Dean Ayala confirmed this evening that a decision has been made on naming characters in Hearthstone after employees at Blizzard.
You may have been following along with the Blizzard vs California lawsuit in which the company is being sued by the state due to workplace sexual harassment. On the Hearthstone side of things we saw the Stormwind reveal season cut down, and many of the developers taking a public stand, some even protesting at the end of July. The story certainly doesn't end there though because in World of Warcraft, many of the accused have started to have their in-game references removed recently, showing that the employees there won't be glorifying them anymore. This wasn't limited to only minor NPCs in World of Warcraft though, as Overwatch will be changing the name of McCree, one of the game's main characters, in an update for the same reason.
Its been a question from some in the Hearthstone community if we would see any references removed or if this was the end of seeing in-game references to players and employees. With this week's patch adding Master Nguyen to Battlegrounds, a tribute to the late team member Dan Nguyen, we weren't sure about the team's plans concerning references.
Today that changes. Dean Ayala was able to confirm that the team has decided no more employees will be receiving in-game references. This does not necessarily exclude outside players from receiving nods in the future, Dean isn't aware of that being definitive, but I guess we won't be seeing any more credit cards or indirect references to developers and their families.
Here's everything Dean had to say about the question.
Quote From Dean Ayala What’s the internal sentiment for putting things into the game from real life like Hearthstone World champions? We rarely get anything other than an homage that isn’t officially recognized.
This is a relevant question. There are some very recent downsides that have come up from naming characters after real-life people (McCree). We had Master Nguyen in dev for some time and wanted to fulfill that promise, but unlikely to do any more characters named after ourselves.
Not sure if this should also apply to people outside our work. You can't control the actions of a person you put in the game, there are some examples of influencers or esports players I think we might have regret paying homage to if we did.
I think it's a little sad if that disqualifies us from ever doing it, but not something we've settled on that I'm aware of. Fortnite has gone the other direction with this and it's been cool for them, so we'll have to make a thoughtful decision as a group.
And to be clear, we've made the decision about naming characters after ourselves, unclear to me whether a decision has been made about using the likeness of any real person.
Comments
well i dont care but pitty the people for the hard work they deserve a name in game
Or they could just get a paycheck as compensation for their hard work like everyone else
of course,but they deserve more some people say (they usually were put on interesting stuff like legendaries or maybe they were the reason for that stuff to be interesting ).
RIP Nat Pagle ?
Who is Samwirse Didier?
If it weren't for him, we wouldn't have had Pandarens. He was the one who made them. So, yeah, I definitely wouldn't mind a Pandaren card in his art style with a simple nod to him. Probably a Monk specific one or Chen Stormstout Monk 1000 win Hero Portrait for when that class is added. I still have my MoP Collectors Edition artbook and his work is phenomenal. I don't know if he did anything wrong, but if he didn't, he does need something that pays homage to the race he created
that dean ayala card really is a nice reference
After the episode of having to rename in game characters because the higher ups are such sleezebags, I can understand this decision. I never understood why people would want things named after themselves, it will always at some point in time create controversy one way or another. St Petersburg has been renamed so many times within the last 150 years its just comical.
It was always a stupid, narcissistic practice anyway.
Always, stupid, and narcissistic are often words used by the same.
Interesting theory. How does one then point out stupidity and narcissism without being labeled a stupid narcissist?
I can see how self inserting youself as a character is narcissistic. I just don't think that the way Blizz was doing it (or at least in HS) was narcissistic.
I feel like saying making cards after developers to acknowledge their work a narcissistic practice is like saying putting your name in a movie's credits is also narcissistic.