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Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

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Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#161

Post by freeflight »

mirimir wrote: post #130
freeflight wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any way they could have addressed that without the hysteria still spinning it negatively. Because it's not like they mention that out of nowhere: They are directly referring to accusations that they were pressured into shutting that particular player down by the Chinese government. There's a whole lot of people out there who will not be satisfied with any answer contradicting that narrative. Heck, even if…

> The reality is that nobody needed to pressure Blizzard because its competitive scene has already seen quite a number of bans, some controversial, many not, over players using the spotlight to share their particular political messages. Please share some examples. I vaguely recall stuff over the years about the Olympics. But I don't follow gaming.

A list for Overwatch can be found here [0]. They've banned people for "unsportsmanlike conduct" and "negative speech", as a separate thing from "toxcitiy" [1] which they have been trying to clamp down heavily on for years now, like most major publishers.

As somebody following gaming, this has much more to do with "safe space" culture than Blizzard being pressured to do anything by external actors. These are massive corporations, they do not need an external force pushing them to keep everything they do as "uncontroversial" as possible.

Having your sponsored event be the spotlight for political statements is the exact opposite of that. Something too many people here completely ignore because they happen to agree with that particular political statement.

But I doubt these same people would support similar freedom of speech, in that situation, if a player used their spotlight to prostylze for a religion, or tell the world about their personal views on things like homosexuality.

[0] https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Banned_players

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/01/29/blizzard-co...

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#162

Post by harimau777 »

ixtli wrote: post #70
anonimouse5t43w wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FIFA also bans politics from its platform.

I didn't know that as I'm not up on soccer, but I'm not surprised. This is liberal ideology at its most pure, and it leads to a great many of the social problems we have today. Some know taking a moral position will disenfranchise some subset and reduce their income, and some know that society would recoil (usually rightly!) at their views if they were forced to spell them out.

Are you perhaps using "liberal ideology" in a way that's different than what I'm used to? It seems that Blizzard's decisions were made in service of Capitalism which is a belief system that I associate more with conservative rather than liberal ideology.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#163

Post by ethbro »

freeflight wrote: post #160
ethbro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Heck, even if Blizzard went out there and would fully admit "The Chinese government pressured us to shut this particular player down", then people would complain how Blizzard could ever buckle to those demands in the first place. No. There are two fan axes here: agreement and respect. Companies (and your comment) seem to focus on the former, while being completely oblivious to the latter. If Blizzard had said "Our…

> Instead, they forfeited both. How did they forfeit both? Do we have any evidence for Blizzard being pressured do this? We absolutely have not, all we have is a bunch of social-media hysteria were this claim originally came from, in complete ignorance of the fact that Blizzard has banned plenty of pro-players before for voicing "negative speech" [0]. In that context your response is exactly what I was referring to:…

You're taking a company's statement, that avoids any mention of money, economic interests, or China, at face value?

I hear your point, but what would a smoking gun look like?

An email or recorded conversation from the CCP about the actions they would take if Blizzard didn't keep the ban in place?

That positive confirmation bar seems unreasonably high.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#164

Post by freeflight »

wpietri wrote: post #75
freeflight wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any way they could have addressed that without the hysteria still spinning it negatively. Because it's not like they mention that out of nowhere: They are directly referring to accusations that they were pressured into shutting that particular player down by the Chinese government. There's a whole lot of people out there who will not be satisfied with any answer contradicting that narrative. Heck, even if…

Blizzard's construction of "unpolitical" is itself very political. The notion that people should hide who they are and what matters to them except as it's compatible with profit maximization is stridently political. Ditto the notion that even if people are killed six inches outside the venue for political reasons, everybody inside the venue should pretend everything's fine. I do give points to Blizzard for the amount…

> The notion that people should hide who they are and what matters to them except as it's compatible with profit maximization is stridently political.

Yet that's exactly what most major publishers have been doing with their crackdown on toxicity.

We've created these "safe spaces" where anything that could be interpreted as even remotely controversial is off-limits and ban-worthy because profit maximation is the only actual goal for a company like Blizzard.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#165

Post by ethbro »

y4mi wrote: post #155
ethbro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're talking in real-world currency, then the size of the ingame economy is the sum of the maximums each player would be willing to spend for things in the game. Any other calculations are just cryptocurrency-esque market cap dreams.

its not as clear cut in WoW's case. you got blizzard selling game time tokens which players can sell on the auction house for atm ~230k gold. and this isnt just an option, but something done extremely frequently. tokens are usually sold within one day. (and blizzard takes ~40% more € for that token than a subscription would take, so blizzard actually has a massive profit margin there)

How is that not as clear?

The real world money to purchase those token (and anything else) come from people. Those people do not have infinite resources to spend on the game.

Ergo, if you exhaust their real world resources, and then offer them the best item in the game for $1, they wouldn't take it.

At that point, you've got the value of the total in-game economy. Because anything virtual after that would be worthless.

(Subject to demand curve, etc. But in aggregate it boils down to the same point.)

(You might be able to make the case that speculators without interest in the game would come in at that point to buy items, but I'd question how many would take the risk after the playerbase was already financially drained)

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#166

Post by harimau777 »

A2017U1 wrote: post #128
bertil wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit has to make a lot of decisions, some were soon after she joined. Not sure CEOs of social media company get involved in making that decision personally, rather than name people who would -- Pao might be an exception, though. From all the subreddits that were closed, I’d be hard-pressed to name one that I felt contributed to free speech.

> I’d be hard-pressed to name one that I felt contributed to free speech. As in US Constitution free speech? I can think of dozens. r/SanctionedSuicide r/DarknetMarkets r/shoplifting r/gore r/watchpeopledie

I don't know enough about the situation to take a definite position.

