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Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

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Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#61

Post by falcolas »

the_duke wrote: post #47
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

This is a crisis point for everyone who supports political free speech. Every corporation and business person is watching this to see which hurts their bottom line less, suppressing free speech globally, or angering China. As consumers, we must make sure that they get the message loud and clear that suppressing free speech globally on behalf of China is going to hurt their bottom line far more than China will. Otherw…

Blizzard stock hasn't suffered yet. And I doubt the cancelled subscriptions and closed accounts will have a significant long term impact. Especially since they mitigated account deletions by only allowing manual deletion requests with a submitted id; due to very conveniently timed and curiously persistent technical difficulties... These public outrage storms quickly subside and people go back to playing the games. It…

Based on what I’ve seen, investors are taking a wait and see attitude - waiting to see what happens with Blizzcon. There are investment guides that are advocating selling ATVI, and those will rise as the outcry and practical impact on Activision-Blizzard’s marketing and sales show.

This hit is a pure hit against Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch marketing, and it’s brought the Switch port into the light of day. Sales of the Switch port will be watched closely by both sides.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#62

Post by rayiner »

notyourday wrote: post #40
rayiner wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These incidents are making me reevaluate my views on the Cold War. Growing up after the Cold War was over, I always thought the domestic reaction (in the US) to the Soviet Union and Communism was overblown. Of course, growing up during the 1990s boom, it was inconceivable to me that any foreign country could have the slightest negative impact on me, or that there was any possibility that the future offered anything o…

The difference is that the USSR was a small market, so it was possible to crush it economically, which is what the West did. This time around China is looking to become the largest market and if we let it to become one before China sheds its "communism with Chinese characteristics", it will crush the West.

> This time around China is looking to become the largest market and if we let it to become one before China sheds its "communism with Chinese characteristics", it will crush the West.

If China can shed Communism and compete with the West as a free society, then more power to it. It might hurt American pride a bit, but the U.K. seems to have managed...

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#63

Post by alasdair_ »

cjbprime wrote: post #50
dtn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NetEase, their regional publisher, made that statement. It was also posted before the controversy started.

Thanks, didn't know that, I'd thought it was Blizzard China.

>Thanks, didn't know that, I'd thought it was Blizzard China.

It effectively IS Blizzard China. NetEase run the servers for the games in China and handle all the IP messiness that comes with launching in that country.

As an example: Amazon doesn't directly run AWS in China but instead has a partner firm that they work with but the brand is still AWS and the two are intimately tied together.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#64

Post by sodosopa »

desine wrote: post #28
streb-lo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is going to hurt their bottom line far more than China will. Yea right. a) China has a huge market and b) most people don't really care. Go to /r/hearthstone or /r/wow and browse by new. People don't care.

I have no evidence, but I am willing to bet there is a large China based disinformation campaign regarding players and their opinions. Right now nothing should be taken at face value, nobody should be taking their feelings from someone else's reddit comment. Not that I'm holding my breath.

Tencent is also an investor in reddit. I wouldn’t doubt they’re turfing the threads.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#65

Post by cloakandswagger »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

This is a crisis point for everyone who supports political free speech. Every corporation and business person is watching this to see which hurts their bottom line less, suppressing free speech globally, or angering China. As consumers, we must make sure that they get the message loud and clear that suppressing free speech globally on behalf of China is going to hurt their bottom line far more than China will. Otherw…

I agree with you completely, but this whole debacle has highlighted what seems to be hypocrisy in the general public's reaction to this.

Remember when The Daily Stormer got kicked off CloudFlare and a whole host of other platforms, to the point that no one would take their business and they were effectively censored? The average take on that seemed to be a mix of "Free speech doesn't apply to private companies" and "If you don't like it, build your own CDN/DNS/Paypal/certificate authority etc"

So what's the difference with this? Again, I agree completely with the concerns here, but what happened to TDS and a lot of other fringe sites was even more blatant and serious: They were de facto banned from the internet, whereas this is all over...a video game.

Did everyone come to the conclusion that corporations are powerful enough to effectively snuff out free speech since that happened, or is it different because this is China, or...?

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#66

Post by falcolas »

cjbprime wrote: post #50
dtn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NetEase, their regional publisher, made that statement. It was also posted before the controversy started.

Thanks, didn't know that, I'd thought it was Blizzard China.

Net-Ease is Blizzard China. All of Blizzard’s sales and marketing must occur in partnership with NetEase; there is no other voice for Blizzard in China.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#67

Post by mwfunk »

vkou wrote: post #14
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #4

This is a crisis point for everyone who supports political free speech. Every corporation and business person is watching this to see which hurts their bottom line less, suppressing free speech globally, or angering China. As consumers, we must make sure that they get the message loud and clear that suppressing free speech globally on behalf of China is going to hurt their bottom line far more than China will. Otherw…

No, it's not. It's a crisis for speech by entities that are seeking to make millions of dollars in China. Those corporations were never in the business of defending free speech in the first place. If you were expecting them to, I would suggest finding better role models. This is not a problem for anyone who does not care about selling out to the Chinese market.

Having expectations of moral behavior from someone doesn't mean you consider them a role model, it means you have standards. A role model is someone you aspire to be, but I expect everyone I deal with to have some sort of basic standards of decency. If not, I don't deal with them and neither should anyone else.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#68

Post by sodosopa »

rayiner wrote: post #62
notyourday wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that the USSR was a small market, so it was possible to crush it economically, which is what the West did. This time around China is looking to become the largest market and if we let it to become one before China sheds its "communism with Chinese characteristics", it will crush the West.

> This time around China is looking to become the largest market and if we let it to become one before China sheds its "communism with Chinese characteristics", it will crush the West. If China can shed Communism and compete with the West as a free society, then more power to it. It might hurt American pride a bit, but the U.K. seems to have managed...

> but the U.K. seems to have managed...

Except for that Brexit conundrum.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#69

Post by ReptileMan »

Dan_JiuJitsu wrote: post #58

I will never purchase another game from Activision or Blizzard unless they recant this backwards position. American art and media should not be subject to Chinese influence. I've been a loyal customer over the years, but I have a long memory. Refuse to delete my account if you will, it will never be used again.

And I will never purchase another game until they start making good ones again. That is far bigger sin than refusing to be political about Hong Kong.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#70

Post by Dan_JiuJitsu »

vkou wrote: post #21
azernik wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> anyone who does not care about selling out to the Chinese market It's a crisis for speech by customers of those companies , who must make clear that they are just as capable of punishing those companies as the Chinese government.

When you're a tournament winner, you're not a customer of the company, you're a partner that's using the tournament as a soapbox for your politics.

Coincidentally this is something an employee of a dictatorship would say. You must work with Winnie the Poo.
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