People should start boycotting western companies that perform this kind of humiliating bowing to China, Saudi Arabia, etc. Yet of course, most companies are doing that...
I thought Western companies had to pursue profits at all costs? China is a big juicy market.
Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
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Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#312Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#313I really don't like how this is made out as "China clamping down on Blizzard", just like it was framed when Ubisoft tried to get a lower age-rating for Rainbow Six Siege and claimed that was what China demanded for their market. Blizzard has been suspending plenty of pro players in plenty of their games for all kinds of questionable, and not so questionable reasons. And because Blizzard is a private company, offering…
> just like it was framed when Ubisoft tried to get a lower age-rating for Rainbow Six Siege and claimed that was what China demanded for their market. Ubisoft straight up said the changes were for compliance for their plans to expand into Asia. With not a single mention of a lower age-rating. [1] > We are currently working towards preparing Rainbow Six Siege for expansion into Asian territories. As such, there will…
Their very first bullet point is "A SINGLE, GLOBAL VERSION".
All the example changes they showed would very likely have lowered the game's age rating across the board, which right now is 18+, the worst possible and considered poison for sales because many parents do still care about them.
Violence removed (Germany), substance abuse removed (Australia), depictions of gambling removed (again Australia&UK). The whole package of changes had the potential to get the game rated down to something like 13 years, maybe 16 years in Germany.
You can't disregard something like that and then focus on Asian markets, while only using it as a synonym for China, as if China is the only country with these kinds of regulations.
As a German, it just irks me, when it was the norm that we would get specially censored versions of games, replacing humans with robots and making hostages in CS unkillable, there was no outrage about the authoritarian German government "forcing US companies to comply".
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#314I agree 100% that we should boycott and sanction, however doubt there will be enough people who will, and enough people who care. And I don't blame most for not caring, there are more things to worry about than we have time available. Maybe 1% of hearthstone players will see your comment. Similarly, there are other entities which need to be sanctioned, which you and me won't find out about as it's outside of our area…
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#315Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, currently the Hearthstone and Blizzard discussion forums on Reddit are up in arms. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/blizzard
Yup, I'm cancelling my wow sub over this and read about it first on Reddit.
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#316Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…
A better solution would be for all hearthstone pro players to start talking about hong kong on solidarity.
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#317Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…
Boycotts usually don't achieve anything (historically most boycotts have had no effect whatsoever), so it's hardly going to be a good solution in the short term. Legal action (if possible, but I doubt so since a private corporation can basically do what they want according to their rules) would be better. The best would be to simply throw a continuous torrent of tweets, videos and articles to ridicule Blizzard and He…
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#318Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#319Then we have to boycott Hearthstone. While the current case is neither surprising nor substantially important, it is important because of principle. Blizzard is not responsible for what players say in interviews. In our society, it still matters that people can tolerate other opinions. The Chinese government tries to make it a new normal that entire people can have their "feelings hurt" (what?) by mere non-insulting…
Re: Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments
#320Can we please start a cultural movement that forces large corporations to choose between appeasing Chinese censors and looking like fools to the rest of the west or getting banned in China. Really seems like a win win scenario.
How about Chinese owners? Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-... AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned…