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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

#541

Post by shadowgovt »

peacelilly wrote: post #391
boardwaalk wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is unfortunately a gaping hole where United States leadership should be and I don’t feel the companies or countries that used to be able to “follow the leader” have figured how to deal with it. Good on your paper for having the some fortitude.

> gaping hole where United States leadership should be I've seen this exact wording a lot recently. Is this the new propaganda line everyone parrots? I must have missed the previous administration's strong stance on ANYTHING AT ALL dealing with international relations, besides killing people from the sky. When did the previous administration lead on anything and not just bow down (literally bowing) to international l…

> the gaping hole in leadership was filled with someone who cares about the USA

[citation needed], I wouldn't trust the guy with international business interests to actually have America's best interests at heart over his own if the two don't align.

No real dispute with your criticism of the previous leadership though.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#542

Post by the_resistence »

kllrnohj wrote: post #471
abbadadda wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> From the NBA to Google You probably want to use a different example than Google here. Particularly since Google doesn't have a China presence because they refused to censor search results, and relationships there still appear to be less than solid to say the least. Your statement works with most U.S. firms, but very much doesn't at all for Google in particular.

Goog has research labs in SH and elsewhere.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#543

Post by shadowgovt »

flohofwoe wrote: post #495
hdfbdtbcdg wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? What is happening there?

The last message I saw before it was switched to private was a message from the moderators along the lines that r/blizzard is not the right place to discuss politics, and that they'll ban people who post politics there.

It's inconvenient for moderators of fora when the topic of the forum suddenly takes a political action, if they don't want politics discussed in their forum.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#544

Post by luxuryballs »

If they ever setup an automated global power reach that allows them to censor people anywhere imagine what they could use that for if it ever came to an actual armed conflict or some orchestrated attack on another country.

They could stop people from warning us or confirming afterwards that they were even involved. Hell, imagine what a government could use this for when going to war against it’s own people? Yes, hell.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#545

Post by gowld »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #353

Absolutely agree, it's time for American video games to stop publishing in China. It's not worth the Chinese influence on our society.

Most video game companies (and most companies) are not "American, they are "corporate" and have minimal national allegiance and minimal principles beyond "maximize shareholder value". The former is arguably defensible, as national governments are arbitrary borders and susceptible to corruption.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#546

Post by alimbada »

kerkeslager wrote: post #538
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…

Not just Hearthstone, but all Blizzard products.

They're owned by Activision so all Activision products if you're going to do it properly.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#547

Post by shadowgovt »

cabalamat wrote: post #241
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

It should do. The West needs to decide whether it is going to stand for China being able to silence criticism of it in the West, or not.

Ironically, there's little the US government can do here without dragging things back towards the McCarthy era.

What would we have them do? Apply pressure to Activision/Blizzard to reverse the company's own internal policy on "keep politics out of the game stuff?" That's a pretty clear violation of freedom of speech, the press, and / or association, to tell a private company who they must endorse.

It's not unprecedented, but the precedents are very tightly bound (and often tied up in a justification based on use of very finite public resources, such as broadcast airwaves).

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#548

Post by xtian »

knodi123 wrote: post #524
ndury wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These studio's should not stop publishing their games in China. The issue lies that these studio's happily comply with whatever restrictions a govt is willing to oblige due to possibly playerbase loss. Think lootboxes, forbidden skins in regions, exc... exc.. Companies as big as Blizzard should be prepared to lose 5/10/15% of their playerbase to defend free speech, the thing is they do not care about free speech. All…

> the thing is they do not care about free speech. All these companies care about is revenue. Nature of a publicly traded company in a nation that deifies capitalism. Blizzard is on the S&P 500, for pete's sake. If the CEO prioritized something other than profits, he'd be replaced by the board for breaching his obligations to the shareholders.

This isn't actually true. Look up the legal definition of fiduciary duties for US corporations.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#549

Post by alkonaut »

wiz21c wrote: post #492

The rule is clear : >> 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... It says : "Blizzard is a commercial entity and it doesn't want to be involved in anything else than gaming". For me Blizzard acts in a very corporate way. There's nothing wrong with that, provided you accept the corporate way…

This whole thread is about holding companies to higher standards than merely doing what’s legal.

I certainly expect that of companies I do business with, or work for. I can quit or boycott.

Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

#550

Post by barnesto »

pbourke wrote: post #486
echelon wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to repeat the same cycle with Vietnam and India, we'd do well to encourage democracy this go-around. If we elevate authoritarian countries to our level, democracy may be in for a rough future. We should be learning a lot from the China situation. Modern China proves that authoritarian capitalism works and that you don't need freedom or liberty for your citizens. And that's incredibly scary. Imagine if…

> We need to be handling this situation with urgency. We tried to - it was called the Trans Pacific Partnership. It included Vietnam. One of the Trump administration’s first acts was to kill it.

It’s called winning and was the the right call. See bilat deals with Japan and South Korea. And soon with India and the U.K. Oh, don’t forget about USMCA that Congress needs to approve instead of holding back for politics.
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