Interviews with George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher have resurfaced that is causing backlash from World of Warcraft fans. Fisher, in a resurfaced interview from 2007, made several homophobic comments, including slurs, while discussing his disdain for certain fictitious species featured within the role playing MMORPG. These comments were given a platoform at a 2007 BlizzCon event, which was put on by World of Warcraft’s game developer Blizzard and the president and cofounder of the company Michael Morhaime later apologized for what had transpired at the event.

The scrutiny that both Fisher and the Blizzard company are under is made more intense by the allegations that are being made in regards to sexual harassment and discrimination related lawsuits. These allegations range from unfair labor practices: “Activision Blizzard employees have made a complaint before the National Labor Relations Board that Activision Blizzard has allegedly used illegal union-busting tactics and intimidation to ‘prevent employees from exercising their rights to stand together and demand a more equitable, sustainable, and diverse workplace,’ according to a press release” (via mxdwn.com), “The group of employees is demanding that leadership end its mandatory arbitration clauses in contracts, create new, inclusive hiring and promotion processes, publish a report regarding salary breakdowns to ensure marginalized groups are fairly compensated, and to hire a third party to audit.” (via mxdwn.com), to more worrying allegations of a workplace sexual harassment culture: “The complaint, filed Tuesday, said that the alleged “pervasive frat boy workplace culture” consists of alleged “cube crawls” where male employees would allegedly “drink copious amounts of alcohol” as they allegedly crawl their way through the various cubicles in the office and often engage in alleged inappropriate behavior towards female employees. The complaint also states that female employees allege being held back from promotions because of the possibility that they may become pregnant, being criticized for leaving to pick up their children from daycare, and allegedly being kicked out of lactation rooms so male colleagues could use the room for meetings.” (via mxdwn.com).