The game designer who wrote the little goblin's voice lines was fired by the company because they didn't like jokes about greedy corporate executives.
Eric Covington, a nine-year company veteran, said that he was fired in March for "lampooning generic corporate greed" after he wrote a few tongue-in-cheek lines for a loot goblin. After the lines were approved and put into the game, the company terminated him, but not before he was promoted on the official World of Warcraft account.
There was a promotion of the dialogue in March, but it has since been removed, and the character in the dialogue is shown saying "Let's call this a cost of living adjustment" The designer said there were other zingers, including "No profit sharing!", "looks like another yacht for me!", and "Time to go back to the office!"
It would be better if someone were fired for a line of inappropriate dialogue but used it as promotional material. "Do you know what I asked?"
The company's human resources director told Covington on March 30 that he was being terminated because of his "misconduct and harm to the Company" by putting non-game related content into a game.
I wrote jokes lampooning generic corporate greed for a Venture Company loot goblin (very in character), but then leadership walked face first into the joke after string lock while my focus was getting the patch done.
Because of their embarrassment, I’m no longer at Blizzard. https://t.co/jrPmKnGig4 pic.twitter.com/EqspeWGXCQ
