One of these again. I struggle to form a coherent opinion on this one. Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone. But oh my god. Even if they banned him just on the basis of enforcing that rule rather than pampering to the Chinese market (and that's a huge if) the visuals of this are so predictably bad.
What meeting can they possibly have had where the options were "Just reprimand him in private" or "Ban him, get into the news cycle and face weeks of public backlash" and they landed on the latter?
It's hard to imagine the decision wasn't almost completely fuelled by Tencent's part ownership of Blizzard and Blizzard's stated goal to expand their marketshare in China. If so, it devolved from a company increasingly known for just poor decisions and communication (mobile Diablo announcement anyone?) to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics.
And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in.
>Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone.
The rule in question is
>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
Which is so open ended that it's impossible to not break it if you have an opinion and are speaking to a global audience. You could go up on stage and say "It's bad to murder people for being gay" and a portion or group of the public in some other countries would get offended about it.
But Blizzard wouldn't be banning people and taking their prize money for that. 100% this is about Tencent and Blizzard's access to the Chinese market.
I expect them to not kick someone for supporting gay rights, but I do expect them to kick someone for doing a nazi salute on stage. So there's clearly a line drawn somewhere; it's not their job to act as a platform for every opinion.
"God hates gays" in particular, yes, I think they would be justified in dropping the banhammer on that. Blizzard has gone out of their way to promote inclusivity and diversity with Overwatch (which has two canonically gay main characters), even though it pissed off some of their more conservative fanbase. Having people on stream coming out against that runs pretty directly counter to the politics that Blizzard has already been promoting.
What it comes down to is that I expect Blizzard to have a system of values guiding their decision on this, and I want those values to line up with mine - everyone gets human rights, democracy is preferable to authoritarianism, freedom to protest a corrupt government is an essential right, etc.
Some people would probably call it a double standard to let players support pro-democracy protests, but not support anti-gay ones. I'd just call that having standards. It's 2019 and we're talking about a game studio based in southern California.
Maybe that's a self-centered view of mine, expecting a corporation to support western values just because they're based in the US and composed almost entirely of American employees. But that's where I'm coming from.
The fundamental problem is that the line is a personal opinion that differs, significantly in some cases, from person to person. Many believe their lines are objectively correct.
This particular kerfuffle is being caused because companies are being pressured to adhere to the government of China's specific line to the exclusion of all others.
You expect them not to kick someone for supporting gay rights but even that might be a bridge too far for Blizzard. They made a big fuss about having the character Tracer be gay, but that only happened in a comic book and in Russia Tracer is definitely not gay. I believe the same is true in China, but don't quote me on that. Having characters with different sexual orientations is just some catnip for us Westerners to show that Blizz is totes woke guys!, not some sort of stance Blizz is taking because they believe in equality. I wouldn't be suprised if someone calling for gay rights at an esports tournament in Russia was subject to the same thing.
Blizz is just a faceless corp now, and any move they make that seems on the surface to be ethical is just window dressing for a calculated marketing move that will be undone the moment it looks like it might cost them some cash.
> I expect them to not kick someone for supporting gay rights, but I do expect them to kick someone for doing a nazi salute on stage. So there's clearly a line drawn somewhere; it's not their job to act as a platform for every opinion.
Blizzard is an international company, and the line they draw is based on the sensibilities of all their customers worldwide. China, a country with a population 3-4x larger than the US evidently believes that support for Hong Kong protestors crosses that line. Blizzard may be a US based company, that doesn't mean it's going to draw up standards of conduct that always please the US customer base. I can guarantee you, the US and other western customers they stand to lose is they didn't cater to Chinese demands is a lot less than the Chinese customers they would lose if they were kicked out of China.
This is just a remarkable line of thought. What you're really saying here is that the actions of a company are justifiable solely based upon whether or not the company is acting in its own best (financial) interest. Just... wow.
>China, a country with a population 3-4x larger than the US evidently believes that support for Hong Kong protestors crosses that line
The Chinese government, you mean, which happens to fall squarely into the "oppressive authoritarian" bucket as regimes go. Let's not pretend that the CPC is an honest representation of the people.
It's not only about "pleasing the US customer base", it's about integrity. Not every situation is some abstract hypothetical; it's pretty clear what's going on here, and I don't think any reasonable person would conclude that kowtowing to the Chinese im the pursuit of profit is a good thing.
What is surprising about this line of thinking? People stated, correctly, that companies should support gay rights and other progressive causes because it is in their their self interest to do so. Companies followed that advice.