However, it seems to me that free speech is intended to protect the expression of unpopular viewpoints. In that case, I think that we should protect people's right to advocate that suicide, shoplifting, or advocating watching people die should be legal.

However, as long as those things are not legal then it doesn't necessarily violate free speech to restrict the practices themselves or information on how to engage in the practices.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#167

Post by freeflight »

ethbro wrote: post #163
freeflight wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead, they forfeited both. How did they forfeit both? Do we have any evidence for Blizzard being pressured do this? We absolutely have not, all we have is a bunch of social-media hysteria were this claim originally came from, in complete ignorance of the fact that Blizzard has banned plenty of pro-players before for voicing "negative speech" [0]. In that context your response is exactly what I was referring to:…

You're taking a company's statement, that avoids any mention of money, economic interests, or China, at face value? I hear your point, but what would a smoking gun look like? An email or recorded conversation from the CCP about the actions they would take if Blizzard didn't keep the ban in place? That positive confirmation bar seems unreasonably high.

> An email or recorded conversation from the CCP about the actions they would take if Blizzard didn't keep the ban in place?

How about anything concrete that isn't just sheer hearsay and speculation out of the social media sphere?

And yet you consider it outrageous that I take Blizz statement at face value? I already explained my reasons for that: To me this ban is very in line with other previous bans Blizzard issued.

That does not mean that I condone them or that I agree with them, but it gives precedence to the situation, precedent that had absolutely nothing to do with China.

We have precedent for Blizzard having banned players over political statements before, we have no precedent for Blizzard having been pressured by the CCP to do so. So what is the most likely thing that happened here?

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#168

Post by [deleted] »

Arwill wrote: post #153
belltaco wrote: post #40

Summary of changes made: * Blitzchung will receive all his prize money. * Bliztchung's suspension from pro play halved to 6 months * Casters will now be allowed to cast Blizzard events after 6 months Key statements: * In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly * The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in Chi…

Imagine a comparable situation. Someone wins an olympic medal, and makes a political statement in the subsequent interview. Then the olympic committee decides to take the medal away, and ban the winner from competing again.

[deleted]

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#169

Post by bcrosby95 »

darepublic wrote: post #148
falcolas wrote: post #15

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…

Well the real test of hypocrisy is if someone made a statement in support of China on the same topic in a streamed event. Or if someone made a comment about any divisive issue from any side. Note I am saying it's a test of hypocrisy not whether their policy is "moral" or not

The reality is companies are in the politics of pandering to gain the largest audience possible. Blizzard is perfectly fine with western participants wearing things such as gay pride clothing (sadly a social/political issue) because it's popular with their audience. But they don't like what happened here because it isn't popular with their audience in China.

So of course it has to do with China. If they knew it wouldn't get them kicked out, and most of their potential players in China supported the issue, they wouldn't have cared. Because that's exactly how they handle social/political issues in the west.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#170

Post by PavlovsCat »

b0ner_t0ner wrote: post #123
PavlovsCat wrote: post #23

> One of our goals at Blizzard is to make sure that every player, everywhere in the world, regardless of political views, religious beliefs, race, gender, or any other consideration always feels safe [..] playing our games This HN comment from 6 years ago comes to mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6154475

Could that have been Grummz? https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1181736075775004672

No idea if he is, but thanks for that. Here it is in a more readable format, or least, in a not-on-Twitter format :)

-------------

This hurts. But until Blizzard reverses their decision on blitzchungHS I am giving up playing Classic WoW, which I helped make and helped convince Blizzard to relaunch. There will be no Mark of Kern guild after all.

Let me explain why I am #BoycottBlizzard.

I am ethnically Chinese. I was born in Taiwan and I lived in Hong Kong for a time. I have done buisiness with China for many years, with serveral gaming companies there.

So I think I have a valid perspective here, having been a Team Lead at Blizzard and having grown up in Asia.

I have watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years. It’s a shame US companies never believed as strongly as China and Asia in investing in games, but this allowed China to have unprecedented influence over our media.

Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash.

This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies.

I’ve seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken pubically about it.

I’ve also seen how American company reps in China have been offered similar bribes to get licenses for large AAA titles. Not everyone refused like I did.

Chinese companies tried to ruin my career with planted press stories. Money is often paid for favorable press in China and some of that money flows here to the US as well.

Unfortunately, money talks. China has succeeded in infiltrating all levels of tech, gaming and more.

Unfortunately, US and European companies are loath to take risks and invest in game companies legally as much as China was. China remained one of the few places mid tier studios could get funding.

So again, China influence grew. I’m sure this is the same for movies as well.

But now we are in a situation where unlimited Communist money dictates our American values. We censor our games for China, we censor our movies for China.

Now, game companies are silencing voices for freedom and democracy.

China is dictating that the world be authoritarian.

Of all the companies in the world, Blizzard is the LAST company I ever expected to give in to China’s demands.

Blizzard was always about “gamer first” and “don’t be greedy.”

At least, it was when I was there.

It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom.

I take a huge risk by saying this. China monitors all social media and I know this means that we will probably never get an investment from China for my new MMO, and probably never get a license to operate there.

But enough is enough. I stand with Hong Kong, and I oppose Blizzard’s obvious and laughably transparent fear of China.

It’s time for Blizzard to grow the spine it used to have, and to do what’s right for gamers once again.

Gamers, rise up.

And yes, this means I will be refusing any deal for Epic exclusivity. The money comes from Tencent. Em8ER will never be an Epic game store exclusive.

This might mean we never make a dime, but more is at stake now than just games. A line has to be drawn, and I’m drawing it now.

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