Activision has removed Nickmercs’ Call of Duty skin from the in-game store due to backlash from comments he made on social media. The skin was available for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty: Warzone but has now been removed with immediate effect, as reported by [source].

Nickmercs, who co-founded FaZe Clan, tweeted in response to anti-LGBT protestors at a pro-LGBT school board meeting: “They should leave little children alone. That’s the real issue” ([source]). High-profile members of the Call of Duty community and Activision took notice and voiced their concern. The controversy led to Activision issuing an official statement from the Call of Duty Twitter account: “Due to recent events, we have removed the ‘NICKMERCS Operator’ bundle from the Modern Warfare II and Warzone store. We are focused on celebrating PRIDE with our employees and our community” ([source]).

Following the response from Activision, Nickmercs spoke on his stream (as clipped by Dexerto’s Twitter): “I didn’t mean to upset anyone, I know that I did. I’m not apologizing about the tweet because I don’t feel like it’s wrong. I’m going to stand by what I said, I’m not going to delete the Tweet because I hope people can understand what I meant by it” ([source]).

This is not the first time members of FaZe Clan have been involved in controversy. Last June, one of the members, FaZe Virus, responded on Twitter to the group’s official tweet regarding Pride Month: “Just to clarify that I don’t support any kind of LGBTQ or anything similar even if ‘FaZe’ does” ([source]). They left the group earlier this year.