The same calculus is at play here. If militia groups in Texas started marching in the streets calling for secession would we blame companies that want to distance themselves from that sort of political instability and unrest? That's how most Chinese see Hong Kong protests: a segment of the country that want to unlawfully remain independent. And China has a large market power. The negative consequences of alienating the Chinese market is larger than the negative consequences of bad press in western media.
It's valid to point out that the people's opinions don't always match that of the CCP, but it's erroneous to asset without evidence that the average Chinese disagrees with the party line on this issue. 50% of the mainland Chinese I've talked to have a negative opinion on the HK protestors and the other 50% don't really care very much. I haven't met any that actually support the protests.
I never said it was 'surprising'; I said it was remarkable.
>People stated, correctly, that companies should support gay rights and other progressive causes because it is in their their self interest to do so. Companies followed that advice.
Is that why they should support a cause though? Only because it is in their best (financial) interest to do so? I'm not insane; of course we're going to look out for ourselves, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that... until there is. At some point your profit seeking harms others.
This is exactly what I'm talking about; your argument presumes that a company should only take action when it suits their interests, i.e., increases revenue. You act as though the pursuit of profit at all costs is some immutable law of the universe. It's not.
>It's valid to point out that the people's opinions don't always match that of the CCP, but it's erroneous to asset without evidence that the average Chinese disagrees with the party line on this issue. 50% of the mainland Chinese I've talked to have a negative opinion on the HK protestors and the other 50% don't really care very much. I haven't met any that actually support the protests.
It's also erroneous to assert that your anecodotal evidence reflects reality, but I don't think it actually matters if the people support the CPC or not. Some things are just plain wrong, and people throughout history have supported foul actions because it suited them personally to do so (or because they're scared of the repercussions of not doing so.) Much of what China does is just wrong, I couldn't care less if their citizenry supports it.
Haven't you found it interesting that all of our media coverage has provided an extensive amount of coverage of the protesters, but almost nothing about the context of people outside of the protest? What percent of people support the protests? What are the average views on it? How has their day to day life changed if at all? Are they in support or against the transition to violence? So forth and so on. An immense amount of potential reporting material there, but it seems be being almost entirely neglected. "Almost" is a weasel word -- I'm not really able to find anything meaningful at all.
This seems odd. Like you, I'm not terribly fond of anecdotal evidence, so I went searching for some way to try to gauge what people might be thinking. One thing I came upon was this [1] survey from 2016 which was carried out following the protests of 2015. One of the questions that was asked was whether or not Hong Kongers would be in favor of separating from China once the "one country, two systems" agreement ends in 2047. If there is any bias in their numbers, one would expect it to err on the side of Hong Kong given the institution that carried it out. [2]
Only 17.4% of people said yes, 22.9% were ambivalent, and 57.6% were somewhat/strongly against it. I wonder what percent of the protesters are in that 17.4%? What are the views of the 82.6%? Why aren't these questions being asked, let alone answered, by our media? Whatever the case, it seems very safe to say that the vast majority of people in Hong Kong do not see the China as having an "oppressive authoritarian" government. And I think it goes without saying that views towards their government are going to be even more favorable in the mainland. So no you're not just talking about the Chinese government - you are talking about the Chinese people.
I'd say that since roughly 30% of the population has protested that's a large percentage of the population. You're citing statistics from 3 years ago. Most of the country supports either staying their own self governing entity or becoming their own separate country.
These protests are literally about extradition to China. I find your completely biased information suspect.
> What it comes down to is that I expect Blizzard to have a system of values guiding their decision on this, and I want those values to line up with mine - everyone gets human rights, democracy is preferable to authoritarianism, freedom to protest a corrupt government is an essential right, etc.
What this whole thing is showing is that big corporations don't give a shit about any of those things, not really. They care about money. Think about sports - in the NFL, players were protesting racial injustice; some members of the public said "shut up and play ball"; and the league and elite media mostly said "no, players have the right to speak about these things". That's because in the US, wokeness is the third rail - ultimately there is more money in being pro-inclusion, pro-diversity, etc. You can't be a big company in the US without supporting those things, so big companies support them.
Now we have some NBA people protesting injustice in Hong Kong, and the league and elite media say "shut up and play ball". And that's because Hong Kong / Taiwan independence is the third rail for China. If you don't have the "correct" opinion, you're not going to do any business there.
Let's imagine that this issue did not exist, if you can. And let's further posit an acceptance of companies advocating for some set of values, as you have. Now whose values do you think it would make most sense for companies to advocate for? Employees, management, chief executive, the board, customers, somebody else? Perhaps this is a bad assumption but I would assume the vast majority of people would say they should stand for their customers, if for no other reason than the fact that a company cannot exist without its customers - and so pleasing them (and keeping them) is always priority #1.
