take long for English-speaking players to wonder whether the “FKUTURY” was actually saying “Fuck You Turry.” That question was soon answered by Wargaming themselves, who admitted it had been intentional. “This is unacceptable. We conducted an internal audit and found that this situation occurred due to the actions of a certain employee. The employee was suspended from this job and the most stringent measures were applied to him according to the results of the audit.”

Then earlier this week Wargaming fired an employee (known online as Gneisenau013) over an earlier community debacle, one involving a ship that was supposed to be designed in consultation with some popular players but at release used almost none of their suggestions.

Now, after that firing—which the community feels was a scapegoat situation—a community manager from Wargaming’s other big game, World of Tanks, has quit in solidarity, firing off one hell of a statement on his way out. Zachary “CabMech” Doig says Gneisenau013’s sacking was, “an illegitimate and incredibly persistent campaign to unfairly scapegoat him by the leadership of his former team,” who are, “desperate to have anyone at all to blame for the most recent incident of, what I perceive to be, a toxic corporate culture perpetuating a cycle of serious errors that stretches back at least 4 years – well before his time on that team and with causes well over his pay grade.”

Doig’s full statement is below:

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