On April 4th, World of Tanks community rep Elyot Elyot posted the following statement on the official World of Tanks forums: I resigned because I believe that I was wrongfully fired for leaking internal company information to the public. It’s true that I was warned by an executive at WG, but I did not know at the time that he was talking about me specifically. This is not the first time I’ve been warned about leaking internal company information to the public, but I have never been fired over it. I feel that Wargaming has made a poor decision in firing me, and I wish to take the opportunity to make it clear that I did not leak the information in question. I have never leaked information to the
World of Tanks is one of the most popular video game franchises in the world, with over 40 million players worldwide. The game has also managed to attract major sponsorships, including snack food giants Nestle and General Mills. However, not everyone is happy with the game, especially when Wargaming.net, the company that develops and maintains WoT, fires its community managers. One of those community managers, David “Mieszko” Szeliga, has recently resigned in protest. On June 4, 2015, Wargaming.net fired its community manager, David “Mieszko” Szeliga, for posting a negative review of the game on another website. His account was suspended within
Wargaming has now confirmed that one of its own has resigned in protest over the firing of one of its own. The company has not commented on what exactly the issues were, but the choice to part ways is an interesting one.
Following weeks of negative publicity and bungled apologies in the wake of a huge influencer exodus, Wargaming, the company behind World of Warships and World of Tanks, is gaining the wrong sort of attention all over again, this time for dismissing a member of the Tanks community team.
Elias K. Grodin (previously both Hey Man Gnesi Shot and Gnesisenau013) no longer had the Wargaming staff classification on his account in the official forums, as noticed by eagle-eyed players yesterday. While Wargaming has not issued an official comment, gamers believe Grodin was fired as a result of a bungled handling of a commitment made (and violated) to one of the former World of Warships North American community members. An formal apology he gave to the CC in question back in June appears to corroborate this notion.
There’s more to it than that, as it turns out. Zachary “CabMech” Doig, World of Tanks’ Senior Manager of Community and Events, said today that he has resigned from the business in protest of Grodin’s dismissal, which he publicly described as “scapegoating” and Wargaming’s actions as “cowardly, despicable, and shitbird-like.” Part of Doig’s tweet regarding a “toxic business culture” is as follows:
“I am making this difficult decision as a result of the recent termination of an employee on my team who I believe to be a kind and competent individual for reasons that I personally perceive to be an illegitimate and incredibly persistent campaign to unfairly scapegoat him by the leadership of his former team, which (in my opinion) is desperate to find anyone to blame for the most recent incident.
September 8, 2021 — CabMech (@CabMech)
Little White Mouse, a World of Warships community contributor, abruptly left the program as a result of the error, setting off a chain reaction that resulted in the resignation of nearly 30 World of Warships contributors for reasons including predatory monetization mechanics and mistreatment of players. This huge departure, as well as Wargaming’s following gaffes, sparked a global media frenzy and a major community upheaval from which the business still seems to be suffering.
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