And this is where things get tricky. For decades, the entire life of many of us, the US has been dominant over the entire world. But that dominance is ending. Gaming is just one particularly clear example. China, for instance, literally has more gamers than the US has citizens. [1](2014) And while the US market is still #1 in terms of revenue, that's ending imminently - literally perhaps next year. We're currently at $36.87bn compared to China's $36.54bn. [2] And that's with an untapped market of hundreds of millions in China. And their rapid economic growth means all players, new and old, are going to be able and willing to spend more money. Within the next two decades, the US gaming market will likely be a fraction of the Chinese market.
That creates an interesting little micro-paradox in this situation. Customers in the US claiming they will boycott Blizzard over this situation are precisely why Blizzard is motivated to act in this fashion. Because there would be a mirror situation in China with a much larger customer base. Until people (around the world) can accept individuals behaving in a way they find deplorable, we're only going to end up in a world where the biggest wins. And as the geopolitical status quo changes, that's no longer simply synonymous with USA.
Going to the logical absurd conclusion is a good thought experiment and part of why I too hadn’t formulated an opinion yet. However, it’s Blizzard’s follow-up actions such as this:
That makes this a moot point. Players have voiced opinions before. Nothing extreme, but within Blizzard’s rights to invoke that rule. However, deciding to start filtering content because of multiple players talking about the same topic?
That’s when Blizzard lost their neutrality stance. As bystanders, it’s not possible to swap in other topics for thought experiments because it’s become clear that it’s a specific topic that is being targeted. And thus, we now have to look at the content of what is being said to draw conclusions about Blizzard’s motivations.
I would imagine not, but do you think those two statements stand on the same footing? At some point you have to examine what is actually being said. I understand that can get murky, which is really the entire problem with censorship, but "don't murder people for being gay" and "God hate[s] gays"? C'mon.
The larger issue at hand here is the motivation behind Blizzard's actions.
I think: "People everywhere should have the basic human rights" is far less controversial than "God hates the gays". I imagine that the latter also would get punished the same way to be honest, and then we wouldn't have this discussion at all. At least in the west, as in the east they do not appreciate the acceptance of anything LGBTQ+ related.
Blizzard went all-in with the pride stuff in the west, but did not have that event at all in the east. Not even a toned-down version of it.
Blizzard was fine introducing politics into their competitions when it suited them to do so. In that case it made them look progressive and they sold a lot of pins and t-shirts. In this case, they could lose a whole bunch of money.
Their stance on this sort of thing isn't consistent unless you view it from the angle of "what will make Blizzard money?" They also went completely nuclear on this guy by taking his winnings and banning him for a year, not to mention firing the two commentators.
I said essentially the same thing in another thread yesterday, but the issue at hand here isn't whether or not Blizzard has the right to enforce some vague rule; it's whether or not they should have and what were their motivations. We need to be very careful about allowing China to dictate what we can see and hear in our media.
These companies are quite literally helping an authoritarian government to further oppress its people, and their only motivation is money. It's insane to me that so many people are arguing in Blizzard's favor because apparently the only thing that matters is the bottom line, integrity be damned.
A political opinion isn’t a political opinion anymore, once it’s spread to fixation. “Political” in this case—and most cases where it’s used in discussions like these—is a euphemism for “damagingly controversial to support.” Even an opinion on politics can cease to be a “political” opinion. (For example, “the US should not be a British colony” is an opinion about politics, but at this point, not much of a political opinion.)
But, I think it’s important to note, this doesn’t mean that these opinions that companies dislike espousing aren’t political in the literal sense. They’re a subset of what would be more objectively defined as “political opinions.” And, as such, it’s not these companies making this determination; for it really is considered a matter of civic etiquette—in at least Western culture—to avoid discussing “political” topics in any venue where something other than politics is trying to happen; and plenty of people really do get mad at companies just for the fact of their breaking this social more, even when the political statement itself is one they have no stake in either way.
> I agree with you. In fact, I didn't buy Overwatch because of the way they were shoving gay stuff into it.
I fail to see how this could be your takeaway from his statement. His point is that they will pander to whatever cause makes them the most amount of money.
