Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament • Hacker News Board

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#151

Post by icu » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:24 AM UTC

scruple wrote: post #30

Reads like a typical corporate response. Sanitized by lawyers, PR, and executives. It says nothing substantial. It's trying to ride the middle ground but it's just flat out contradictory in the face of their actions these past few days. Very sad. Whatever piece of the original Blizzard may have been left in Irvine is surely on life support from the beating that Activision has been giving it for the last decade(s).

I just don't think there is any of the original Blizzard left, except maybe the artists. WoW has tanked in gameplay, the Diablo franchise has been starved, and then forced into something it's not... Heroes of the Storm has been killed off, Starcraft has been starved. Classic WoW (old IP), Hearthstone (lets be fair it's a casual mobile game) and Overwatch (just another shooter) are pretty much it sadly.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#152

Post by chance_state » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

cpeterso wrote: post #45

Ellen Pao (former Reddit CEO): "Tech companies: We tolerate harassment and hate so we can enable political dissent, public squares, free speech Also tech companies: Censor the Hong Kong protestors and kill all their communication channels" https://twitter.com/ekp/status/1182710608887611394?s=21

Do people still take Ellen Pao seriously? On free speech, no less?

She lead the charge in censoring and banning Reddit communities that offended her.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#153

Post by Arwill » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:51 AM UTC

belltaco wrote: post #40

Summary of changes made: * Blitzchung will receive all his prize money. * Bliztchung's suspension from pro play halved to 6 months * Casters will now be allowed to cast Blizzard events after 6 months Key statements: * In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly * The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in Chi…

Imagine a comparable situation. Someone wins an olympic medal, and makes a political statement in the subsequent interview. Then the olympic committee decides to take the medal away, and ban the winner from competing again.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#154

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:04 AM UTC

chloerei wrote: post #105

I support Blizzard's decision, it kept the bottom line. I feel ridiculous, in order to support the riots in another country, some people were so passionate. I think this people are affected by anti-China sentiment. I write a post, tell everyone what happened in Hong Kong and try to persuade everyone not to make political opinions so easily, especially if a place is very far away from you. Stand with Hong Kong, but wh…

[deleted]

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#155

Post by y4mi » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 10:45 AM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #69

aasasd wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, does anyone know what the estimates are for the size of the in-game economy in WoW: items, characters, currency/jewelry, etc? I've heard some claims that would sober me right up, but dunno if those were too fictional.

If you're talking in real-world currency, then the size of the ingame economy is the sum of the maximums each player would be willing to spend for things in the game. Any other calculations are just cryptocurrency-esque market cap dreams.

its not as clear cut in WoW's case. you got blizzard selling game time tokens which players can sell on the auction house for atm ~230k gold.

and this isnt just an option, but something done extremely frequently. tokens are usually sold within one day.

(and blizzard takes ~40% more € for that token than a subscription would take, so blizzard actually has a massive profit margin there)

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#156

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 11:20 AM UTC

Arwill wrote: post #153

belltaco wrote: post #40

Summary of changes made: * Blitzchung will receive all his prize money. * Bliztchung's suspension from pro play halved to 6 months * Casters will now be allowed to cast Blizzard events after 6 months Key statements: * In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly * The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in Chi…

Imagine a comparable situation. Someone wins an olympic medal, and makes a political statement in the subsequent interview. Then the olympic committee decides to take the medal away, and ban the winner from competing again.

[deleted]

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#157

Post by gremlinsinc » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 11:25 AM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #14

minimaxir wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scanning social media, I haven't seen a single gaming influencer say it's a sufficient statement: https://twitter.com/search?q=filter%3Averified%20https%3A%2F... The contrarian viewpoint is "what were you expecting?" in which case the reply is "an actual apology."

Or even a hamfisted attempt at an apology like you get out of many PR departments. The only thing that remotely resembles an apology in the whole release is: > In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly. No explanation of how that happened. No discussion about what they are doing to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's not even saying, "We made a snap decision and it was wrong." It seems…

They did a much better job apologizing to China. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dfkmp1/blizzards_...

Had they not done that they might be believable, but because of the way the kowtow to china, definitely hard to find any honesty/truth in their statement.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#158

Post by lisp-missionary » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 11:58 AM UTC

Gonzih wrote: post #104

I feel like this is Activision and not Blizzard talking.

I feel like this is Joshua and not Josh talking.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#159

Post by lisp-missionary » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:09 PM UTC

blzrdnofreespch wrote: post #135

Some people think China wrote some or all of this response: https://mobile.twitter.com/SGBluebell/status/118281758814705...

I highly recommend anyone following this thread to take a look at those tweets and replies.

I thought there was some awkward speech but didnt realize why.

What are prizings? This definitely was not written by an English speaker which takes it from corporate BS to totally creepy.

Re: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

#160

Post by freeflight » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 12:28 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #76

freeflight wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any way they could have addressed that without the hysteria still spinning it negatively. Because it's not like they mention that out of nowhere: They are directly referring to accusations that they were pressured into shutting that particular player down by the Chinese government. There's a whole lot of people out there who will not be satisfied with any answer contradicting that narrative. Heck, even if…

> Heck, even if Blizzard went out there and would fully admit "The Chinese government pressured us to shut this particular player down", then people would complain how Blizzard could ever buckle to those demands in the first place. No. There are two fan axes here: agreement and respect. Companies (and your comment) seem to focus on the former, while being completely oblivious to the latter. If Blizzard had said "Our…

> Instead, they forfeited both.

How did they forfeit both? Do we have any evidence for Blizzard being pressured do this?

We absolutely have not, all we have is a bunch of social-media hysteria were this claim originally came from, in complete ignorance of the fact that Blizzard has banned plenty of pro-players before for voicing "negative speech" [0].

In that context your response is exactly what I was referring to: People are not interested in what actually happened, people only want to hear what they THINK happened, even if there's zilch evidence backing it up and it never actually happened.

Again: What evidence is there that Blizzard was pressured into doing this and as such debunking their reaction as a straight-faced lie? There is none, while there's a long list of other competitive players who've been banned for exactly the same reason.

I do not even understand why this is so controversial on HN out of all places. This whole comment section reads like Reddit, lots of appeals to emotions, very little sticking to the facts at hand.

[0] https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Banned_players