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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

#31

Post by shadowgovt »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #9
dvt wrote: post #2

> “Doing business in China, it’s been easier to ignore the authoritarianism of the government because they were asking us to do things like remove a skeleton [from a game],” he said. It looks like China learned nothing from the USSR (or from their own Great Leap Forward, for that matter). Escalation is not going to go their way. Hawkish members of the CCP are going to blow the whole thing up. This is much bigger than…

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

I wouldn't blame Wall Street alone.

There's money on the table to be sure, but multiple incentives are aligned to make getting games in front of China make sense. Even for developers who aren't profit-motivated primarily, being seen is its own motivation.

It's hard to ignore the country with over a billion people.

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

#33

Post by oarsinsync »

tomnipotent wrote: post #25
CamperBob2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Activist investors often have less than 10% stakes in the companies they’re trying to institute changes in. 5% is not a meaningless amount to hold.

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

#34

Post by _bxg1 »

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…

It's worth pointing out that today's China is communist in name only. They literally arrested the president of Peking University's Marxist society on ideological grounds: https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-...

China in 2019 is a simple fascist dictatorship.

Edit: Fixed a broken link

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

#35

Post by mrybczyn »

I cancelled my blizzard account as soon as I heard this news.

I doubt I'll renew - since the root cause is unlikely to be fixed with any PR expedient move at this point. They have shown the world where their true nature lies - and it ain't good. Cancel yours if you have them...

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

#36

Post by shadowgovt »

_bxg1 wrote: post #29

And still no (American) statement from Blizzard. Whoever runs their PR team is getting fired, if they haven't been already.

... or is currently being held in check by management, who has absolutely no idea how to spin this yet.

Can't march with no marching orders.

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

#37

Post by seph-reed »

jrockway wrote: post #14

The Internet's reaction to this has warmed my heart a little. Overwatch and Hearthstone are among my favorite computer games. I've certainly played more Overwatch than any other game. I have made real-world and online friends in Overwatch. I met my girlfriend in Overwatch. It made me sad to have to throw all that away yesterday. But the conversations we're having as a result of this is great. The mainstream media is…

If anyone knows how to fill out a list of companies to boycott in relation to HK, please see this link:

https://github.com/hongkonggong/beyond-lennon-walls/issues/2...

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

#38

Post by duxup »

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.

Yeah strong / independent courts and laws are absolutely required... for a lot of things really.

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

#39

Post by shadowgovt »

ahbyb wrote: post #21
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.

If nobody gave a fuck about Palestine, people wouldn't be so bent out of shape over Representative Omar's comments on the topic.

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

#40

Post by jorblumesea »

dvt wrote: post #2

> “Doing business in China, it’s been easier to ignore the authoritarianism of the government because they were asking us to do things like remove a skeleton [from a game],” he said. It looks like China learned nothing from the USSR (or from their own Great Leap Forward, for that matter). Escalation is not going to go their way. Hawkish members of the CCP are going to blow the whole thing up. This is much bigger than…

> China learned nothing from the USSR

On the contrary, they learned that USSR's self imposed isolation was fundamentally flawed and largely stagnated the Soviet economy. It also put them behind the Western world in terms of R&D. China is attempting to put those lessons to use and attempting to have an "Western opened" totalitarian regime. So far, it seems to be working. Accepting Western capital and tech, stealing everything they can find, and suppressing anything that's a threat to their system while requesting their system become normalized. Whereas we used to shut out the Soviet Union, we welcome China.

+1 on taking the side, it's hard to see China as anything less than hostile to Western democracy.

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