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Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

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Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#51

Post by VicFrank »

orisho wrote: post #8

Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an official Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something. He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

This is the rule in question

> Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.

The rule is not "political speech is not allowed" it's "don't make us look bad."

Choosing to ban this player is absolutely picking a side, and it's not with the good guys.

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#52

Post by jug »

alpaca128 wrote: post #4

"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD [...]" That's pretty close to "Blizzard can remove you from Grandmasters as soon as you open your mouth". Sad to see such a cowardice from corporations, alth…

Eh, it's pretty much a given that a company won't tolerate using their games as platforms for politics or propaganda. I consider this no better than annoying spam and I'm happy they did it. I don't want to see it if I'm playing their games. I didn't sign up for that, so get it out. I don't care if it's politics that I support or not.

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#54

Post by tyfon »

orisho wrote: post #8

Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an official Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something. He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

Sometimes you just got to voice your opinion [1]

Blizzard chose money over human rights and they will have to stand for it themselves. They've already picked a side, money. Now they lost my money though.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salu...

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#55

Post by mytailorisrich »

orisho wrote: post #8

Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an official Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something. He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

They should have an explicit rule against political displays like they have in football (I mean soccer).

That way it's clear for everyone rather than having a catch-all rule that is arbitrary and does not tell players where the line is.

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#56

Post by hos234 »

mlang23 wrote: post #24
alpaca128 wrote: post #4

"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD [...]" That's pretty close to "Blizzard can remove you from Grandmasters as soon as you open your mouth". Sad to see such a cowardice from corporations, alth…

Isn't this basically the same with all big corporations these days? If you say unpopular things on your YouTube channel, you will be demonitized.as a way of punishment. In short, either you please big brother, or you will suffer.

Big corps can't escalate things as a reaction or on a whim. They have much more to loose than a single protestor does. It has to be planned. Preferably with all other big corps in tow. Google tried and their market share went from 35% to 2%.

Now if they had got together with other corps, and drawn a line the story might have been different. That said, with each attempt comes learning and the next attempt wont go the same way.

The Chinese aren't immune to pressure (as the tariff wars show) and there are invisible lines in the sand, they can be pushed to step over that will unify opposition and escalate things.

Intelligent protest is about finding those lines.

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#57

Post by playing_colours »

I am thinking about it from the angle of video games vs. real world.

Be a hero, a revolutionary, a pirate, feel encouraged to work hard, explore more, improve yourself, rebel, but only there in a safe artificial illusion, virtual world they built for you. In real life, do stay a passive compliant consumer, a source of money (or energy like in Matrix).

This chasm seems to keep widening with the progress in technologies like VR, and this way of organizing a society is very convenient for businesses and people in power. Welcome to Coward New World!

Ingenious next steps in this direction would be to seamlessly integrate our jobs into artificial reality, so that people can sustain themselves, make money for corporations and people in power - do all this staying totally immersed in the illusionary world. Get exclusive game currency, bonuses to your stats from your employer for a good work. Mmmm, I want to write a book about it :)

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#59

Post by twno1 »

ohashi wrote: post #5

NBA, Blizzard, who is next?

What next? I just checked how many game companies owned by Tencent. I don't think situation will going better. Especially these are popular esport games (Fortnite, LOL, PUBG)

https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-...

Re: Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest

#60

Post by Iv »

orisho wrote: post #8

Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an official Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something. He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

And what's wrong about letting whoever won a tournament have their 10 seconds of free speech to pass on a message?

Are we so afraid of free speech that we must insist on compartmentalizing subjects in that way? Just have Blizzard make a statement saying "That person's opinion is only his own, not Blizzard's" and be done with it.

And yes, that means the next one may shout about veganism or white supremacy. So what? That will benefit or hurt the people speaking, not Blizzard.

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