Did you forget about the World of Warcraft Community Council? It made a big splash when it was first announced, but it’s understandable if it has kind of slipped from your mind since then. Still, it’s a thing, and the team over at Blizzard has opened up applications once more to join the 2024 iteration of the council. And lest you think that our saying “do you remember this exists” is just cynicism on our part, the first player response to the announcement is expressing disbelief this is still going.
You do have some time to get in your application if you’d like to serve next year; the deadline is January 8th by noon EST. It’s a few pages long and asks you some fairly basic questions, but anyone who is interested in the role of the council is encouraged to throw their hats into the ring. Just throw that hat within the next couple of weeks or you’ll miss your chance for the year.
Readers will recall that Blizzard first announced a community council for WoW two years ago at the height of the Activision-Blizzard sexual harassment and discrimination scandal and during a time when the studio had lost over 12M monthly active players in the span of just five years. Unlike similar senators in other prominent MMOs, representatives here are not elected or even nominated by fellow WoW players but hand-picked by Blizzard; in spite of what are no doubt the best intentions of some of the participants, the council is generally perceived by players as somewhere between a dramafest and a public relations outlet for Blizzard.