Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

news.blizzard.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 179 posts

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#11

Post by roblabla »

bipolar_lisper wrote: post #7
undefined3840 wrote: post #5

I’m not a gamer, but I imagine most are smart enough to see through this cringe-y PR disaster. Late Friday night dump of nonsense corporate speak is painfully predictable. This will do more harm than good. Yikes.

Oh they absolutely are not. You should see the way people have always, and will always defend this company.

Gamers aren't very loyal. And Blizzard has certainly not been defended by its gamers here - it's been heavily condemned by the whole gaming community, which is why we're hearing so much about it and blizzard is issuing a PR statement. Just look at reddit's r/blizzard right now, it's a shitshow. Pages upon pages of posts protesting against blizzard's handling of the events.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#12

Post by ayakura »

My own take throughout the whole thing is similar to Brian Kibler's [1]. To me, even though it made sense that Blizzard wanted to stay neutral, the punishment was too severe for all of the people involved (zero prize money, 1 year ban) so it's nice that at least one of them was reverted.

[1]: http://bmkgaming.com/statement-on-blitzchung/

Sidenote, Linus is reading the statement on the WAN show and he mentioned that Blizzard was "Lawful Evil." That's a pretty solid way to put it

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#13

Post by mc32 »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

> The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision. Needless to say, this line has generated a very large amount of snark on social media.

It almost makes you want to ask “blink twice if you’re saying this against your will,”

And the hope is they’d blink twice rather than not blink.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#14

Post by Pfhreak »

minimaxir wrote: post #10
bipolar_lisper wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they absolutely are not. You should see the way people have always, and will always defend this company.

Scanning social media, I haven't seen a single gaming influencer say it's a sufficient statement: https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Averified%20https%3A%2F... The contrarian viewpoint is "what were you expecting?" in which case the reply is "an actual apology."

Or even a hamfisted attempt at an apology like you get out of many PR departments. The only thing that remotely resembles an apology in the whole release is:

> In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly.

No explanation of how that happened. No discussion about what they are doing to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's not even saying, "We made a snap decision and it was wrong." It seems to be saying, "We made all the right decisions, but we're going to tune the degree a little."

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#15

Post by falcolas »

I might believe this, if the American team who made the exact same statement (pro-Hong Kong) in a virtually identical context (on a stream with shoutcasters) had received the same punishment.

They didn’t. They didn’t receive any punishment, they were immediately moved on to the next match.

So, Blizzard is not acting any anything resembling consistently on this matter. Some voices matter more than others; in this case Blizzard’s business with China has proven to matter more than allowing someone to “share their point of view”.

#boycottblizzard still stands.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#16

Post by floatingatoll »

bipolar_lisper wrote: post #6

Blizzard: > If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same. Also Blizzard: > We will defend the pride of our nation (that nation being China) So when will they be terminating the people in their company that posted that announcement on behalf of the company? Oh wait, they won't be, because this company is completely and utterly full of…

The word “nation” as you quoted above isn’t present in the post by Blizzard linked here. Is your quote from another Blizzard statement somewhere?

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#17

Post by Pfhreak »

floatingatoll wrote: post #16
bipolar_lisper wrote: post #6

Blizzard: > If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same. Also Blizzard: > We will defend the pride of our nation (that nation being China) So when will they be terminating the people in their company that posted that announcement on behalf of the company? Oh wait, they won't be, because this company is completely and utterly full of…

The word “nation” as you quoted above isn’t present in the post by Blizzard linked here. Is your quote from another Blizzard statement somewhere?

It was posted by Blizzard's partner in China, NetEase, on an official Blizzard account on weibo.
Post reply on HN