YouTuber Quits After Receiving Death Threats Over Anti-Botting in World of Warcraft

Blizzard's inaction enabled botting, resulting in death threats against a World of Warcraft video creator.

### Asmongold's Farewell: Blizzard's Neglect and the Peril of Online Harassment
* 😟 Asmongold announced his final video due to repeated **death threats** received from individuals angered by his anti-botting efforts in World of Warcraft.
* 😡 These threats, including graphic descriptions of violence against him and his family, originated from Discord servers in Taiwan and Russia.
* 🤔 He highlights the irony that the botters, whose livelihoods depend on exploiting Blizzard's inaction, are the ones threatening him.
* 😠 Asmongold emphasizes that **Blizzard's failure to address botting** is the root cause of the entire problem, creating an environment ripe for exploitation and conflict.
* ⚖️ He explains that while he doesn't condone the botters' actions, he understands their motivations:  making a living in a system that allows it.  "If you create a system that can be exploited and people can make money off of it, you should, in fact, expect people to make money off of it and exploit it."
* 💔  He concludes that his personal safety and family's well-being outweigh his passion for the game, especially given Blizzard's apathy towards the issue.
* ⚠️ He notes the chilling effectiveness of death threats as a tool to silence dissent and control behavior online.
* 😞 Asmongold ends with a scathing critique of Blizzard, calling their inaction a "disgrace" and urging others not to risk their lives for a game the developers themselves don't seem to care about.

I think this is really sad; this is massively sad that this is happening, and I place the blame on Blizzard. This will

be my last video. Hey guys, so this will be my last video, and this might come as a shock for

some of you. It was a shock to me as well, but the reason is fairly simple: I have, throughout the process of

creating these videos, even though I have had fun doing it, received death threats multiple times. I received one

two days ago; I received one this very morning. I've been shown images from a Discord server in Taiwan, as well as a Discord

server in Russia, where my videos are being shared, and very descriptive texts about wanting to kill me,

wanting to cut off my fingers and feed my hands to my family members, and stuff like that—very

descriptive death threats. We're not talking about getting killed in World of Warcraft; we're talking about

getting killed in real life. Uh, I never knew it would come to this. I thought

that I was just killing bots and I didn't really affect anything, but apparently there's an entire movement

now where people are killing bots across all of the hardcore servers, and this...

makes sense, right? I mean, these people, they bot for a living; it's their job. Of course they're

going to want to kill me. Yeah, obviously it makes sense; it's their job, affecting the mafia. Yeah, I don't

want to be associated with any of this anymore. Personally, I'm not going to kill any bots. I will remove all of the videos

on this channel; I will not advocate killing them; I will not report them anymore. I don't want any part of it.

whatsoever, because I'm risking my life right now, and for what? I want you guys to keep in mind that this entire

uh, this entire issue is created by, um, by Blizzard. It, it, it—the bot makers are just simply people that are capitalizing

on something that Blizzard allows to happen. This is all on Blizzard. The terrorists—well, yeah, I

mean, there are—I know this might sound surprising—but there are a lot of people that don't want to die on a hill of a

video game. They don't really care about this that much; it's just a hobby to them, and if it becomes unpleasant or not

enjoyable, they just simply stop doing it. I think that's what most normal people would do. Uh, why would somebody want to

have to deal with, like, getting death threats and harassed over, like—I mean, at the end of the day, like, let's keep in

mind that, like—I mean, none of this really matters, right? It's just a video game. Nobody cares about this; it

doesn't make any difference; you're not changing anybody's life. It's, it's not like you're fighting for freedom; uh, it's

just a vid—it's just people selling fake gold in a video game. And so, like, if the—if that's causing you emotional

distress, then why would you choose to engage in it? You see what I'm saying? Like, why would you do that? Because, like,

and, and again, it's something that I think that a lot of terminally online people want to do because, like, they're

so fixated on these issues because they care about them so much. But when you take a step back and you think about

a guy that has a job, a family, a life, and kids and everything, like, do you really think that this guy needs another

element of stress in his life? Probably not. Uh, it's just people breaking the rules to make a living. You're really

