Is Blizzard to blame for Gary Gannon's disappearance?

I've been following Gamebreaker.tv for a few months now and I enjoy watching their web shows This Week in MMO and Legendary, which covers World of Warcraft.

Even though I'm not playing Warcraft right now, I like to keep up on the news and events. Legendary's hosts Gary Gannon, Mikeb aka Fony from Zam.com's BFF Report, and Josh Allen aka Lore from Tankspot's Weekly Marmot and PST, represent three major demographics in WoW today, casual player, PvPer and hardcore raider, respectively. On Legendary, the guys cover topics such as upcoming patches, class changes, and sometimes even their own speculation as to the future of World of Warcraft and Blizzard in general. But has this speculation finally raised the ire of Blizzard Entertainment? Is Bashiok, Community Manager for the World of Warcraft forums, responsible for Gary Gannon's disappearance? Before we get into that, let's talk about what happened during the Legendary live broadcast on Tuesday night.

Legendary, the World of Warcraft show, tapes live on Justin.tv weekly at 9:30 PM Pacific Time. Gary, Mike and Lore broadcast from their respective locations, but in particular Gary is live from the brand new Gamebreaker.tv studio. On May 3, at around 45 minutes into the broadcast, the live feed suddenly went dead following Gary's statement that World of Warcraft was growing too "fat." This came after the trio discussed the Bashiok's claim that there is a lack of resources for new raid content and that Patch 4.2 will only bring the 7 bosses of the Firelands raid.

Just about half way into the show, the feed cut out. I was thinking, Well, maybe I should just reload the page. No dice. The chatroom was going crazy. Jasmine was trying to calm everyone down as they figured out where Gary was. Then, the speculation began. Blizzard didn't like Gary's comments and decided to take him out. Just two days after the announcement of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, many folks in the chatroom said that Blizzard staged an invasion of the Gamebreaker.tv studio. It turns out that Gary's internet was cut, but then later it was announced that the power was out too.

Mike and Lore were eventually able to bring the feed back up briefly and they were donning their tinfoil hats, the significance of which is so Blizzard can't read their minds. Groups of players went in game and staged rallies in Garrosh's room on server Arthas. Since I'm not in game right now, I couldn't attend, but I followed along in the chat room for awhile.

A #FreeGaryGannon campaign has been set up to urge Blizzard to release Gary from their clutches. There's a tumblr page and you can follow along on twitter by searching #FreeGaryGannon. Also check out the feeds of @akamikeb, @devolore, @irljasmine, @gamebreakertv.

As a witness to the atrocities of 5/3, I can just say that I am scared for Gary's safety. I'm not sure what kind of dungeon Blizzard has Gary in, but if it's anything like Halls of Stone, he's in for a lifetime of pain and misery.

Legendary 27: Free Gannon

***UPDATE***

Shortly after I posted the link to twitter, user @Rhonyzul tweeted me this: "@bardicmelody http://tinyurl.com/6z6r8dc I think we've found Gary."

The link contained within the tweet is to a youtube video. This youtube video:



I will keep everyone up to date on the events surrounding Gary's disappearance.

Latest Battle.net forums post: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2483748474?page=1