Breakfast Topic: Last word on Ron Paul in Azeroth
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 5th 2008 at 8:00AM
A little while back, we were the first news site on the 'net to report on the Ron Paul rally, and after it happened on Monday, our own Elizabeth Harper reported on the rally itself. And now, the rally has come full circle, and political tech news site techPresident has wrapped the whole thing up with a question about whether or not politics belongs in Azeroth in the first place.So this morning, let's wrap it for good: the majority of the comments I've seen say that political rallies like this don't belong in Azeroth at all. Players claim that they play the game to escape from the real world, and that they don't want to be confronted with real-life politics in a virtual world.
But I, and others, maintain that this is not a complete fantasy world-- it's a world populated by real people who should be allowed to express their opinions. Sure, nobody wants to have an opinion forced on them (this kind of thing shouldn't fly on a roleplaying server, obviously), but the World of Warcraft is a big one-- if you couldn't go somewhere else on Whisperwind Monday night, you could sign on to a different realm. And if you make the choice to deny one expression of opinion, you have to deny them all.
Any last thoughts? I suppose the final word on this actually came from Blizzard-- they did nothing to stop or endorse the rally, so clearly they're not against players simply expressing their opinions in game, political or otherwise. And there is good news for those of you who never want to see politics in Azeroth again-- the rally on Monday didn't exactly help Paul win in Iowa, so odds are none of the other candidates are going to be rolling a new alt.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Virtual selves, Odds and ends, Blizzard, Breakfast topics, Leveling
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
grizzle Jan 5th 2008 8:10AM
chuck norris is backing huckabee, obviously resistance is futile
dubcity566 Jan 5th 2008 12:44PM
I KNOW! It was funny that in their post-caucus speeches, Hillary had Bill next to her, Huckabee had Chuck Norris and some hot blond (Norris's Wife?) on screen with him. Bill Clinton vs Chuck Norris? No contest.
Qalor Jan 5th 2008 8:57AM
Ron Paul caused 400+ queues on the day of the rally, and ever since then we've started to have queues during peak times, something we haven't had for a long, long time.
Stupid Ron Paul.
Melenor Jan 5th 2008 9:07AM
Politics and video games should simply never, ever mix.
I can't emphasize this enough - EVER.
krispycow Jan 5th 2008 9:21AM
Glad it was on Alliance side.
FOR THE HORDE!
Dabura Jan 5th 2008 9:27AM
"It's a world populated by real people"
Really since when Mike? I thought it was populated by digital avatars controlled by real people..they're 2 different things.
Kesh Jan 5th 2008 10:19AM
No, it's really not. WoW isn't a "world" at all, in that sense. The only population is through the people who log in, so I'd say nitpicking the author isn't going to hold up to scrutiny here.
Theserene Jan 5th 2008 9:33AM
Oh man, are we gonna have pro-lifer alts protesting outside battlegrounds now? :-p
Irian Jan 5th 2008 9:40AM
Yeah, and Greenpeace piqueting Nagrand for wild life.
Keep your politics out of my WoW, please. :/
Claymore Jan 5th 2008 9:59AM
all sarcasm aside you both just gave an incredibly frightening vision.
Claymore Jan 5th 2008 9:59AM
all sarcasm aside you both just gave an incredibly frightening vision.
Thallid Jan 5th 2008 1:47PM
Heck, at this rate, I would expect hardcore Sierra Club fanboys/fangirls to swarm me to protest the use of the Engineering Flying Mounts as they "supposedly" cause pollution that is causing global warming and just poisoning the air in general.
As a side note, there was a comment in WI's Engineering Mount gallery of a complaint against them just because of what I said: "that the pollution is harming the Outland environment." Weird.
Andy Jan 5th 2008 10:27AM
Azerothin Politics aside, "should we invest in litter boxes for the Gryphons?" NO politics should be publicly announced or discussed in WoW. If you want to do that, go to a private channel, or better yet go onto IRC.
Any outside element brought into WoW, such as the gold spam in the greater cities, only delineates from the total feel and aspect of the game. IMO Ron Paul is now no better than those gold farmers.
Ananke Jan 5th 2008 11:03AM
Well I think personnaly that Politics have just put the last stone to what they really are: A GAME!!! (could not have discredit politics better than by doing just that, pushing it in teen RP game...)
Next month: Diet non trans Fat recipes will give fitter buffs...
Juliah Jan 5th 2008 11:46AM
A real world political rally absolutely does not belong in the game space. Everyone there pays to play, and it is simply rude to disrupt their gaming experience this way. Before you say "Well, I pay to play, too," consider this: would you feel it equally appropriate for those rallying to do it in the middle four rows of a movie theater while the movie was playing? You probably wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure the group would get ejected from the theater for disrupting the enjoyment of other paying customers, and rightly so.
