Overwatch's Mei Is Becoming a Symbol of the Hong Kong Resistance

I mean, Disney owns Winnie the Pooh.

I think it might be harder to do with Disney because they’re so diversified. Banning any one franchise is a tiny drop in the bucket for them. Blizzard, though, relies on just a handful of IPs for all its income. Losing one would be a massive hit to its China market.

Guerilla appropriation.

Leveraging the heavy handed approach of China to pit them against the western companies.

As a second order effect, by getting Overwatch and the likes banned (if that were to happen), maybe create some dissent within China itself, though that's a bit far fetched.

How many five-year-olds in power can the world handle and//or survive?

Do the censors actually have any interest in what he rest of the world thinks? Presumably this is mainly for internal consumption.

Wouldn't the protesters simply pick another character to march behind?

The funny part is, if you go by the lore and backstories assigned to each character, the majority of them would support Hong Kong. None of them are (written to be) particularly fond of authoritarianism.

Which is just hilarious that Blizzard's own IP would oppose their decision if they were real people.

The protesters should add an Overwatch logo to the top of their Mae posters so the game's whole brand is co-opted.

> The best solution for China would be to instruct Blizzard to release a version of Overwatch that didn't have this character, and if you want my prediction that's what they're going to do.

Which would amount to ordering a foreign company to remove Chinese representation from a game. (Mei is Chinese, and is the only such character in Overwatch.) So that looks pretty bad, too.

"We regret that our Mei character has been used to promote political opinions. She was always intended to be a neutral and fun character in a video game and not to be used for anyone's political agenda.

It's with a heavy heart that in order to ease tension and restore an healthy and stress-free environment for players from China and other countries we have decided to retire Mei from the rooster.

- Regards, "

Long time Overwatch player. Removing mei would be... interesting. It would probably raise awareness of the PR nightmare overall, certainly not be received well, and most likely have a bad outcome for both China and Blizzard. The _irony_ is that Mei's kit is, in a sense, built around "stopping" people from playing and she is frequently referred to as "the devil". Lastly, the game is competitive and very balance sensitive to the point that small changes in single characters can turn them from "never pick" to "must pick every game". The impact is, despite the relatively large number of characters, they are all mentally accounted for in most players minds and not easily removed. Just some thoughts.

> What about Mei is grounds for banning Overwatch in China?

The title of the article is:

> Overwatch's Mei Is Becoming a Symbol of the Hong Kong Resistance

Then the protesters could just switch to the next character, or even better: simply appropriate the Overwatch logo itself as a sign of their movement. Imagine trying to sell a brand in China that's completely associated as a symbol of the HK protests.

Blizzard can't just change that logo either, as it's not only buried everywhere in the game but also used in countless places on the internet, not to mention merchandise, comics, official advertisements etc.

Hold on, let me go test it.

That in itself may be considered a victory, depending on how far China is pushed and how they respond. If the rest of the world won't/can't do business with China anymore, that would be bad for China. HK's last ditch objective could end up as goading China into chopping off it's own feet to put down the protestors. A pyrrhic victory for sure, but still a victory in the long run.

This is the first major, sustained, modern, technology-enabled, urban conflict between central authority and ambient/peripheral/distributed community.

Without benefit of hindsight it's impossible to know, but I'd wager that this is the single most important political event in the world right now.

If the people of Hong Kong can stop the aggressive imperialism of the CCP that will be a guiding light for everybody. Conversely, if the CCP succeeds in crushing HK who else is there to stop them consolidating their power?

Matt Stone and Trey Parker?