It’s amazing that Wargaming keeps getting into these PR dumpster fires, really. It’s like they don’t know when to stop. Now it’s not only affecting World of Warships, but World of Tanks as well.

Wargaming, this is like shooting yourself in the foot a week after you shot off your other foot.

On September 8, 2021; Zachary “CabMech” Doig, Senior Manager of Community & Events on the World of Tanks Americas Team (or rather, ex-Senior Manager), announced his resignation from Wargaming over Twitter. Massively OP also reported this bit of news. CabMech mentions how he has been working for Wargaming for 5 years, so you know he has a lot to lose from resigning.

But to get to the meat and bones here, CabMech also discusses why he resigned. It seems that Wargaming terminated one of the employees on his team. Wrongfully so, in his opinion. His full statement is as follows:

I am making this painful decision because of the recent termination of an employee on my team that 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 that (in my opinion) is desperate to have anyone at all to blame for the most recent incident of, what I perceive to be, a toxic corporate culture perpetuating a cycle of serious errors that stretches back at least 4 years – well before his time on that team and with causes well above his pay grade.

Cabmech goes on further to state that while the employee in question did make mistakes, he did make an apology when Wargaming asked him to. This is in spite of him not being a part of World of Warships anymore at that point. In spite of this, senior members of his World of Warships team continued to “[wage] an unrelenting backdoor campaign” to terminate him. Cabmech could only describe this behavior as “cowardly, contemptible, and shitbird-like”.

Wargaming: Pouring Gasoline on the World of Warships PR Dumpster Fire

World of Warships image.
WG managing to open fire on themselves…again.

You might be wondering why I keep mentioning World of Warships? Especially when CabMech never mentions it in his resignation Tweet? Well, there’s really only 2 teams of concern for Wargaming: the World of Tanks team, and the World of Warships team. The former team CabMech mentions his employee belonged to is obviously the World of Warships team.

As for the identity of this mystery employee? Well, recently, former Wargaming employee Femennenly went on Reddit to complain about a friend of hers, Gneisenau013, being made into a scapegoat for the Yukon debacle months ago. She noted that a few weeks ago, Wargaming forced Gneisenau013 to apologize for the debacle despite him doing his best to resolve the issue. Now, all Wargaming forums have removed his WG tags. This indicates that Gneisenau013, who goes by the name of Elias_K_Grodin on World of Warships forums, is no longer an employee of WG.

This incidence of scapegoating is especially egregious for Wargaming this time. Just a week ago, they made a massive apology to the playerbase on the World of Warships website. Among the apology was a list of promises, which included a promise for better communications and transparency. Well, upon being questioned by the World of Warships community in a forum thread for this scapegoating, what was WG’s response?

Transparency. Yeah, right.

Wargaming claims that it was an internal HR matter that had nothing to do with them. Thus, there is nothing for them to comment on. Furthermore, WG then locks the thread in question to prevent any more discussion on the matter. Does this sound like better communications and transparency to you? I don’t think so. Judging from the 42 Meh responses it got, players don’t think so either.

Conclusion

Wargaming decides that it’d be great to scapegoat one of their employees for the current World of Warships PR dumpster fire. You know, the one with USS Misery and all the CCs leaving? To make matters worse, one of their Senior Managers for World of Tanks resigned over this, stating that it was part of a campaign to have someone, anyone, to blame over the current PR dumpster fire. And when the community questioned it, WG just shuts them down and tries to stop all discussion on it. Just a week after a massive apology where, among other things, they promised better communications and transparency, no less.

Is this really Wargaming’s idea of better communications and transparency? It seems Wargaming just loves to pour gasoline on their dumpster fires, don’t they? I wonder when they’ll come to their senses? Well, given their behavior for the past several years, probably not anytime soon.

Source: Twitter, Massively OP, Reddit, World of Warships forums, World of Warships forums, World of Warships‘ Team Shout-Out to Game Community, World of Warships forums