You could say "oh, well, they can go elsewhere in Azeroth." They shoudn't have to: they're paying to see the game's content, not Ron Paul's rally. If they want that information, the 'net is there 24/7. They could go see a different movie in the same movie theater, too, but they're not the ones causing the disruption, and their right to access should not be abridged in any way at the expense of children who think their cause is soooo important that it matters more than anything else anyone else might find of interest, value, or merit. After all, how they feel matters more than how anyone else in the whole world feels! (
Magnetite2 Jan 5th 2008 2:50PM
This is an excellent point. I sent an email to Blizzard about this, but sadly they decided not to intervene.
Meyl Jan 5th 2008 11:47AM
The author's assertion - that if Blizzard denies one viewpoint it must deny them all - is fallacious.
WoW is not the real world, nor is it a public place. It is a private universe owned by Blizzard - and we all agreed to that by accepting the Terms of Use in order to play. Thus Blizzard has the right to censor in-game speech and actions. Just the same as shopping malls ban political rallies on their premises, Blizzard has every right to ban political rallies on their servers.
Further, I think Blizzard made a serious error by not stating that political rallies would not be allowed and acting against the Ron Paul rally, or at least issuing a warning to those involved. If political activists and campaigners believe that these rallies are even slightly effective, more will follow.
Can you imagine how bad it could be by October? You could find yourself trying to wade through rallies and counter-rallies and political protests in every city, with endless /say, /yell, and emote spam. Not to mention that the the general and trade channels would be consumed by political advertising and the resulting debates - and the inevitable cries from people yelling at the campaigners to shut up.
Although possibly it would be an improvement over the constant murloc jokes currently infesting /general...
DurWrathi Jan 5th 2008 4:47PM
Actually, some places are privately owned spaces of public accommodation. Both the federal and state government have stepped into to regulate those places in the past. The most famous/infamous is probably Heart of Atlanta motel, a privately owned establishment compelled by law to end discrimination based on race. A modern example are the state laws protect political protests in malls. Even though the mall is privately owned and even though the mall owner doesn't want protesters on their property, the protesters are protected by law. Some states do this, some don't. Blizzard's rights as owners of their own property, their servers and content, are extensive - but they are not absolute.
Virtual spaces, of course, completely change the nature of the game. Under what state laws, if any, should a virtual world like Azeroth be governed? The laws of California where Blizzard is based? The laws of the state in which in any player in question is playing from? The internet is still very much a "wild west" when it comes to law and no one is quite sure how the laws should be applied.
Legal issues aside, how can we safely discriminate among what content should be allowed into wow and what should not? I don't particularly enjoy barrens chat, or Chuck Norris jokes but I ignore them. They degrade the amount of entertainment I derive from the game, but I can't do anything about that. The people who enjoy bringing that element of the real world into wow are entitled to do so and the best I can do is try to ignore them. Some people want to bring things I disagree with into Azeroth and who am I to stop them? I understand that a majority of posters here dislike politics, which is fine - more power to you. But, what is our obligation to respect and accommodate even those we disagree with? Obviously there are some people out there that enjoy politics and want it in game and their desires are in conflict with yours. Rather than seeking to shutdown those who bother you, perhaps some measure of tolerance is due. We all put up with elements of the real world in game we personally dislike, but have no legitimate power to remove those people we disagree with from the game.
Juliah Jan 5th 2008 11:48AM
A real world political rally absolutely does not belong in the game space. Everyone there pays to play, and it is simply rude to disrupt their gaming experience this way. Before you say "Well, I pay to play, too," consider this: would you feel it equally appropriate for those rallying to do it in the middle four rows of a movie theater while the movie was playing? You probably wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure the group would get ejected from the theater for disrupting the enjoyment of other paying customers, and rightly so.
You could say "oh, well, they can go elsewhere in Azeroth." They shoudn't have to: they're paying to see the game's content, not Ron Paul's rally. If they want that information, the 'net is there 24/7. They could go see a different movie in the same movie theater, too, but they're not the ones causing the disruption, and their right to access should not be abridged in any way at the expense of children who think their cause is soooo important that it matters more than anything else anyone else might find of interest, value, or merit. After all, how they feel matters more than how anyone else in the whole world feels! (sarcasm) These are the same sort of people who will post about the bowel movement they had this morning in a 'net community about knitting, because it's just all about them. In my opinion, it's almost tantamount to trolling.
This kind of conduct is self-absorbed, tacky, impolite, and inappropriate. I really have to wonder what sort of manners these people were taught by their parents. Both the real world and the virtual world would be more pleasant if people were more considerate of others.
(Sorry for the double post -- I think the bracket I used caused the last part to get cut off.)
Milktub Jan 5th 2008 11:56AM
I don't have a problem with the rally as it happened. Whatever. Every day you hear people discussing music and celebrities in guild, general and trade chat, so you can't say WoW is separated from the real world.
However, I do think Blizz should've upheld their naming policy by forcing the guild and all the characters named after real world figures to change their names.