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

Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 460 posts

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#121

Post by falcolas »

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 "…

I happen to agree with you:

There is literally no space on the internet that is public. There are only private spaces on the internet. And the internet is pivotal to modern communication.

It's very, very hard to craft a statement that has any meaning that offends nobody.

I believe that the ability to have free speech is important to the US; important enough to be codified into law.

As such I believe that companies who provide communication platforms, that are based on the morals of the US (or more practically who use US resources while conducting their business), should honor free speech.

If they don't - if they only honor convenient speech - genuine and open public discourse will disappear.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#122

Post by gpm »

irq wrote: post #108
paulddraper wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are between a rock and hard place. It's a total no-win for them now. (Queue morbid curiosity.)

It's definitely not no-win. They can completely exit the Chinese market. The company will still survive if they do so. Earlier in this thread it was pointed out China generates only 10% of their revenue.

This.

Fire some people, make hongkong-protestor-Mei a skin [0], declare "we screwed up" in big letters, at that point the press this has generated for them would probably be a net win in the non-PRC market.

[0] end of this video https://old.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/dibrb0/overwatch...

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#123

Post by belltaco »

threeseed wrote: post #112
ReptileMan wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People have died and many are missing due to the Hong Kong situation. That's more important than a game.

Boycotting Blizzard will do exactly nothing to change that.

Maybe put financial pressure on China by not buying things made in China? Nah that's too inconvenient for the keyboard(Made in China) warriors.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#124

Post by Aperocky »

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.

If you’re running a business there are certain things you don’t say to your customers despite being your right of free speech to say so. Alternatively, you can say whatever you like and lose those customer.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#125

Post by Latty »

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?

All these companies should refuse to self-censor for China. China does want western media and products. The fact that companies capitulate makes that the standard practice, and means China feels safe demanding it (or doesn't even need to because of the chilling effect). They can make a spectacle of any one company that refuses. I'm not saying that China wouldn't just ban them all, but it would at least mean there is a cost to China in doing it.

Yeah, that's putting profit at risk, 100%. That's precisely why it's so important that western audiences tell these companies that they'll loose western business if they capitulate—it has to be made the economic least-bad option to stand up to China for it to be common.

They created the situation by capitulating. Yeah, it turns out morals are at odds with profits. Who'd have guessed.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#126

Post by codezero »

RandomTisk wrote: post #42
vkou wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a litmus test: Do you also boycott Chick-Fil-A, for their, far worse stance against basic human rights (Giving money to charities that are actively working on promoting anti-gay hate crimes)? And the NFL, for their unwillingness to have the playing field be a soapbox for political statements about the treatment of African Americans, by police? You must surely note that many people who have recently jumped on the…

Religious freedom != hate crimes, at least not yet. When those are equal though, trust me Chick Fil A will be the least of your problems.

I’m the US the two are getting very close to being the same. Maybe not hate crimes per se. but discrimination supported by faith.

Not providing employees coverage for contraceptives, or firing someone for a low cut blouse, refusing to serve a gay couple, trying to make sexual orientation not a protected class from discrimination entirely is currently on the plate, all of these are pushed by faith based organizations.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#127

Post by Lazare »

vbezhenar wrote: post #110
ncallaway wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They banned him because he spoken about politics which have nothing with video games. I don't think that they tried to censor exactly HK speech. I guess they would have banned him if he would talk about Putin as well.

You reckon they'd have banned him if he'd worn a Elizabeth Warren campaign badge?

Really? Like...that's a thing you honestly can imagine?

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#128

Post by outworlder »

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

There aren't really western companies in China. They may retain the use of the name, but they have to use existing "partners". It's not like you can just rent an office and staff it, unlike almost everywhere else – heck, you can't even have a website there if you don't have boots on the ground.

In this case, they are as close to being 'Blizzard China' as they can possibly be.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#129

Post by wesammikhail »

flippinburgers wrote: post #105
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 only difference is that one type is a type of free speech that people tend to agree with.

Free speech isn´t really free speech unless it is granted to dissenting voices. The majority (or acceptable range of discourse) does not need protection by definition. That´s why free speech exists to begin with.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#130

Post by donio »

streb-lo wrote: post #17
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…

> 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.

https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

It may be a huge potential market but it's not a huge portion of current revenues. All of APAC (which is not just China) is only 12% of the total.

Post reply on HN