From Fans To Fury: The Unraveling of Pirate Software

Over the last week, the gaming industry and social media were set ablaze by one man's decision to run away during a World of Warcraft dungeon.

What seems to be just an instance of cowardly gameplay in one of the most popular games of all time spiraled into what seems like a never-ending smear campaign against one of the best industry voices we have on the internet. This drama has split the internet in two, with some people believing that this is all overblown and at the end of the day, it's just a video game. Then there's the other side of people who believe that the behavior in the video game opens a window into the soul of an ego-centric man-child with a long history of toxic behavior.

No matter if you are Team Pirate, Anti Pirate, or somewhere in the middle, there is no denying that this unraveling is fascinating. As much as I deplore this new era of "Content of Everything", I cannot deny that this hate brigade is interesting when you see just how deep the rabbit hole is. If I'm being honest, this is going to be tough for Pirate Software to bounce back from.

But who is Pirate Software? Jason Thor Hall is the CEO of the game studio, Pirate Software. Many people refer to him as Pirate Software or Thor but for consistency's sake, I will refer to him as Pirate Software or Pirate. Thor got his start working at Blizzard Entertainment as an offensive security specialist and then at Amazon Games as a Python Developer. While working with Amazon Games, he also worked for the US government as a hacker.

His experience in the Games Industry is the foundation for his success on Twitch. Thor started developing a game called Heartbound which got the attention of some large creators on YouTube and by extension brought a lot of attention, and money, to Pirate himself. This newfound attention snowballed into an explosion of his channel gaining over a million subscribers in a very short time frame. Pirate is such a large creator he broke Twitch's Hype Train record 4 times and won two Streamer Awards in 2024.

Before diving into the actual event that caused this death spiral of Pirate's reputation, it's important to provide context about the game mode he played in World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft Hardcore is a game mode in World of Warcraft Classic. It makes it so the player only has one life and death is permanent. The point of this game mode is to provide a sense of danger and progress to those who may already have thousands of hours in World of Warcraft. Pirate was a part of the streamer-only guild, Only Fangs. The members of this guild helped each other get through the content of World Of Warcraft Classic while also using the proximity of all the streamers for Twitch content.

Pirate and 4 other members of the Only Fangs guild were doing a late-game dungeon. One of the members aggroed too many enemies at once prompting the group to try and save the situation by running. As they continued to pull the group of enemies, panic set in as nobody wanted to lose their max-level characters. While the other players tried to regain control of the situation, Pirate continued to run and unfortunately, 2 of his party members died losing their characters.

Upon first impressions of the situation, It seems as if there was nothing Pirate could've done. However, upon review, many World of Warcraft streamers and players provided their takes. While many people disagreed on whether or not Pirate deserves the hate he's receiving many more agreed that he could have done more. Unfortunately, what started and probably should've ended as just a bad play, turned into something much worse over the following days.

It felt as if everyone's eyes were on this situation with even people who don't play World of Warcraft giving their opinions. A lot of people didn't like Pirate's reception to the criticism of his play but it made sense for him to be so defensive. In his eyes, he did absolutely nothing wrong. His demeanor gave off arrogant and egotistic in how he refused to engage with any of the blame regarding the situation which caused some of the worst people on the internet to start harassing him.

Not only was he swatted and received multiple death threats but this harassment spilled over into his other dealings. Pirate made a statement on X after the drama and completely doubled down on his defense of his play. He also called out the many streamers trying to milk the drama for content.

A rumor started that Pirate was reporting streamers using their audiences to harass him directly to Twitch and getting this banned. This caused an anxious cloud to descend onto the Only Fangs guild and Sodapoppin the guild's creator decided to just remove him. Pirate had every single right to do what he needed to protect himself and those close to him. At the end of the day, this all started over a bad play in a video game. However, this behavior is not new for Pirate Software and opens the door for a different conversation.

The drama caused a lot of people to start digging into the personal life and old Twitch videos of Pirate. This revealed a history of problematic behavior both on stream and off. When people usually hear the words "problematic behavior" immediately the worst of the worst comes to mind. As of writing, Pirate does not have any major allegations against him. However, it isn't hard to find other instances of him dodging criticism and being unable to engage with accountability.

The digging into his past also revealed who Pirate was before becoming PirateSoftware as we know him but that information isn't relevant. If we've learned anything about Jason Thor Hall over these last few weeks it's that he can't take criticism. He has created a persona of himself as someone experienced, wise, and intelligent. He's done a good job of maintaining that idea of himself but he isn't perfect.

On top of this fragile ego, it appears Pirate is also a slight bully himself. Many detractors of his movement pointed out some moments where he was a jerk to others in other video games. Normally, one can just ignore this because again at the end of the day, none of this matters, these are just video games. But when you create an image around community, support, and kindness it looks worse when you're also going out of your way to be a nuisance to others.

This entire situation may have brought a lot of unwanted attention to Pirate but I believe this is an opportunity for change. No matter what Pirate does, this will probably just blow over. The internet moves on fairly quickly but I believe Pirate has the opportunity to use this as a wakeup call. Nobody should receive death threats, especially over video games, being a know-it-all, or even just being a slight jerk. But the Internet can be a cruel place and being a public figure one has to know that the pitchforks can turn on you at any moment.

Pirate Software should apologize for his in-game behavior as it doesn't align with the morals he preaches on stream. He should also release a statement acknowledging the criticism of his character even if he doesn't agree. No matter what side of the fence you land on regarding Pirate, some emotional growth would benefit him.