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Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

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Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#191

Post by falcolas »

themacguffinman wrote: post #144
falcolas wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Activision Blizzard is not a company that would be bankrupted by the loss of the Chinese market; they chose on their own merely for a potential future in that market.

That they chose to toe the party line on their own, without prompting from the Chinese government, with swift and overwhelming penalties on the player and shoutcasters doesn't exactly speak well for Blizzard.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#192

Post by taurath »

ben_jones wrote: post #179
taurath wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a very awkward situation for blizzard, one they have ultimately created, no real way they will win. I don't think they created it per-say. I think they, and probably most of the executives in the industry, missed just how much a powder-keg chinese censorship is, and how political doing live international (or even national) sporting events can get. Everyone in the west is pissed at blizzard for cowing to Chi…

I wonder if the initial decision was made by Chinese Executives and Event staff without consulting corporate HQ, then corporate backed them since they have no obvious strategy for backpedaling.

Extremely unlikely, especially given the response afterwards. Blizzard runs things, despite the corporate setup as it is force to be in China.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#193

Post by belltaco »

michaelmrose wrote: post #12
rolltiide wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One east coast hurricane or larger west coast earthquake will drown this issue out

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.

While still happily buying Chinese products.

Boycotting Blizzard will not make a difference to China, well actually it helps by not transferring money from Chinese gamers to American companies and employees.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#194

Post by Copyrighted »

datapunk wrote: post #55
cjbprime wrote: post #10

The huge question here is what's going to happen at BlizzCon in two weeks. There'll be 40,000+ attendees, cameras everywhere, there are usually Q&A panels, homemade signs for player support, cosplay, everything. How can you host BlizzCon when you're terrified of political speech?

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…

They'll either avoid talking about China or attempt to "address" attendees concerns. If they do "address" attendees concerns it'll be something superficial to try and tide people over while they ride out their spate of bad PR. Like they're doing right now with Blitzchung and reducing his ban to six months which is still outrageous.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#195

Post by cjbprime »

ben_jones wrote: post #179
taurath wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a very awkward situation for blizzard, one they have ultimately created, no real way they will win. I don't think they created it per-say. I think they, and probably most of the executives in the industry, missed just how much a powder-keg chinese censorship is, and how political doing live international (or even national) sporting events can get. Everyone in the west is pissed at blizzard for cowing to Chi…

I wonder if the initial decision was made by Chinese Executives and Event staff without consulting corporate HQ, then corporate backed them since they have no obvious strategy for backpedaling.

But you just described the obvious strategy: say that corp should be involved in punishments that transcend a particular event (I'm sure they were already) and that corp has decided on punishment X instead.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#196

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#197

Post by legostormtroopr »

Latty wrote: post #136
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 between neo-nazis and democratic protest? The difference is content. I hate the tendency to fall back to arguments about free speech when that is not the point. Yes, of course everyone should be able to express views individually, but that doesn't mean I don't care about the content of what is being said. That doesn't mean everyone is entitled to the ability to ram that message down everyone's throat t…

> No hypocrisy because what is being said matters.

Free speech - for people you agree with. Well, I'm glad we sorted out that mess.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#199

Post by paulddraper »

barry-cotter wrote: post #93
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.)

Cue, as in it’s your cue to speak rather than queue as in line up to wait for something. Truly English spelling is a delight for historical linguists.

Ah, I thought it was "queue" as in "put in line to do next"

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#200

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

dpratt wrote: post #160
falcolas wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps not cleanly stated, but true. Blizzard quite explicitly catered to the LGBTQ+ demographic recently via an Overwatch promotion, a move that can easily be construed as political speech (and which was voluntarily censored by Blizzard in Russia and China). They stuck their feet into this arena, and are now realizing that making political statement can affect their revenue in both directions.

The fact that they voluntarily censored it in Russia and China is essentially definitive proof that they don’t actually care about the issue, but rather think it will gain them more money in the US. If they cared, they would have required that China and Russia be the bad guy and force them, but they’d clearly prefer to take the path of least resistance.

I think it's probably a bit more nuanced than that...

Much like how tons of companies seem to jump on the LGBT logo type stuff, I suspect this kind of pro-LGBT sentiment is driven by people within the company who genuinely mean it and then it's up to the company to: (a) embrace their suggestions in the name of boosting employee morale and involvement (b) say no to sidestep potential political implications and potentially unsettle workplace morale

The company fundamentally does not give a flying f*ck about the issue at hand, but it manages to work its way up along a chain of individuals who either do believe in the motives or are unwilling to be the one to say no until it actually gets put out officially. If there ever was a "there's big money in this stuff" thought, I seriously doubt it was a significant motivator as the person thinking that cynically would doubtless be aware of international considerations too.

I'm not trying to defend companies here at all, to be clear. I struggle to believe any company that isn't taking extremely proactive steps at the risk of their bottom line don't actually care about anything on an ethical level.

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