Culture

Amazon’s New World game spammed with ‘home truths’ – including that employees pee in flasks

Jul 29 2021
Written by Ed Nightingale

New World. (Amazon)

Amazon’s brand new MMO New World is still only in beta phase but has already been targeted by critics of the company.

First the game was involved in bricking $2,000 graphics cards. Now the game is being trolled with ‘home truths’ about working conditions at Amazon.

Lulu Chiba is community director at developers Aggro Crab Games and Eggnut Games and has over 80,000 Twitter followers.

However, since the launch of the New World beta she’s been trolling users of the game using the username AmazonOfficial.

“Whenever I have the chance to name a character as an online ID, I always go for whatever I think they might have overlooked or banned and see what is allowed,” she told Kotaku.

“To my surprise, both AmazonOfficial and AmazonSupport were still up (so were TwitterOfficial, TwitchSupport, and many others).”

https://twitter.com/luulubuu/status/1420426553968709633?s=20

She’s since been using the username to spread information about Amazon’s products and alleged poor working conditions.

“Hey guys I’m the official account of amazon, did you know we don’t allow our workers to bathroom breaks? They have to pee in flasks. We call them potions,” reads one such message.

Another suggests players should jump ship to acclaimed MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV.

“I’m not worried about getting banned from a game,” Chiba said. “I don’t plan to play more than a beta. So far, people have been on the joke and ask how to brew some more potions, which is easy: just pee in bottles like dozens of workers have to do at Amazon.”

A new world of…milking?

Elsewhere, a Twitch streamer was banned for milking a cow in the game.

Milking isn’t a bannable offence – it’s necessary for acquiring milk, obviously.

But streamer AnnieFuchsia received a “permanent ban” pop-up notification when milking, complete with typo, though it didn’t actually give a concrete reason for the ban.