Blizzard bans Hearthstone champion and strips his income for offending a prison.

[Ev1l0rd]

Those arent journalists.
Those are corporate employees, payed with PR/marketing funds.
If you work in PR/marketing, and on your job get caught ducking away from controversy under your desk - you are producing the biggest possible PR damage for the company.

I never said they were journalists. Never pretended they were either. They're a broadcaster team that works for Blizzards marketing team that realized that the moment this guy opened his mouth on Hong Kong that he was putting their jobs on the line.

Like, I'm a cashier, not exactly a thing with high job security or anything, and I usually don't get in trouble if someone does stupid shit as long as I didn't cause it or made the situation worse. It's insane to me that Blizzard opted to fire them because of something they had no say or control over. My bottom-of-the-barrel job has higher job security than the job of these people.

Again - shed the perception, that something here should have happened more impartial, fairer, or more like in a proper society.

Just because it doesn't happen doesn't mean it shouldn't happen. I know it's not fair, but that doesn't change that I can express my desire to want it to be fair and personally criticize the situation for being unfair.

This is not your movement. This is not your culture. This is a corporate marketing ploy given any resemblance of importance by marketing spending. To entice more people to spend real money. Once you got that into your head - the entire story and company reaction will become much clearer to you.

I get why they did it; ActiBliz wants to suck up to the Chinese government so they don't risk getting their asses banned from China. I'm saying that I find it pathethic and ridiculous that they managed to tacitly agree with a government that abuses human rights on a regular basis whilst trying to enact a Big Brother state. Because, no matter how you spin it, that's what they inadvertingly did.

Those people had the job to sell you on the believe of professionalism, and importance of a designed concept. As casters. Now you are sorry for them? You'd wanted for them to remain in their jobs, peddling you a fantasy?

I think I covered this up above a little, but I'm sorry for them to the extent that they got fired over something they had no control over.

On a side note, they are burned. If the most famous thing you've done in your public career was to duck under a table, when thing became controversial - you'll never loose that image again. Of course they were fired. You dont need your 'public officials' to be tainted that way.

It seemed to me like they panicked and realized they were done for.

Just because they 'talk like journalists' - they arent. (Things millennials or gen z'ers will never understand. Part 1 )

Pointless attack on my age range aside, I never said they spoke like journalists. See above.

Maybe I should post the video of Daigo (of Street Fighter fame) now living his dream as a care worker for the elderly again?

Everyone in the racket gets payed more than the actual talent. And they all know it. And they can joke about it? And then you feel sorry for them when they acted 'humanly' when they are payed not to?

This is how 'the tournament scene' on 'live experiences' economies works. If you are a caster, you are complicit. And help others to pray on minors. Basically. Because the entire sense of importance you create around a game where devs can change powerbalances, while yawning, with a mouseclick - is fake. You are faking others out. To spend money. And then you call it cerebral and entertainment.

Dunno what this has to do with anything here.

 

[Deleted User]

Pro-tip I guess: If your desire is to be "apolitical" (which is a defense that I've seen some ActiBliz fanboys use), your resulting side often ends up being opposite to the side you first take action on. In short: it's functionally not possible to be apolitical.

The weibo pr statement was the complete opposite of apolitical.
Fascist dictatorships require you by law to be politically biased towards their side.

 

[Deleted member 377734]

Here is how South Park responded.

Spoiler

https://twitter.com/SouthPark/status/1181273539799736320

Blizzard deserves every bit of backlash that they receive for bending the knee and kowtowing to China. I feel pretty bad for the people living in Hong Kong, and sadly, I don't have a lot of faith that it's going to end very well for them.

Spoiler

That's a pretty interesting cosplay rule...

If you've been on reddit recently, you might find that R/Blizzard is organizing a large scale BlizzCon event. Essentially, everyone showing up in Winnie the Pooh outfits to mock China's Xi, as that's his internet image.

 

[Deleted User]

If you've been on reddit recently, you might find that R/Blizzard is organizing a large scale BlizzCon event. Essentially, everyone showing up in Winnie the Pooh outfits to mock China's Xi, as that's his internet image.

Should dress up as Soldier 76 and yell free Hong Kong since he wears a mask and goggles. It will attract the censor attention to OW better than the Mei memes because we don't even need to make fanart for him to represent a protester, much like the Winnie the Pooh memes which compared Xi to the official Winnie the Pooh and got him banned.
Did I also mention 76 is canonically a gay vigilante?


Example:

 

[billapong]

Should dress up as Soldier 76 and yell free Hong Kong since he wears a mask and goggles. It will attract the censor attention to OW better than the Mei memes because we don't even need to make fanart for him to represent a protester, much like the Winnie the Pooh memes which compared Xi to the official Winnie the Pooh and got him banned.
Did I also mention 76 is canonically a gay vigilante?

