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Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

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Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#171

Post by Pfhreak »

ivalm wrote: post #141
diminoten wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of acknowledgement? They reduced the penalties, both for the casters and the player...

The only reasonable response is removal of all penalties and an apology, anything short of that is insufficient.

I dunno, I'd understand a one game suspension or a warning or something. I am sympathetic to not wanting to turn winner's interviews into soapboxes. I'd expect a bit of training for the casters -- here's what you could have done differently.

But 6 months is outlandish.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#172

Post by y4mi »

ethbro wrote: post #165
y4mi wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worthle…

its not so clear because while your argument is true - people are only gonna spent disposable money on this - it can nonetheless be directly linked to actual transactions which happen at an incredibly frequent rate.

there is an actual cashflow happening - and not just for speculation like with cryptocurrencies - as people are actually spending the ingame currencies on their respective markets, which often removes the money from the market entirely. (not everything you buy ingame is sold by players)

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#173

Post by ng12 »

bertil wrote: post #146
ng12 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> contributed to free speech. What does it mean to "contribute to" free speech?

In most cases, the subreddits openly advocated for crimes, often violent, which I understand is the type of speech that isn’t protected by even the most relaxed definition of free speech.

It's protected in the US. You can advocate for all the crime and violence you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#174

Post by jammygit »

samtheprogram wrote: post #136
minimaxir wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Anecdotally, most those I know, while unhappy about it, are continuing to play. While I don’t think people are going to defend this, I doubt this will meaningfully affect them in the long-term. It’s easy for companies, after some backlash by a loud yet small crowd on social media, to blacklist a certain high profile individual out of risk. It’s hard for that same group to make a difference against an organization as…

I plan to avoid their games with the exception of playing with a particular sick friend. I don’t intend to buy another for a very, very long time.

Can’t speak for other people though

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#175

Post by jammygit »

roblabla wrote: post #11
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.

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.

There are still multiple posts about it on the Reddit front page too, at least earlier

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#176

Post by A2017U1 »

harimau777 wrote: post #166
A2017U1 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Actually spent quite a while going through the list of banned subs to eliminate contentious ones, gotta make commenters work for it :)

They are a US based website subject to those laws, even if those words posted on their site didn't violate laws, it's entirely legal for them to censor at will for any reason they deem ok.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#177

Post by diminoten »

Pfhreak wrote: post #66
diminoten wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of acknowledgement? They reduced the penalties, both for the casters and the player...

From 'far too severe' to 'too severe'? They basically doubled down and said they had done the right thing.

I'm sorry if you don't know what "acknowledge" means, but reducing the penalty is an acknowledgement, even if you don't think it's enough.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#178

Post by ethbro »

freeflight wrote: post #167
ethbro wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 issue…

That seems like illogical reasoning.

The fact that Blizzard has banned people for making political statements before does not mean that there were no ancillary motivations in this instance.

You may feel otherwise, but I don't think a pattern of previous behavior unambiguously resolves the motivation behind an action.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#179

Post by goatsi »

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

r/DarknetMarkets was banned because of the FOSTA-SESTA anti-sex "trafficking" bill. The government forced Reddit's hand on that.
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