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Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

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Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#141

Post by unqueued »

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…

I don't think this is over. Blizzard has invested a lot in the assumption that they will make a lot of money in China. And if protesters make enough noise, they might destroy that.

It would take very little effort by protestors to destroy Blizzard's plans that they've been working on for years. The straw that breaks the camel's back could be that at an official Blizzard event, someone drops a banner that says: 光復香港 時代革命.

Even if the deal does not go through, it would severely harm Blizzard's leverage.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#142

Post by kmonsen »

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.

The Chinese version of the Blizzard statement was different: https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/10/verified-chinese-bli...

It included we will defend the honor of the nation, making it clear exactly what he did wrong.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#143

Post by ikiris »

ncallaway wrote: post #89
DoreenMichele wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And everyone else in the room at the time was terminated. Which was the amazing part that totally destroyed any attempt at high ground.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#144

Post by themacguffinman »

falcolas wrote: post #101
thatswrong0 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FWIW, there is no visible pressure that has been exhibited from China against Blizzard. There have been no statements from China either in support or condemnation of any of the involved actors. The situation is entirely driven by Blizzard, for fear of their potential revenue stream out of China. This is in contrast to the NBA scenario, where China did speak out against the NBA, and later began to cancel contracts.

You can't say there is no visible pressure on Blizzard while mentioning the NBA in the same breath. China's aggressive move on the NBA is the pressure. It's an example to every company that operates in China: toe the party line, or face local obstruction like the NBA.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#145

Post by npo9 »

thrower123 wrote: post #26
michaelmrose wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never buy another product by blizzard regardless of future behavior. I will be reminding people of their feckless behavior in one star reviews a decade from now. I doubt I'm the only one. I support the corporate death penalty.

This would be more of a big deal if Blizzard was still making products that appealed to a Western market. They really don't, anymore. They've reached the point that they are just remastering their greatest hits. Otherwise it is all e-sports.

I’m pretty sure a new Call of Duty game still comes out every year and is a huge seller in the west.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#146

Post by kmonsen »

belltaco wrote: post #94
CocaKoala wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wrong, it would have got huge media play in China as Blizzard not enforcing its rules in opposition to China. Just like the NBA issue.

Only if China decided to do so. They can pick a fight about anything they want to, so there is really no avoiding that.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#147

Post by detaro »

CocaKoala wrote: post #84
DoreenMichele wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or just not went as overboard with it. Doing something might have been a good idea to still send a message (both to China and to players to please not repeat it), the tricky bit is not looking unreasonable while doing so. (e.g. certainly not rescind the price money)

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#148

Post by falcolas »

vbezhenar wrote: post #131
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 it considered acceptable to push your political agenda on an unrelated events? For me it looks strange and out of place. Now punishing people for that might be too harsh. But if every sport event will turn into political debates (imagine US and RU sportsmen arguing with each other), it'll be bad and free speech has nothing to do with it IMO.

Blizzard did this first; set the stage for mixing politics with video games. Blizzard hosted and promoted a LGBTQ+ event in Overwatch, and much like Mei is being used by HK, Blizzard are using Tracer as a representative of the LGBTQ+ community.

That the event was not done in Russia and China, and that Tracer has a different sexual orientation in those countries, is quite telling.

The only difference is that the LGBTQ+ political statement had the effect of boosting their revenue, whereas the HK statement may have the opposite effect.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#149

Post by omegaworks »

jknoepfler wrote: post #98
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 "…

edit: I'm being downvote bombed for this, which is strange. Anyone care to articulate reasons for disagreeing? Would it be correct to boycott CloudFlare for deplatforming the Daily Stormer? No, because there's nothing wrong with deplatforming Nazis, there was nothing morally reprehensible in Cloudflare's actions. Would it be correct to boycott Blizzard for severely over-reacting to a pro Hong Kong political act on on…

It is the business of extremist groups to craft the illusion of difficulty parsing between the two scenarios.

The modern neo-nazi movement subverts mechanisms for questioning and checking power, even going as far as subverting the brand power of "free speech" to mean their speech and only their speech, in order to accumulate power around themselves and their interests. It is tragic that we can't have conversations about imperial powers suppressing independence movements without connoting that those principles protect speech suppressing and threatening minority groups.

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