On July 8th in Diablo 4, Blizzard changed the title for an achievement from the word “Predator” to “Enemy”. This calls out the Twitch streamer Asmongold, who sharply criticizes Blizzard for this change.
What is this change:
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Blizzard takes the word “Predator” from Diablo 4
Why is the Predator title difficult? The word “predator” is often used in English in connection with sexually abusive or even violent behavior. It is used to describe, among other things, violent criminals who engage in sexual activity: a predator hunts a person out of sexual interest, just as a predator hunts its prey.
Rapists and child molesters are referred to as “sexual predators” in the United States.
In the USA, for example, there was a popular TV show “To Catch a Predtaor”, in which people were lured to a specific location via the Internet in order to expose them as pedophiles and have them arrested by the police.
Otherwise, the word “Predator” is mainly characterized by the action film series with Arnold Schwarzenegger. As such, the term means an “animal that lies in wait for another” and comes from the Latin word for “rob”. It actually means “predator”.
Why was that changed? Blizzard apparently wanted to remove the word “Predator” from Diablo 4 because they saw it as having negative sexual connotations and feared that a person could be triggered or uncomfortable when encountering someone with the word “Predator” in their name.
This change from “predator” to “opponent” also came in German, although in German we do not have this sexually connoted meaning of “predator” in everyday life – the word is practically not used in German anyway.
“The hypersensitivity is getting boring”
How was the editing? There was a big thread on Reddit on the subject. Most reacted with incomprehension to the change. The top comment speaks of this “oversensitivity becoming boring.”
Others speak of a “false outrage” from people who cannot think for themselves.
Blizzard has been luring the most sensitive gamers on the internet for 10 years
Asmongold says so: For Twitch streamer Asmongold, a Blizzard connoisseur, this behavior now fits Blizzard. He says:
I think so again, changes like this show that Blizzard has spent the last 10 years getting the most sensitive babies on the internet to play their games. They’ve tried so hard to attract these sensitive pussies: these sensitive wimps don’t want “Predator” in their game, so they get their way.
He states that Blizzard is not what it used to be, that company is gone:
“The people who used to work here, the people who made the games you liked, those people probably belong in jail. And the people, the new people, whose idea of fun is to add three post-death effects. With a mob. So saddle up. You’re on a ride from hell.”
Asmongold believes the change came because some people complained about the title and Blizzard didn’t want to risk being seen in “a weird way.”
Blizzard is now being overly cautious and, fearing another scandal, would also change things that are absurd: such as “a dragon lady with an attractive model.” There was no chance that Blizzard would get into a global sex scandal just because a model in WoW look attractive.
With these changes, Blizzard would “choke to death” their story. You can no longer require a good story from Blizzard, because good stories deal with the “true nature of man”. These stories would reflect real life.
Asmongold no longer expects such stories from Blizzard. They are too scared to write stories with parallels to reality. So there is nothing more about the Scarlet Crusade in WoW because it is too close to hate groups from reality.
In fact, the change fits in with some of the “censorship” measures that Blizzard implemented in the wake of the sex scandal, including replacing naked women in WoW with fruit:
After sexism scandal: WoW replaces half-naked woman with fruit