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Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

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Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#271

Post by Aperocky »

derefr wrote: post #217
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…

> no real way they will win They could win everywhere but China, by explicitly choosing to withdraw their products from China.

And the subgroup of politically charged western customers will due to this spend more than the entire Chinese market in the long term.

I'm pretty sure Blizzard calculated this.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#272

Post by mensetmanusman »

Latty wrote: post #125
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?

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…

China has shown they will steal the source code and create a ‘home grown’...

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#273

Post by mcguire »

derefr wrote: post #217
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…

> no real way they will win They could win everywhere but China, by explicitly choosing to withdraw their products from China.

And kill their profit margin.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#274

Post by jknoepfler »

falcolas wrote: post #226
jknoepfler wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you deliberately ignore the note about government induced oligopolies? You don't have a right to free speech on the comment section of my blog, or my twitch chat stream, or my discord channel. Those platforms enable me to moderate that content. If they lacked that feature, it wouldn't support or undermine anyone's rights, mine or yours.

Unless the government provides internet service, what does it matter who runs the ISPs, whether they are "government induced ogliopolies" or plucky startups? They're still private entities; still not protected by your vision of the right to free speech.

"Ownership" is not black-and-white in this space. The government (in the United States anyway) grants/auctions access to publicly owned resources (such as water, power, rail, land, the federal reserve, etc. etc.) for the purposes of creating fundamental infrastructure.

How property rights for those resources convey corresponding constitutional rights of users (or other government imposed requirements, see for example insurance and healthcare) is something that is continually in tension and requires constant litigation.

As distinct, say, from the twitch chat feed on my speedrunning channel.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#275

Post by echelon »

esoterica wrote: post #250
echelon wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> demanding that companies be forced to produce anti-Chinese media against their economic interest. What? I never suggested this. > The first amendment protects people’s rights to shill for China in exchange for $$$. That’s what freedom of speech actually means. Right. And China discovered this fitness gradient. Luckily we can use taxes on negative externalities to adjust for the damage that is being done.

Taxing speech you don’t like is the exact opposite of being pro-free speech.

> Taxing speech you don’t like is the exact opposite of being pro-free speech.

I'm suggesting that we tax all business activities in China because China has shown themselves to be an enemy of the West and of democracy. They pose an existential threat to both and we should begin taking additional measures to protect and secure our interests.

I'm not saying we tax pro-China messages or force companies to produce anti-Chinese sentiment. Don't reframe this as a free speech argument.

China has a demand for western media, and they cede small amounts of control when they let our messaging and culture reach them. By economically disincentivizing the creation of specialized media that is custom-tailored for consumption by the Chinese market, they are left with true and unfettered western culture. A culture that flies in the face of fascist narratives.

No one goes out of their way to create pro-Chinese media if there isn't something in it for them.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#276

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #156
vbezhenar wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One one hand, sure he broke the rules. If they had said "don't do that any more", or given him a slap on the wrist it would be understandable. But they banned him for a year and revoked the winnings he had already received in tournament play— Blitzchung got a worse punishment than people who got caught cheating at Blizzard games. I think that says a lot about where their priorities are. Based on past events (even Bli…

> One one hand, sure he broke the rules.

This is a very generous (towards Blizzard) interpretation. The rules weren't "no politics". The rules were a generic "don't piss us off or do anything we may find objectionable", basically.

Per the Verge, 'The rule in question forbids players from doing anything that “brings [them] into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages [Blizzard’s] image.”'

It's designed to be arbitrary, because if you were to strictly enforce it anyone would violate it simply by existing nowadays.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#277

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

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.

But Blizzard would likely have lost access to the Chinese market.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#278

Post by helpPeople »

echelon wrote: post #202

We need to impose an 80% repatriation tax on any profits earned in China in order to offset the damages done to our domestic freedom of speech. China should not be able to control society outside of its own walls, yet they have blatantly influenced the behavior of our biggest mass media companies for years. To be fair, they've done an outstanding job of it. They fund a huge number of film productions. They've bought…

I recommend reading Tao Te Ching.

You will realize your mistakes.

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#279

Post by nyolfen »

Pfhreak wrote: post #209
Copyrighted wrote: post #45

Mark Kern (ex-lead WoW dev, and dev for Starcraft/Warcraft/Diablo 2) posted a good analysis of Blizzard's statement on Blitzchung. https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1183215204525412352?ref_sr...

FYI, for folks who aren't familiar, Mark Kern's history also includes full throated support of GamerGate and being removed from a CEO role at Red 5 by the board of directors. (Allegedly for erratic and disruptive behavior.) It's been a really, really wild ride seeing lefty twitter and righty twitter hold hands and agree that Blizzard did the wrong thing. (Though for different reasons.)

> FYI, for folks who aren't familiar, Mark Kern's history also includes full throated support of GamerGate and being removed from a CEO role at Red 5 by the board of directors. (Allegedly for erratic and disruptive behavior.)

how are these relevant to the subject at hand, particularly the second issue? it comes across like fnords

Re: Blizzard Cancels Overwatch Event

#280

Post by alasdair_ »

yesco wrote: post #233
alasdair_ wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karl Popper explained in detail why it’s perfectly rational to praise tolerance and still be intolerant of intolerance. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance “if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”

> Popper took pains to make clear that he did not mean the expression of intolerant words and ideas, but in fact the opposite: They who must not be tolerated are those who wish to silence discussion and debate

Right.

Killing “the jews” silences discussion and debate.

I’d definitely advocate reading Popper’s own words instead of the potentially ambiguous wikipedia summary.

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