Two raiding guilds at the upper levels of the World of Warcraft North American ladder, the Clout Gang and Instant Dollars, have come under fire for using racial and homophobic slurs. First reported by PC Gamer, an Imgur album containing Clout Gang’s Discord screenshots and in-game chats was posted on the r / WoW subreddit showing members using the word n and homophobic slurs, making references to lynchings of black people and a high-ranking member who makes a joke about the destruction of a prison “so that the parents and children of the black community can come together.”
Assault Guilds in World of Warcraft are groups of players who work together to complete endgame content and high difficulty dungeons. In recent years, raids have become a popular e-sport, with Blizzard hosting events like the Mythic Dungeon Invitational and Red Bull sponsoring “world-first” races. Websites like WoWProgress rank guilds according to their progress in defeating ultra-tough versions of raid bosses. Clout Gang and Instant Dollars are currently among the top 40 North American guilds.
The Reddit post was soon inundated with players sharing their own experiences with racism in WoW. “I have played this game for 13 years and it is just as bad (if not worse) than when I started out when it comes to fanaticism,” wrote one user. “I’ve seen it in the high-level scene, and I’ve seen it in the casual mass-invite-leveling guilds. One of the problems is that these actions do not have serious consequences.
Some of the captured messages are two and three years old, made by players who have since moved from the Clout Gang to other guilds, including Instant Dollars. The Reddit post notes that when guild master Instant Dollars learned of past comments from certain members, he stated that “all Instant Dollars members noted in the post made those comments during their time on Clout Gang. . All expressed remorse for his behavior except [one player] that he was removed from the union pending an internal review.
This behavior is neither new nor shocking, as the WoW community and Blizzard games in general struggle with widespread racism that seemingly persists out of control. It is unknown if Blizzard or Discord will take action to ban these users from their platforms.
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