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Non English speaking
gamers are claiming racial discrimination in the hugely popular World of
Warcraft video game. WOW is classified as a Massively Multiplayer
Online Role-Playing Game and is an online computer role-playing game in
which a large number of players from around the world can interact
together or against one another in the same game at the same time. At
last count Blizzard the developers of WOW stated they had 5
million active monthly subscribers.
The problem starts when players try to join groups. As part of the game
play for WOW players are required to form groups of 5 or more to
be able to finish certain levels of the game. Now if you have a number
of friends who also play WOW you can make arrangements to meet up
in the game to complete these required group tasks. For all others
players they will need to build groups by using the games message system
where they can send a request out to fellow players to form or join a
group of players for a certain task.
There is a common belief among English speaking players in WOW
that most non English speaking players are gold farmers. This is a type
of player who is only playing the game to profit, not for the “love of
the game”. Gold Farmers are largely despised by players who feel they
take away a certain purity of the game.
To combat gold farmers, players are requesting anybody who wants to join
a group to type one or two lines of English. If the sentences or grammar
are not proper English these players are rejected from joining this
group. This has recently been creating a lot of backlash among
non-English speaking players with feel they are being discriminated
against based on their language.
Other players in WOW claim that the English test has nothing to
do with discrimination, but more to do with being able to communicate
effectively with your fellow team members. They say you would never
build a real life arm with people who do not speak a common language.
One player cites that over 1.5 million WOW players are from China
alone, with the majority of these players being non-English. While their
has been recent publicity about the gold farm factories in china, it by
no means justifies thinking that every Chinese or non-English speaking
player is a gold farmer.
This WOW player states that he does not know how to stop this
racial discrimination, but believes if people could just try to keep a
more open mind and trust people a little more; this would go along way
to bring some racial harmony to WOW and the World in general.
About the Author
Hunter Crowell is a
researcher, marketer, and an avid online gamer, including World of
Warcraft and also the creator of
WOW Gold Price List, a web site setup to help players
find the cheapest place to buy their WOW gold. Visit his site at
http://www.wow-gold-price-list.com
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