Method released healing raid member Josh from its World of Warcraft roster today following a post on Twitter by a woman alleging that he exhibited sexual predatory behavior toward her when she was 16 years old.
A person named Alex on Twitter posted a TwitLonger labeled “my experience with Method Josh,” which caught the attention of numerous people in the WoW community. Soon after, Method’s GM Shanna “Darrie” Roberts replied promising a swift response.
“I am so deeply sorry this happened to you,” she wrote. “Action is coming. I’m trying. I know it’s too late. I’m so sorry.”
In her post, Alex claimed that she had numerous exchanges with Josh while she was 16 that involved predatory behavior as well as inappropriate messages and images. “While the age of consent in the U.K. is 16, any revealing pictures of someone under the age of 18 is considered child porn and is strictly illegal,” Alex said.
After seeing the post, Darrie followed through on her promise of fast action. Method responded an hour later saying that the organization was ending its relationship with Josh.
Posting about it further, Darrie expressed regret for not acting sooner.
“I can’t take back the pain and betrayal that the women who he abused felt when Method did nothing for a year,” she said. “My focus now is working with our leadership team to develop policies that are unwavering, and without prejudice towards perceived ‘value’ of a player.”
This wasn’t Josh’s first strike. The former Twitch streamer was permanently banned from the platform last year. In February 2019, Kotaku reported on a slew of alleged sexual misconduct by the WoW player.
Published: Jun 24, 2020 04:08 pm