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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

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Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#221

Post by JumpCrisscross »

alimbada wrote: post #158

It's a shame but I feel like the majority of gamers won't care. They'll either be ignorant of this or they'll just shrug and continue playing. I boycotted Activision and by proxy Blizzard when Activision acquired them a long time ago but their continuing success shows I'm part of an extremely tiny minority.

> I feel like the majority of gamers won't care

The simultaneity of the NBA and now Blizzard so publicly siding with Beijing may elevate this out of the realm of commercial issues (subject to boycotts) into a political one.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#222

Post by monocasa »

XCabbage wrote: post #208
johnday wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no, they aren't. The two things may look superficially similar but Chinese political censorship is much, much older and the process but which it is done hasn't changed in a long time.

The only reason Blizzard was legally able to engage in this punishment - which involved stripping the player of his winnings - was that there's a player handbook banning offensive conduct and including this as a penalty. If that provision had not existed, China and Blizzard could not have used it. And the only political faction in the west who demand such codes of conduct are the SJWs. When tomp says that China coopt…

No, it's the PR weasel words that have existed in sports contracts from the beginning of broadcast media

> Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#223

Post by cco »

I said a similar thing yesterday but I think it has become clear that importing from China was mostly fine for our country, debatable on the lost jobs and environmental part sure, but exporting to China was a poison pill that we never should have swallowed.

China has become less liberal, in the meaningful ways, since Nixon "opened up" China in the 20th century. And the flip side is that when we began exporting to them we installed pathways for China to control and de-liberalize the US.

The more economically important China becomes to the US the more it will control our companies and public political sphere.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#224

Post by fishtacos »

Steltek wrote: post #163
rjzzleep wrote: post #157

Have we all forgotten when Mozilla replaced the CTO with a long history of internet freedom work to replace him with a marketing director and the disaster that followed? Are we going to keep trampling on all our freedoms in the name of ... freedom(?) and then blame it all on China? EDIT: I knew some people were going to try to spin it into something it wasn't.

Was that the same lover of freedom that campaigned to take away the freedom of others?

People forget the context of the uproar and protests against Brendan. Indeed he was the lover of freedom that sent in political donations to take freedom away from others - namely, those not like him. It's interesting to see how people, especially champions of freedom of expression, can compartmentalize that mentality so easily and justify it to oneself. Those people deserve to be called out. Calling them out is also something freedom affords.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#225

Post by [deleted] »

diveanon wrote: post #76
nabla9 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Chinese owners? Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-... AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned…

Make them choose between the two markets. I'm tired of the idea that the Western and Chinese markets can both be appeased the middle of the road morality. What is happening in HK right now is wrong, and the west has fought wars over this very issue.

[deleted]

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#226

Post by bsder »

zwaps wrote: post #139

Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…

> Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle.

Boycott the Hearthstone pro players/streamers.

Blizzard won't notice the money from a couple hundred people going away. The streamers/pros on the other hand will most certainly notice even a couple of people going away and will leave Hearthstone to rot.

Once the pros leave Hearthstone for another game, Hearthstone will die. THAT will get Blizzard's attention.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#228

Post by yters »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #180
jplayer01 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I've wasted too much time on HN arguing with people who simply don't believe China isn't as bad as portrayed, and believe everything that comes up here or on other sites is nothing but anti-Chinese propaganda. There are plenty of people who are so jaded that they're unwilling to condemn China for all the immoral things they do, much less economic or political behaviours that aren'…

>but do have clear negative impact on the Western sphere of influence and economic status. And this is such a problem that you think the US should take actions to try and overthrow their government? Even considering how terribly most US regime changes damage a country, and the horrible civil wars that have accompanied the previous Chinese collapses? >As bad as the US is, I don't want a country run by such an authorit…

You don't think there is any moral difference between the two?

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#229

Post by pimmen »

abbadadda wrote: post #204
alimbada wrote: post #158

It's a shame but I feel like the majority of gamers won't care. They'll either be ignorant of this or they'll just shrug and continue playing. I boycotted Activision and by proxy Blizzard when Activision acquired them a long time ago but their continuing success shows I'm part of an extremely tiny minority.

At this point it goes far beyond just gamers. From the NBA to Google, this effect is everywhere. To be explicit, the effect is U.S. firms letting China dictate what they do or do not care about on a global political scale.

If the Western governments could maybe grow a pair and call out how this is very unfair maybe something would happen.

I work for one of the largest news publishers in the Nordics, and we were criticized for letting the CCP take out a full page ad in our largest newspaper that essentially said "no need for the Western governments to get involved, this is an internal issue that is best handled by us". Our editor in chief of that paper responded with this:

"Now we have the moral high ground. Until the Swedish government can take out a full page ad in The Global Times criticizing the CCP we can use this as one of many examples of how China does not value freedom of speech, but we do."

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#230

Post by eanthy »

zwaps wrote: post #139

Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…

ok
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