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Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

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Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#81

Post by birdyrooster »

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.

The Communist Party is selling out the future of the Chinese people for its own security. The world will not continue to subsidize China now that they have removed their mask. The monoculture they are building lacks the social tools necessary to compete on the global stage without external assistance and the west knows it.

There has been a lot of handwringing over China becoming the new global super power but what we seem to have instead is a repeat of North Korea but on much greater scale.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#82

Post by uwuhn »

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.

First they came for the skeletons, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a skeleton.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#84

Post by CocaKoala »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #80
datapunk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you respond when a character from your top grossing game is turned into a political meme? This is what Blizzard has been learning this week. How do you handle potentially thousands of attendees, at your organization's biggest annual event, turning it into a platform for political protest agaisnt your biggest growing market? There's three possible events: BlizzCon is canceled. Extremely unlikely but possible. B…

This is a very awkward situation for blizzard, one they have ultimately created How do you figure they created it?

If they had just not done anything when blitzchung made his statement in support of Hong Kong, it likely would have gotten essentially zero media play.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#85

Post by mactrey »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #65
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 "…

CloudFlare banned a site that was far, far outside the American political mainstream. Blizzard banned a player for saying something that is completely within the American political mainstream, to the point that supporting Hong Kong is a rare bipartisan stance.

When you go against the mainstream American stance to curry favor with an authoritarian regime that is also a current political enemy, well, that's kind of kicking the hornet's nest.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#86

Post by falcolas »

There are four primary effects of this cancelation:

1) It's given Nintendo a platform on which to distance themselves from Blizzard. The announcement from Nintendo explicitly notes that it's Blizzard who canceled the event.

2) It's reminded everyone that the Switch port of Overwatch is a thing, meaning that everyone from investors to people on both side of the HK issue will be watching its performance.

3) It's a lost opportunity for marketing for Blizzard. It's now pure cost, with the voice actors still needing to get paid for their time.

4) Attendance was limited, so this cancellation will create ill-will for Blizzard among those players who had obtained slots to attend.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#87

Post by SolaceQuantum »

vkou wrote: post #41
microcolonel wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, let's hope the kowtow to genocidal fascist dictatorship option is clearly the more painful of two painful paths.

How did this sort of thing work out for the NFL, in terms of kneeling players? Pretty well, all things considered.

The NFL never took Colin's entire NFL earnings away from him on top of firing anyone commenting on the initial sitting. I'm pretty sure if they did this, there would be much more uproar than letting him do it and quietly not signing him onto any more teams.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#88

Post by cloakandswagger »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #74
cloakandswagger wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "…

The difference is that a country which is committing human rights abuses is pressuring said private company (among _many_ others) to abridge free speech. The other case is a private company not wanting to host right-wing neo-nazi content of which the general public isn’t really accepting. I don’t see the hypocrisy here at all.. tbh I don’t even quite understand how you can conflate the two situations other than the f…

Both situations feature people being banned by companies due to their speech because the companies fear backlash from more powerful entities (China or the media/general public respectively).

They seem pretty comparable to me.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#89

Post by ncallaway »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #80
datapunk wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you respond when a character from your top grossing game is turned into a political meme? This is what Blizzard has been learning this week. How do you handle potentially thousands of attendees, at your organization's biggest annual event, turning it into a platform for political protest agaisnt your biggest growing market? There's three possible events: BlizzCon is canceled. Extremely unlikely but possible. B…

This is a very awkward situation for blizzard, one they have ultimately created How do you figure they created it?

They banned a player and stripped their prize-money for speaking out in favor of HK.

They did this in order to try and maintain access to Chinese markets, probably assuming that the US market wouldn't care.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#90

Post by busterarm »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #46
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…

> This is a crisis point for everyone who supports political free speech. It’s a crisis created by the political movement to force every company to take a political stance on every issue, and to force companies to not associate with political out-group members. I’m sure it feels really good when you’re in the in-group, but quite obviously gets people really worked up when it doesn’t come down on their side.

As much as I'm against combining work life and political life, I think there's a chasm of difference between taking a stance against someone who tweets things you don't like and a government who is engaged in ethnic cleansing.

Politics aside, just doing business in China and the security sacrifices made to do so is, to me, an outsized business risk and a risk that I wish my company would not take. I'm sure many others feel the same. The short term profits aren't worth the long term repercussions. My employer doesn't agree, but I still want to go on record with them saying so.

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