LGBTQ+ content in a game should not be the reason you don't want a game. There are games that handle it very poorly and are just trying to virtue-signal. They make the point of the game that the character is gay (generally a lesbian as that hits more checkboxes) and as a result these games suffer quality wise. Being non-binary isn't a good story, your media should have a good story. The character having "being gay" as one of their character traits is fine. "Being gay" isn't (far from it) the only thing that defines a person (or character)
Games have been political for as long as games have had stories. It's just that in 1981 killing nazis in Wolfenstein was a completely non-controversial topic. We fought in WWII. Shooting nazis is the American thing to do.
Bioshock? Fallout? The worlds portrayed in those are intensely political topics.
But the "keep politics out of my games!" crowd only shows up when it turns out one of the characters is gay.
There's a reason Metal Gear rewards players for avoiding a head-on fight at least as often as engaging one (and rewarded players significantly more often in the original games).
Hell, there's a reason there are bishops on the board in chess and they move diagonally.
If you simply played the game, you wouldn't know or care that the gays infiltrated it. You didn't play it because you researched a reason to not play it, and that reason just so happens to be homophobia.
Politics and sports have been intertwined for as long as there have been organized sports (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games#Politics). If e-Sports are in fact Sports, and if Blizzard intends to exercise control over political speech of ostensibly independent players, then ultimately Blizzard has accepted responsibility for its corporate political speech via the sport, which evidently includes a pro-mainland stance on Hong Kong.
Cathy Freeman defied the Olympic rules and carried the Aboriginal flag at the 2000 Olympics, and went on to carry the Olympic flag at the 2002 Winter Olympics opening ceremonies! Sports are one of the best venues for protest because they give you an audience that can be global.
We should all boycott Blizzard and not buy their games regardless of how good they are. We should try and convince everyone we possibly can to join us. Freedom and preventing unjust state beatings and murder is more important than having some fun.
We've known Blizzard to be fuckers since at least 2002. The only way I can play their games now is by getting comped copies via pro player friends; I refuse to ever give them a dime.
So if a player said in an interview "It's bad to murder people for being gay" they ought to be kicked out of the tournament and have their prize money retracted? That's how far we've fallen with appeasing oppressive governments in pursuit of their money?
They could use the same rule to force you to open up your mouth, as refusing to comment on issues could also have a negative impact on Blizzard Activision.
They could coherce your speech, say x about issue y. If you refuse then ...
Well, being a professional e-athlete means being an entertainer first and foremost. Everything you do and say is supposed to maximize the amount of money made for you, people who manage you, and the sport. Just like in physical sports.
In this case, the player violated this on their own accord. As right as this was, no surprise it made the business people unhappy. 'stronglikedan is correct in saying it's pretty much like misappropriation of company resources.
(In other news: entertainment is fake to the core. It's not about the game, it's about making money.)
But I also think it's 100% fair for the audience to be angry about this. It's a free market, and if people don't express their morality and/or politics through ways that impact the profits of the offenders, the market will not take those morals and politics into account. Bad press is a market signal too.
I'm not disagreeing that it goes against company mission/guidelines, but if part of your product is player streams and you give them a caveat of not having the ability to freely express opinions that is going to be an incredibly boring stream.
It will be boring only if you're seeking some philosophical or moral insight in it. Entertainment is the opposite of boring by definition. The entire industry is built around optimizing the value of (average interest * audience size), which means that successful streams aren't going to be boring no matter how little freedom the streamer has to voice their political opinions.
I mean, take your favorite sports/e-sports stream. How much political opinions does the streamer voice? Would you really recognize, from just watching the stream, if they were censored by the Chinese?
I disagree. Lots of the streams I enjoy are largely based on the personality of the streamer and their interaction with viewers. If you start removing their freedoms of what they can and can't say that would heavily impact their interactions and limit their opinions/speech. Yes it's true that most of the dialogue isn't heavily political, but politics is a wide sweeping topic. What if they are bringing up legitimate problems with the game, or the parent game company? Totally reasonable and interesting opinions that actually happen all the time on streams would be in danger of getting banned. Not to mention discussion of everyday life outside of the game which is also commonplace on many streams.
Just watching gameplay with no opinions and interaction is a watered down boring stream in my opinion. Maybe there are times when that is what someone wants when specifically looking for gameplay tips and how pros play, but that is only a subset of game streaming even by professional gamers. If the streamer is a sponsored pro, sure they have to worry about those sponsors but what kind of advice is it to tell them they should have no opinions? It feels short-sighted of the sponsors because they are limiting the potential of the stream and if they already sponsor someone, why wouldn't they want their opinions heard?
Interesting followup: I just tried to permanently delete my Blizzard account and the request is being denied regardless of my method of verification. The SMS passcode verification claimed on first attempt that it was denied "Due to too many attempts". Makes you wonder if they're intentionally breaking the delete account flow in hopes of weathering the storm.