After your cosplay and protesting you should take a step back and thank the people who died for you that allowed you to do such things in protest of a place that would put you in Prison for doing so on their lands. After that you should never vote to limit or eliminate those freedoms.

 

[Viri]

Should dress up as Soldier 76 and yell free Hong Kong since he wears a mask and goggles. It will attract the censor attention to OW better than the Mei memes because we don't even need to make fanart for him to represent a protester, much like the Winnie the Pooh memes which compared Xi to the official Winnie the Pooh and got him banned.
Did I also mention 76 is canonically a gay vigilante?


Example:
View attachment 182230

If I lived on the west coast, I'd so show up in a Winnie the Pooh costume! I'd get denied entry, but it'd so be worth it! I don't care about Blizzcon at all, so I don't mind getting a life time ban. I also never plan to visit main land China. I wish Blizzcon was in NYC, because it cost only like 10 bux for me to go there.

Also
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bli...weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

Interesting how different their statement is, compared to the one they gave to Chinese social media.

Spoiler

 

[Deleted User]

If I lived on the west coast, I'd so show up in a Winnie the Pooh costume! I'd get denied entry, but it'd so be worth it! I don't care about Blizzcon at all, so I don't mind getting a life time ban. I also never plan to visit main land China. I wish Blizzcon was in NYC, because it cost only like 10 bux for me to go there.

Also
https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/bli...weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

Interesting how different their statement is, compared to the one they gave to Chinese social media.

Spoiler

"If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same."
*cough* Weibo *cough*

Remember when Poland had it's sovereignty threatened by fascist invaders and it got downplayed as a 'viewpoint'?

 

[Viri]

Remember when Poland had it's sovereignty threatened by fascist invaders and it got downplayed as a 'viewpoint'?

Germany and Russia just had very very extreme view points, that lead to around nearly a million people dead in Poland!

 

[notimp]

Oh look how effective the public outcry was. Blizzard suspends more people:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/16...students-grandmaster-china-hong-kong-protests

If you start to actually learn how things are connected economically, you see these things coming you know...

(Of course, you then live in a reality - where you see that stuff isn't at all like a majority believes, and can do nothing about it. )

Germany and Russia just had very very extreme view points, that lead to around nearly a million people dead in Poland!

What the... A generalization over more than one world war and more than one countries population?
Annexing countries now a 'viewpoint'?

Things millennials say? With smilies?

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Oh look how effective the public outcry was. Blizzard suspends more people:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/16...students-grandmaster-china-hong-kong-protests

These kids knew what was coming their way when they did it. IIRC they were the first streamers after the announcement the original was banned. They fully took this risk into account.

If you start to actually learn how things are connected economically, you see these things coming you know...

Just because we can see it coming, doesn't make it correct.

 

[notimp]

Public morals have no, I repeat, no impact on political or corporate decision making.

No impact. None whatsoever.

In election years you use them to garner support, then they can impact broader outlines - but in the past years none of them were 'new' so you have managing strategies for all of them.

If you think about this in actual existing systems of PR, politics, economies, capitalism - it comes down to, this entire emotional outbust is seen as human irrationality and matters for nothing.

"We the people" is only needed for political legitimization, and in this process everything goes. So even there, morals are used as a tool, and not as a guideline.

We know, that people wont keep up their morals in mass to hold up decisions they've made. So even the threat of 'then we'll stop buying your products' is tame.


A good example for this is the casino business f.e. Is it moral? No. End of story.

People think, there is more to it, because it has a public image of ratpack, and James Bond, Vegas performers and whatnot - but thats just PR. It has nothing todo with why gabling isnt outlawed. Its just that morals don't count for Jack. (And if it would be outlawed, people would engage in it anyhow, so it is better to have it regulated, and...)

And if you have them (I do), congratulations. They are good for nothing in terms of how our societies are structured. (If push comes to shove, most people discard them at will, so you cant build lasting structures on them. Even catholicism - if you think about it, used confession as a concept based on 'morals never work'.)

If you are outraged, just know - that it will change absolutely nothing. (If you stop buying their products, it might - but even thats not likely (in this case).)


Also - in the past they maybe counted more as a counterbalance, when you still had journalism as a function of societal counterbalancing of certain interest - but even thats questionable, and if you look at today - do you think the youtuber of your choice has replaced that structurally?

Hm.

Everyone can has a feel. Come share it in mass adoration rituals. Thats all that is.

Do americans think, that because of Hollywood morals their businesses will retract from the chinese market. Do they really? What, are international wars now fought because its good vs. evil? 'To bring others democracy'?

