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BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

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41–50 of 194 posts

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#41

As long as the protesters don't disrupt the experience that I paid for too much, they can do whatever they want. After weighing the facts carefully, I've decided that Blizzard was justified in penalizing the Hearthstone player, justified in penalizing the two casters, and truly abysmal at managing public relations. My position on Hong Kong is unchanged. I'm still firmly of the belief that China needs to grant Hong Ko…

> the experience that I paid for I would feel sorry for you, but you would have to pay me for that too. I ask myself what facts are there to be weighted. I doubt playing along and suddenly China liberalizes is a realistic outlook. But since China wasn't content with keeping their content rules within their own borders, that option quickly became less interesting. And I do believe that warrants a very strong answer. O…

Did you read my last sentence?

China needs to be dealt with. The world has ignored its crimes against humanity for too long.

But that doesn't change my position on Blizzard's actions.

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#42
post #10
post #3

This will be truly interesting to see. I wonder what can Blizzard possibly do for this not to spiral out of control and please West and China at the same time. I do not envy their PR department right now. But then again its all their own doing, so ready up the popcorn...

they cannot please both. They will have to ride out the bad PR in the west, because they cannot afford to ride out the chinese market's dominance and profits.

Stop saying that. Many companies could completely afford to abandon the Chinese market. They just don't want to.

I have slightly more sympathy (from a practical perspective) for those with significant supply chains in China - that extraction will take time.

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#43
post #2

Blizzard president Brack’s statement that their policy limiting player speech is to “ keep the focus on the game and on the tournament." This is curious in such an ad supported game and tournament coverage. Do twitch ads take focus away from the tournament? A five second statement by a player is nothing compared to all the non-game material within and around broadcasts. This seems to me to be some damage reduction st…

They can eliminate the April Fools problem they had last blizzcon by simply lot allowing fans to ask questions direct to the panel but instead have them submitted and chosen. April Fools problem was when a person asking a question chose to comment and ask something else, namely about mobile version of Diablo.

That's what happened with this guy (the guy in red). He was pre-screened, he wasn't selected at random. He was well known in the community as well, Blizzard already went with a safe crowd member. Short of embedding their own "paid-crowd" in the audience.. they couldn't have done much more.

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#44

The fact that Blizzard is in a position to throw a 'Con' each year shows that their games and lore are way more highly valued then most games companies. Could you imagine fans paying $230 to visit to an EA exclusive convention each year? Not gonna happen with their reputation. Blizzard is at real risk of losing this community they've fostered for the last 20+ years

> Blizzard is at real risk of losing this community they've fostered for the last 20+ years

I'm reminded of that image of people in a Call of Duty boycott on Steam, playing Call of Duty. Blizzard will lose some money over the next couple of weeks, but aren't at a real risk of anything.

https://kotaku.com/what-modern-warfare-2-boycotters-are-play...

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#46
post #10
post #3

This will be truly interesting to see. I wonder what can Blizzard possibly do for this not to spiral out of control and please West and China at the same time. I do not envy their PR department right now. But then again its all their own doing, so ready up the popcorn...

they cannot please both. They will have to ride out the bad PR in the west, because they cannot afford to ride out the chinese market's dominance and profits.

The chinese market is not dominant and won’t be for quite a long time, if ever. The West (i.e. Five Eyes + EU) collectively has a far larger GDP and much more of it is in the form of consumer disposable income.

What China represents that’s so attractive to multinationals is a virtually untapped market and so enormous opportunity for growth. But if it came down to picking one or the other the smart move would be the west.

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a statement written for Chinese Authorities. This twitter thread analyzes it pretty well. https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1183215204525412352

>See the date. As others have noted, even thought this post was on Friday, which was the 11th, the date on the post is the 12th, indicating that it was posted from overseas, possibly China. That's not a big deal in and of itself, but let's me talk about how these things are done. Ah yes, UTC == China. Very reasonable logic here! This post was almost certainly made on Fri Oct 11 2019 17:18:58 PDT from Irvine, CA. Ever…

[flagged]

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#48

The fact that Blizzard is in a position to throw a 'Con' each year shows that their games and lore are way more highly valued then most games companies. Could you imagine fans paying $230 to visit to an EA exclusive convention each year? Not gonna happen with their reputation. Blizzard is at real risk of losing this community they've fostered for the last 20+ years

Hardly a unique thing. Last WG fest got 200k attendees, for example.

https://eng.belta.by/society/view/wargaming-fest-tanker-day-...

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#49

The fact that Blizzard is in a position to throw a 'Con' each year shows that their games and lore are way more highly valued then most games companies. Could you imagine fans paying $230 to visit to an EA exclusive convention each year? Not gonna happen with their reputation. Blizzard is at real risk of losing this community they've fostered for the last 20+ years

> Blizzard is at real risk of losing this community they've fostered for the last 20+ years I'm reminded of that image of people in a Call of Duty boycott on Steam, playing Call of Duty. Blizzard will lose some money over the next couple of weeks, but aren't at a real risk of anything. https://kotaku.com/what-modern-warfare-2-boycotters-are-play...

Maybe. Hearthstone has been on a downward trend for the last 1.75 years as evident by their quarterly reports over that time period which state the game has had a decline of active users and revenue. They’ve even started to monetize previously non-monetized product offerings but it didn’t result in the game out-earning previous expansions released in the same time of the year. I doubt the current scandal has helped the numbers recover.

Re: BlizzCon 2019 Protest “Full-Steam Ahead,” Say Organizers

#50
IMO, Blizzards actions have been borderline incompetent.

I completely understand them not wanting their platform to be used to make political statements. This isn't like the NBA situation where Morey used a private social media account to show support for his private political opiniona. This was a platform owned by Blizzard with a very specific content focus.

But banning Blitzchung for any amount of time was just dumb. They have the right to respond that way, but it's still a dumb response.

They should have made a public statement following the incident that went something like this:

"We encourage players and community members to express themselves. However, our tournament coverage is a platform for Blizzard e-sports content only. Any future use of the platform to express personal political opinions on sensitive subject matter without Blizzard's express conscent will be met with punative action."

Follow that up with a description of what that punative action would look like.

I can't imagine any backlash to that. Many people would be unhappy, but I doubt there would be protests or letters from congress.

Blizzard made a mistake and they are refusing to learn from it. Now they get to deal with the fallout.

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