Defending criminals? Now, I'm not defending criminals, but I am, uh, rationalizing them. If you create a

system that can be exploited and people can make money off of it, you should, in fact, expect people to make money off of

it and exploit it. The fault in this falls on Blizzard because Blizzard is the one that has the control here, not

uh, not him and not the bot makers. It's Blizzard's responsibility for this. And so, uh, breaking the rules doesn't make someone a

criminal. I, I don't care. I, I don't want to get into that; it's not the point. Um,

if, if I, I don't know, like if you're not emotionally, um, you know, stable enough to

have this conversation, that's fine. But, uh, I think that most other normal people here understand exactly what I'm

saying, right, guys? You know, as they usually say on Mitch Jones' stream, and for what it's

it's, it's for trying to fix a 20-year-old video game and ensuring the integrity of

what Blizzard created back then. That's what I, that's why I stopped. I stopped caring about this the moment that I

realized Blizzard didn't care about it. Like, as soon as I realized Blizzard didn't really care about banning and they

didn't really care about cheating in the game, that's when I stopped playing it—or not really not playing it, sorry—I

stopped caring about it because, like, like I, I, the people that make the game don't care about it. Like, how could

I care about it? But this game is not what it used to be, and uh, I'm not going

to be the one risking my life in order to fix it. Yeah, sure. So, even though that I love this game and I've played it for

All 20 years that it has been out, in all versions, uh, and even though that I'm just a loser with no money, no job, uh, who

is addicted to video games, he does have... I still value my life and my family's life above this video

game. So thank you guys for watching, and uh, I will not be seeing you in the next one. Damn, that's sad; that really is

sad. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people that just don't want to have to deal with the stress and pressure that people

have, and I think it makes a lot of sense, especially when it's something that's just a hobby, uh, but you don't threaten

to kill someone just because your business isn't working anymore. Well, of course you do. So like, if you have

somebody that's hurting your business and you can kill them and then have the business work well, then why wouldn't you

want to kill them? Of course, yeah, duh. That's why they do it; that's why they're threatening him.

Absolutely, yes. Uh, [ __ ] obviously. Yeah, so link video. Yeah, I'll link it, so it makes sense why they would

do it. And and also, like, here's the thing: it's not a 'co-di-no-see' people. I

understand that this is... it's maybe it's a... it's a hard thing to understand for some people. There's a big difference

between justifying and explaining. I'm explaining it; I'm not justifying it. I'm explaining why it's

happening, and so if you can't understand why it's happening, you can never figure out how to make it stop happening

because you don't know what you're talking about; you don't know what you're thinking about. And so, yes,

obviously, small issue to solve and ensure success; they should go to jail. Well, yeah. Uh, we're also explaining why that

CEO died; everybody can understand why the guy shot the CEO. I... I can... everybody can understand it. What are we talking

about the Luigi thing? For it? Yes. I think everybody admits, yes, obviously it makes... it's logical why he did it. Most

people that do bad things do them for reasons that, in their mind, make sense. The people that flew airplanes

into the Twin Towers on 9/11, in their mind they were doing the thing that they had to do. It's not like

they were doing that thinking that they were the bad guys; they were thinking they're the good guys. Most people that

blow things up, most terrorists think that they're the good guys. That's the way it goes. So if you can't understand that, I

don't know what to tell you. So you can have empathy while disagreeing? Well, it's not about having empathy; it's about

understanding a logical conclusion; that's it. Yeah, people are thinking... yeah, exactly. True. People now make uh... make

mistakes, feeling with facts. Exactly. Yeah, people can't think about things; they can only feel about them. It's really sad. Um,

yeah, obviously it makes sense why people would be doing this. I... I get death threats every day, uh... people... and it's

it's a very good way of getting people to not talk about things or not do things. Is that... well, we're going to

threaten to kill you if you do it, and a lot of people just don't care about it

that much, and then so they say, all right, I just don't want to deal with this right... I think that's it. Losing a job

has something to do with losing existence... only they should choose their source of money more deliberately from the beginning. Look, it doesn't

matter like you're thinking about 'shoulds.' Like anytime I hear the word 'should,' I think to myself, 'Oh,

