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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

#81

Post by dmix »

maximente wrote: post #60
dmix wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

one of the reasons Japan/Taiwan/SK's economies are so strong is because - you guessed it - China is a major importer of their produced goods. without disposable income they have gained from something over the last few decades, they aren't importing massive amounts of goods from their neighbors.

Now imagine if China opened up their market earlier and had fair independent courts and political systems where they could attract other country's companies, talent, and money 10x easier without fear of it being stolen or squeezed out. They'd all be doing even better.

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

#82

Post by pvg »

_bxg1 wrote: post #56
newfangle wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communists killing and imprisoning other communists has happened since the ideology was first conceived so you will need a better argument than that to say they are not communist. I really dont understand why so many people feel the need to post comments online distinguishing that China is not communist. Its a disgusting authoritarian regime just like every other self proclaimed communist country in history.

Historically communist countries have been pretty fascist, but communism itself (in theory) is about workers' rights and the elevation of the little people. I don't know how genuine Mao was about those ideals, but Xi is dropping all pretense by intentionally targeting labor movements. So he shouldn't even get to hide behind a flawed idealism. He has no idealism except power.

You're just ascribing the negative aspects of communism-as-realized to fascism but this seems trivially ahistorical. The internecine conflicts in communist states were much more pronounced than in the fascist ones, perhaps in part because communism was always a more complex and developed movement ideologically.

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

#83

Post by Fnoord »

ddtaylor wrote: post #15

As much as I want to think change will happen, it's much more likely this will be a few weeks of PR and ultimately nothing will change. For something to change people have to vote with their wallets. In this context that means cancelling subscriptions or dropping games they are already playing in favor for ones by competitors with better integrity, and I don't see that happening. Diablo players could go to Path of Ex…

GW2 is owned by ArenaNet, which is owned by NCSoft. Which is a South Korean company.

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

#84

Post by mmazing »

anon1m0us wrote: post #75

I figured it out! Why are we so up in arms about this? Why not before this? Well, because we were insulated from China's behavior. Their heavy handed approach only affected their own citizens. They jailed their own citizens, but not Americans, not other people. We got our supply chain from them and they gave us what we wanted, so we're good. However! Now China's tyranny is leaking out of China. It's getting into aren…

Now here's a thought ... could video games and entertainment be tools for generating change in countries?

Could every game developer and internet service pulling their services from China completely compel the population to try to change their regime?

I know if suddenly my entertainment was taken away I would flip my shit if it was my government that was responsible.

Edit : To offset potential cost to companies, could this behavior be subsidized by our government?

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

#85

Post by mortenjorck »

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…

> This is much bigger than Activision-Blizzard and it's clear that Western companies are going to have to pick a side soon.

I would imagine there are thousands of businesses with varying degrees of exposure to the Chinese market whose executives are on pins and needles right now, desperately hoping no circumstance arises that will require them to publicly take a side on this issue.

Businesses with less exposure or fewer ambitions in China might have a lower barrier to standing firm if pushed, but those with the most to lose in the Chinese market are staring down a very real, very imminent choice between taking a major hit to either their revenues or their ethical credibility.

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

#86

Post by aripickar »

mantap wrote: post #69
ahbyb wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

People do give a shit about Palestine in Muslim countries , to the extent that Israel is not recognised in those countries and/or Israelis are banned from entry. China risks making Hong Kong into what Palestine is to the Muslim world. China, as the largest exporter of consumer goods, is much more exposed than Israel. If China wants to become an advanced economy such as Japan and South Korea (and this is what China wa…

>People do give a shit about Palestine in Muslim countries, to the extent that Israel is not recognised in those countries and/or Israelis are banned from entry.

As much as I don't want to get into an Israel Palestine debate, that's not because they displaced Palestinian, it's because Israel is filled with Jews.

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

#87

Post by _bxg1 »

tossAfterUsing wrote: post #78
_bxg1 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> China in 2019 is a simple fascist dictatorship. Maybe the community could help me to understand whether this is accurate?

If you want to get technical it's a very advanced fascist dictatorship - the way it leverages elements of capitalism, for example. An innovative fascist dictatorship, even. But ideologically speaking, it's very simple.

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

#88

Post by Fnoord »

Noos wrote: post #77
ddtaylor wrote: post #15

As much as I want to think change will happen, it's much more likely this will be a few weeks of PR and ultimately nothing will change. For something to change people have to vote with their wallets. In this context that means cancelling subscriptions or dropping games they are already playing in favor for ones by competitors with better integrity, and I don't see that happening. Diablo players could go to Path of Ex…

Keep in mind its Activision-Blizzard, not just Blizzard. Even if you boycotted all Blizzard products, the call of duty series and candy crush would take the hit. Also, I don't think it would work period; if Blizzard made this a hill to die on, it's because the Chinese market must be growing and higher profit than the west. The people who pay set the rules.

BlizzCon is within a month. Express yourselves there, and vote with your wallet.

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

#89

Post by cwkoss »

ddtaylor wrote: post #15

As much as I want to think change will happen, it's much more likely this will be a few weeks of PR and ultimately nothing will change. For something to change people have to vote with their wallets. In this context that means cancelling subscriptions or dropping games they are already playing in favor for ones by competitors with better integrity, and I don't see that happening. Diablo players could go to Path of Ex…

Seems like a strong market opportunity for game companies that are willing to reject Chinese investment and influence.

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

#90

Post by jrockway »

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.

I am not sure where I stand on this issue. I see two sides:

1) China has 1.4 billion potential gamers. That is a TON of money to be had. It's almost 5x the population of the US. If you can make money selling to 330 million, you can probably make more selling to 1.4 billion.

2) China might not want our games. A lot of game tropes that we love in the West are simply not allowed to be depicted in China. A group of renegades bands together to throw off the shackles of oppression? Not allowed. One of the characters is openly gay? Not allowed. The heroes don't wear enough clothing? Not allowed. Even "blood and gore" is apparently objectionable in first-person shooters. So it really calls into questions what story you can tell that is going to be well-received in both the US market and in China. Americans aren't going to buy a watered-down game teeming with Communist propaganda. So you are already developing two separate games.

I worry that we see $$$ in China, but it's not ever going to pan out. If we can all increase our wealth by 5x in a year by censoring a video game, maybe it's worth it. But if we do that and see nothing in return, then we just look like fools. My fear is that the second case is more likely than the first.

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