341–350 of 1001 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are non-Blizzard alternatives to most (if not all) of Blizzard's offerings. Magic: The Gathering Online instead of Hearthstone. League of Legends or other MOBAs instead of Overwatch. SW:TOR, Shroud of the Avatar, or even Destiny to scratch the MMO itch.
League of Legends is made by Riot, who is owned by Tencent, a Chinese conglomerate.
Can we please start a cultural movement that forces large corporations to choose between appeasing Chinese censors and looking like fools to the rest of the west or getting banned in China. Really seems like a win win scenario.
The main focus of a business is to turn in a profit and making decisions that doesn't align in some way with that key objective is not something they will likely engage with. The situation in HK is bad, but at the end of the day people still want to keep their jobs, and company leaders need to try to do what is in the best interests for the company and the employees. It wouldn't happen, but assuming if it did and you…
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.
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It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not. No easy answers. In this case, maybe there is a relatively simple rule: Supporting democracy must not in itself be regarded as offensive...
> It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not. You can't have both "Free Speech" and "You Can't Say Anything Offensive" at the same time, because there is too much overlap. So you have to choose. The US constitution is pretty clear that "Free Speech" is the higher principle.
No, the US Constitution doesn't even purport to set out social priorities outside of the relations between the government of the US and it's people.
You might believe that free speech is an important principle outside of that context, but (even if dead guys once wrote it in a document was a valid argument for a set of social priorities) the Constitution of the United States doesn't make that claim, and if you want to make it, you’ll have to make the argument yourself, not just rely on “the Constitution say so”.
Can we please start a cultural movement that forces large corporations to choose between appeasing Chinese censors and looking like fools to the rest of the west or getting banned in China. Really seems like a win win scenario.
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…
I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available. Maybe 1% of hearthstone players will see your comment. Similarly, there are other entities which need to be sanctioned, which you and me won't find out about as it's outside of our area…
Wait, what? A boycott is not doing something. It takes no time, you just choose to do something different, and let people know why you made the choice. I stopped playing Hearthstone, and let people know why. Cake, no time. Same for NBA, which I love, so I hope they'll pull their head out, but again, no time involved here.
Boycotting is the easiest form of protest. Don't be...lazy?
It's really hard to tell the difference between what is genuinely offensive and what is not. No easy answers. In this case, maybe there is a relatively simple rule: Supporting democracy must not in itself be regarded as offensive...
E.g. I don't agree with Trump's policies, I generally disagree on most topics with his voters, but I wholeheartedly support their right to voice their opinions. I want them to voice their opinions, even if sometimes they will result in rules that I dislike. I'm too terrified of the alternative where a certain group is not allowed to participate.
In an open society, there can and should be heated debates, sides that stand firm behind their beliefs and everyone should be prepared to fight (in debate) for what they deem important. Crucially however, no debate should be won by silencing the other side through decree.
It is easy to handwave this case away as fringe, but it is only fringe inasmuch as you only see the tip of an iceberg. As other posts have pointed out, this seemingly low impact act by Blizzard is actually a sign of a cultural collision.
Where the culture of open dispute and free expression of ideas is met with a closed and conformist culture of be silent or be silenced by force.
We must fight back against this problem every time it surfaces, because the moment we stop, we lose. Whenever it becomes normalized and accepted that corporations that arose from the support and foundations of a free society can turn on those principles whenever they deem profitable, we lose a bit of those freedoms.
If history is of any indication, freedoms once lost this way can only ever bought back by bloodshed.