No, oh no, here we go. Yep, this is it. Of course, people are going to do what's

in their best interest; that's just what it is. That's just what it is. I think this is really

sad. This is massively [__] sad that this is happening, and I place the blame on

Blizzard. Because even if you arrest all of the people, if you put every person that made a death threat towards this

guy and every person in that Discord in jail, you know what would happen? The next day, they'd be replaced by more people

that would do the exact same thing. The only people that have control over this situation is Blizzard. Blizzard can

control the situation; they can stop this from happening. Nobody else can. That's it. And so, uh, that's the way I

see it. You can understand why these things happen without sympathizing with the people who do them. Yeah, of course,

right. And I think that makes sense. I think it's tragic he actually feels scared about dying from some random

freaks in Taiwan. I think it's always easier for somebody to say that who's not in that position, so like, and and

this is the thing: they have all my personal information, and I have an idea of the kind of money these farms make. Uh,

I know enough about the dark web and things you can purchase online to know I've reached my limit. I'm out. Yeah, so

like it's always easy to say this when you're not the person who's being targeted, when you're not the person

that's having this happen to you. But the reality is that when it is happening to you, I think that a lot of reasonable

normal people—this is the way that everybody, I think, makes decisions, right?—is they view the pros, they view the cons.

Which side is heavier, and then they go with that side. It's that simple. Like someone with a lot of money telling people not to

stress about money. Um, I don't I don't think that's really the same thing. That's kind of like two different

conversations. But yeah, when an internet troll takes your—uh, sends you your address, you start taking things a lot

more seriously. Yeah, yeah, sure, right. Do you think death threats on the internet are so common nowadays that the threat

is way too overblown by celebrities and such? I think that it's overblown because it's not uh penalized in a way that I

think it should be. Uh, I think people that are effectively terrorists—because so you have to understand why are people

terrorists? Because terrorism works. That's the reason. Now that might not be a popular thing to say, but terror—

people keep doing terrorism because it works. And so that's it. Clip it. Oh, you can. And and there's going to be a lot of

people saying, "Oh, I hate him, but he's right." And so yeah, that's the reason why they do it. They do it because it it

stresses people out and it scares them. Of course, absolutely. The people doing doxxing receive death threats, too.

Blizzard should be ashamed of themselves.

Asmongold TV  

Announcing the end of the YouTube channel due to death threats.

The YouTuber expresses sadness about the situation and blames Blizzard.

This video is the YouTuber's last due to receiving multiple death threats.

The threats include graphic descriptions of violence against the YouTuber and their family.

The YouTuber explains the context of the threats, relating them to botting in World of Warcraft.

The YouTuber states they will remove all related videos and cease reporting bots.

Placing the blame for the situation on Blizzard's inaction regarding bots.

The YouTuber argues that bot makers are exploiting a system Blizzard allows.

The YouTuber acknowledges that many people would not risk their lives for a video game.

The YouTuber clarifies they are not defending criminals but rationalizing their actions given Blizzard's negligence.

The YouTuber emphasizes that Blizzard, not the bot makers, holds the responsibility for the situation.

The YouTuber stopped caring about the issue when they realized Blizzard's lack of concern about cheating.

Concluding thoughts and reiterating the responsibility lies with Blizzard.

The YouTuber emphasizes that even if the perpetrators are arrested, others will replace them.

Only Blizzard has the power to control the situation by addressing the botting issue.

The YouTuber expresses concern about having their personal information exposed and the potential dangers.

The YouTuber explains that people make decisions based on weighing pros and cons.

The YouTuber believes the severity of online death threats is overblown due to a lack of sufficient penalties.

Discussing the effectiveness of terrorism and online harassment.

The YouTuber explains that terrorism works because it creates fear and discourages dissent.

The YouTuber criticizes social media platforms for not doing enough to curb harmful behavior.

The YouTuber uses historical examples of public executions to illustrate the effectiveness of fear as a deterrent.

The YouTuber discusses how predictability in fairness reduces fear, while unpredictability increases it.

The YouTuber clarifies that the perpetrators are not thin-skinned but are aiming to set an example.