One 28-year-old man is now facing federal charges after threatening Blizzard Entertainment by bringing an AK-47 after his chat feature in "Heroes of the Storm" was restricted due to several complaints.
Stephen Cebula wrote in his Facebook message to Blizzard's company page that he could "cause a disturbance" in their headquarters located in California where he also lived. He added that he would bring an AK-47 to the headquarters which suggests that he may shoot up the place.
Concerned with their safety, Blizzard forwarded Cebula's threats to the FBI who then served a search warrant on the Heroes of the Storm player's home. Cebula was arrested by federal authorities on July 12 due to his threats against Blizzard, Los Angeles Times has learned.
Authorities were told that Cebula looked up Blizzard's headquarter address and that he wanted to scare them. He said that he was angered because of the restriction on his chat feature in the Heroes of the Storm video game.
Cebula wrote in his threats: "You keep silencing people in heroes of the storm and someone who may live in California might be inclined to 'cause a disturbance' at your headquarters in California with an AK47 and a few other 'opportunistic tools' ... It would be a shame to [anger] the wrong person. Do you not agree blizzard?"
The complaints against Cebula which led to the restriction are even worse. Blizzard's criminal complaint stated that Cebula threatened other players by saying that he plans on killing and raping their family members, OCRegister reported. There was also one part about staging an attack at Disneyland.
In-game chat silencing has been a normal method of disciplining toxic players in MOBAs. Some are even banned outright from playing the game due to their unruly behavior.
Heroes of the Storm, DOTA 2 and League of Legends all have their own reporting mechanic to help players weed out the bad ones. If a player receives enough negative complaints, the moderators then decide whether to ban or restrict some of the player's abilities to communicate with others as not to disrupt others' playing experiences.
Cebula can face up to five years in prison if he is convicted regarding the threats he made from the Heroes of the Storm game against Blizzard. He could also end up paying a massive $250,000 fine.