Thats the substantial problem I have with this. A good portion of people never clue through that in life. And they end up as soldiers in wars, stating into TV cameras, that they find it odd, that the other side, doesnt see them as liberators. Because thats what they were sold on.

Capitalism as a whole yearns for people with no ethics or morals whatsoever, that take unrectified risks at the appropriate time - because its so easy to find a few smucks, who clean up their remains at minimum wage - with a strong feeling about showing morals for each other and their peers anyhow.

What you need at the decision making level is not people that have 'what would Disney do' imprinted in their minds, but people that don't care about that fluff at all, because you have so many people who do by default - and thereby don't take initiative, risk, or do care about law (if you can calculate out, that the fines you will be hit with are smaller than potential profit, you dont).

Got it? Good.

 

[Deleted User]

Team AU wanted to get banned.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...se-its-decision-to-suspend-a-hearthstone-pro/

Bipartisan politicians (AOC and Marco Rubio) have now basically said Blizzard done fucked up.

 

[chrisrlink]

i'd saythe US congress draft up something to ban blizzard from doing anything state side (blizzcon, esports hell even wow servers in the US at least until blizzard see's what they did was wrong maybe get the EU on board too)

 

[Ev1l0rd]

i'd saythe US congress draft up something to ban blizzard from doing anything state side (blizzcon, esports hell even wow servers in the US at least until blizzard see's what they did was wrong maybe get the EU on board too)

Thats not something Congress does, and it would also probably violate free speech and be unconstitutional.

As much as it sucks, legally, Activision Blizzard isn't breaking any laws here. They're just morally unscrupulous (and as notimp says, morality sadly matters very little in the capitalist society we live in) and decided that not losing Chinas market is worth more than the PR hit.

I personally don't think it was worth the PR hit and it paints a really bad picture of Activision Blizzard as a company, but that's me.
--

Related stuff: Blizcon is less than a month away, that's gonna be special. Blizzard also cancelled a WoW anniversary in Taiwan and dropped out of the Nintendo Direct launch event for Overwatch (which Nintendo cancelled entirely as a result and directly blamed Blizzard for). Speaking of Nintendo, promotion on the US end of things for Overwatch has been pretty low, with the game not even getting a release promotion on Nintendos twitter feeds as far as I can find, meaning Nintendo is trying to back off from the situation as well.

Please be aware that the previously announced Overwatch launch event scheduled for Wednesday, 10/16 at NintendoNYC has been cancelled by Blizzard. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

— Nintendo NY (@NintendoNYC) October 15, 2019

 

[Deleted User]

Apparently Nintendo let people cancel Overwatch preorders under special circumstance.

 

[notimp]

As much as it sucks, legally, Activision Blizzard isn't breaking any laws here. They're just morally unscrupulous (and as notimp says, morality sadly matters very little in the capitalist society we live in) and decided that not losing Chinas market is worth more than the PR hit.

There is also a philosophical argument, that you cant build societies on morals. Because morals by definition are partial and subjective (and situational).

This is not a simple argument, its actually rather complicated. (Judges f.e. have something called margin of disgression, to also take into account moral arguments, ..) And subjective (all philosophy is).

But it isnt just capitalism at fault here.

If you are interested, maybe start by watching this:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj507hxRXlTFhGVSWc_QgUXifFtU0QVQY


Capitalism in its simplest form acknowledges, that people will go to extremes to 'further their social situation' and aims to guide that into a direction where this impulse might be most beneficial to most people (in this case - in mainland china.. ). At the core argument, you cant take this impulse away from people and argue, that you do it because of morals. So you make business 'amoral' (not positive, not negative, just is). Politics (at the decision level) as well. But for politics you have 'constituencies' (so 'I help most people I'm representing, with my political stance' - but you don't argue decisions there on the moral level either).

Moral level is for societies at large (because we want that. ), or talking to societies (PR / election campaigns (as a sort of 'everything goes' - in election campaigns )).

 

[Deleted User]

"Our actions are going to mean more than these words"

https://overwatchleague.com/en-us/overwatch-world-cup
Still misnaming Taiwan as 'Chinese Taipei'

Blitzchung and the casters still banned

 

[IncredulousP]

"Our actions are going to mean more than these words"

https://overwatchleague.com/en-us/overwatch-world-cup
Still misnaming Taiwan as 'Chinese Taipei'

Blitzchung and the casters still banned

 

[FAST6191]

Stopped short of hardcore politician* but still managed to say nothing of any great meaning.

That said at this point I think the only course of action I would accept as anything resembling contrition would be for them in some to take the middle finger, point it at China and raise it high.

*The wonderful George Carlin providing a masterclass in the concept here