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Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

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Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#21

Post by ahbyb »

mantap wrote: post #19

If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China. China is trapped. They are stuck with this democratic appendix attached to a communist body. China can't keep Hong Kong under a democratic system as they have zero understanding of democracy. But if they try to repress it they risk endangering China's relationships with the rest of the world. They made a mistake thinking they could transfo…

>If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China.

Will it? Because nobody gives a fuck about Palestine, and Israel is not suffering much (or at all) because of what they did and do.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#22

Post by CamperBob2 »

dvt wrote: post #12
CamperBob2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wall Street has nothing to do with it. https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-...

I'm not sure if I agree. "Expansion in Chinese markets" seems to be a staple of quarterly earnings reports.

Do you see companies that aren't partially owned by Chinese interests doing things like this?

Admittedly I'm not fully up to speed on the situation, but I doubt Blizzard would have taken this action without considering Tencent's influence.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#24

Post by mikestew »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #20

This is probably not going to be a popular opinion here, but I wonder if any folks have considered what it looks like on the China side? Specifically, you are in China, and the HK protestors want what to happen to China? You have HK protesters waving American and British flags. These are the countries that have started wars all over, in the last 70 years since the end of WWII, ostensibly to promote democracy, and eve…

Specifically, you are in China, and the HK protestors want what to happen to China?

So that everyone can be one the same page, how about you tell us what you think the answer to that question is?

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#25

Post by tomnipotent »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #22
dvt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I agree. "Expansion in Chinese markets" seems to be a staple of quarterly earnings reports.

Do you see companies that aren't partially owned by Chinese interests doing things like this? Admittedly I'm not fully up to speed on the situation, but I doubt Blizzard would have taken this action without considering Tencent's influence.

> without considering Tencent's influence

At 5% ownership, Tencent doesn't have the muscle to force Blizzard to do anything it wouldn't have already done of its own volition.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#26

Post by dmix »

dvt wrote: post #11
munk-a wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's Western companies as much as Western society putting pressure on all companies in general - and that'll bump up really hard against neo-liberalism and especially the libretarian segments of society. Ideally we'll see political support shifting away from neo-liberalism and toward more pro-democracy ideologies.

Theoretically, at least, I think that the two are inextricably linked. I don't think you can have neo-liberalism (an actually free free market) unless your markets live in a democratic law-abiding state.

Yep, almost all of the economically free countries are liberal democracies with strong independent courts:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Economic_Freedom

There's a strong correlation between economic and social liberty, as well as with the average wealth, quality of life, and happiness of the general population.

The fact Taiwan and HK are right next to China with ethnically and culturally similar people and were both way ahead of China economically and socially is no surprise. I often wonder how much more advanced the entire world would be if China didn't waste 50yrs trying their failed experiment and had skyrocketed to success like Japan, South Korea, HK, and Taiwan did long ago.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#27

Post by dvt »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #22
dvt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I agree. "Expansion in Chinese markets" seems to be a staple of quarterly earnings reports.

Do you see companies that aren't partially owned by Chinese interests doing things like this? Admittedly I'm not fully up to speed on the situation, but I doubt Blizzard would have taken this action without considering Tencent's influence.

> Do you see companies that aren't partially owned by Chinese interests doing things like this?

I think this is kind of cheating (Tencent, Alibaba, etc. have zillions of small-ish investments). I was mostly thinking about Apple, Google, heck, even the NBA.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#28

Post by munk-a »

xvector wrote: post #4
finnjohnsen2 wrote: post #3

I just got some faith back in Blizzard. It was lost.

Decisions like these are usually not the fault of the employees. I sympathize with them. It’s more management and PR.

American labour organization pretty much no longer exists which is quite convenient for this sort of thing - it's quite likely this went across a few folks' desks who bowed their heads because they thought they'd be singled out for objecting.

I praise the employees that are walking out today - but a number of them were involved in this happening and didn't feel empowered to speak out and oppose this before the poo hit the windmill. That tends to be par for the course in modern america (keep your head down because anyone who objects is fired) and while it has some short term benefits for upper management they end up wholly owning their problems and nobody is going to call out a big mistake like this one before it goes public.

Lastly having worked in the gaming industry the turnover is quite high, I don't know if Blizzard is better about retaining senior folks, but it might be that everyone who would have the confidence to stop this before it exploded was long ago canned because their salary grew out of the range where Blizzard wanted to keep them on.

Re: Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

#30

Post by [deleted] »

lambdasquirrel wrote: post #20

This is probably not going to be a popular opinion here, but I wonder if any folks have considered what it looks like on the China side? Specifically, you are in China, and the HK protestors want what to happen to China? You have HK protesters waving American and British flags. These are the countries that have started wars all over, in the last 70 years since the end of WWII, ostensibly to promote democracy, and eve…

[deleted]
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