Blizzard’s customer service is in hot water after a series of exchanges about Overwatch 2’s profanity rules caught the attention of the community and subsequently went viral. Apparently, profanity of any kind is considered against the hero shooter’s code of conduct, and if someone reports it, seemingly regardless of context, you will get banned. The Overwatch community isn’t thrilled with this new ruling, nor Blizzard’s customer service representative’s response.
The saga started on April 12 when X (formerly Twitter) user @durpee82 posted a tweet asking for a response from Blizzard’s customer service account on a query about a banned Overwatch 2 account. The user had attempted to use Blizzard’s native customer service features to figure out why they were banned, but was only getting an automated response that claimed the ban was “in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies.” When pressed for specifics, the user received the same response again.
Blizzard’s customer service representative responded to the post, saying the ban was enacted due to “inappropriate language” in text chat, including the use of “the F word and the SH word.”
It seems the Overwatch 2 community has become fixated on the profanity rule, as fans have started swarming customer service tweets enforcing it. Popular Overwatch content creators like Flats, Overwatch Cavalry, and bogur have all weighed in and spoken out against Blizzard’s policy and official response. There’s an overarching sentiment across X and places like the Blizzard forums that this has turned people off of using text communication for fear of being reported and banned. Overwatch 2 has made some strides in trying to make the game a safe space for players to not have to worry about toxicity, but this ruling, which disregards context for a handful of commonly used words, has been deemed an overcorrection in the community’s eyes.
Report via Kotaku