This is now the 3rd place I've seen this. As a dev I immediately just assume it's a bug, but maaaaaaan it doesn't look that way if you're not.
I've settled for cancelling my Wow Classic sub in place of deleting the account completely. It's not heroic and means nothing to Blizzard, but this is a line I find hard to cross.
To play devils advocate, SMS is super wonky and it’s possible they have virtual limits for outgoing message volume at multiple points that they’ve hit at peak hours and caused this poorly worded error message.
I deleted my account yesterday, had the same experience. SMS and the authenticator app both told me I was either incorrect or I'd made too many attempts. Ended up taking a picture of my driver's license on a paper that says FREE HONG KONG and uploading it.
I ran into this problem on two accounts. I tried SMS passcode on one account and got this problem. Then my secondary account I tried an Email Code and I got the same problem.
I think it's just a terrible UI. If you get that message, I think you have to submit a ticket with a government issue ID (link at the bottom of that page).
I don't know if Blizz would consider me a whale but I did spend a pretty penny on their games and just deactivated my WoW subscription and uninstalled all their games from both my PC and phone.
I'm not only doing that. I speak up in forums where Hearthstone is discussed, talk to friends and family members and advocate against money or time towards Blizzards bottom line. F2P even gains with an audience so it's not a solution to just not spend money, you must divest from their platform entirely. I didn't even keep SC2 around, if I were to contribute any views on Twitch or Youtube it's engagement that benefits Blizzard.
I hate them with the fury of a thousand suns for having destroyed the 3 games I loved most of all the games I have played.
And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in.
Ya know, for a company like EA, I am exactly like that. "G-ddamn it, EA! The next time you release a title I'm on the fence about, I'm not going to buy it! {BTW, what's release date for Battlefield X again?}) That's because they have what are, IMO, shitty business practices. But I'm not a very principled man, so I conveniently forget that $GAME_I_REALLY_LIKE is published by EA.
But there is not game on this planet I need play badly enough that I will support "let's all play nice with the big, bad authoritarian government and not make them feel uncomfortable with our rude words". Nope, you go right on the list with Exxon ("I'll walk before I buy fuel from Exxon." And I have.), unlikely to ever be removed again. (Note: I've not read up on the whole stink yet, so I'm not saying Blizzard's on that list now.)
Even more so because it isn't really about the authoritarian government. In some cases, they say jump and you ask how high on the way up. Because they have tanks and shit. But Chinese tanks won't roll to the Blizzard offices. No, they'll roll to the gates of China's economy and keep Blizzard out. Which is even worse, because now the story is, "hush now, or someone might not get their bonus."
There's people who will hardcore boycott them though. I for sure wont be playing Diablo 3 finally (I know, I'm super late). I'll take my money elsewhere to someone who shows they cares about the basic freedoms.
After reading the thread, your comment doesn't follow the content at all. You're talking about the Hearthstone incident while the Twitter thread is discussion is about investment in US companies by China.
> I have watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years. It’s a shame US companies never believed as strongly as China and Asia in investing in games, but this allowed China to have unprecedented influence over our media.
> Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash. This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies.
> I’ve seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken pubically about it.
> Chinese companies tried to ruin my career with planted press stories. Money is often paid for favorable press in China and some of that money flows here to the US as well. Unfortunately, money talks. China has succeeded in infiltrating all levels of tech, gaming and more.
Perhaps the decision wasn't taken in a meeting, it might have been a single exec high enough in the food chain to apply such a decision, with perhaps either a panicked or knee-jerk action.
I think you're over selling gamers here, they're generally quite pathetic when it comes to organised protests and self control.
They all cried for a week when Blizzard screwed up Diablo, then a few months later those exact same people bought wow classic and another HS expansion.
I think you are selling gamers short. Star Wars battlefront 2 controversy lasted a fairly long time from what I remember, and still talked about to this day.
> ...to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics.
Pretty much every company now depending how for down the ethics rabbit hole one traverses. Is returning as much money to investors as possible over giving employees raises ethical?
What meeting can they possibly have had where the options were "Just reprimand him in private" or "Ban him, get into the news cycle and face weeks of public backlash" and they landed on the latter?
It's hard to imagine the decision wasn't almost completely fuelled by Tencent's part ownership of Blizzard and Blizzard's stated goal to expand their marketshare in China. If so, it devolved from a company increasingly known for just poor decisions and communication (mobile Diablo announcement anyone?) to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics.
And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in.