Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament
news.blizzard.com
news.blizzard.com
They didn’t. They didn’t receive any punishment, they were immediately moved on to the next match.
So, Blizzard is not acting any anything resembling consistently on this matter. Some voices matter more than others; in this case Blizzard’s business with China has proven to matter more than allowing someone to “share their point of view”.
#boycottblizzard still stands.
So of course it has to do with China. If they knew it wouldn't get them kicked out, and most of their potential players in China supported the issue, they wouldn't have cared. Because that's exactly how they handle social/political issues in the west.
> If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.
Also Blizzard:
> We will defend the pride of our nation (that nation being China)
So when will they be terminating the people in their company that posted that announcement on behalf of the company? Oh wait, they won't be, because this company is completely and utterly full of shit. This is a company that will ban players for using naughty words, but won't ban a country from the market place for actual real life atrocities. People like this make me ashamed to be American. Honesty and integrity mean nothing in this country. All people care about is whether you use nice words.
That statement was made by NetEase, a Chinese company, not Blizzard.
[1]: http://bmkgaming.com/statement-on-blitzchung/
Sidenote, Linus is reading the statement on the WAN show and he mentioned that Blizzard was "Lawful Evil." That's a pretty solid way to put it
To me it made sense that Blizzard wanted China's money, see diablo mobile.
"Do you guys not have phones?"
Also there are reports Blizzard is stopping people from deleting their accounts.
My suspicion, however, is that it was an unintentional bug on their end. We've all seen this before in engineering. You're using some service like Twilio. You've got a TON of people trying to cancel their account at the same time, using SMS verification. Their backend trips a rate limiter or account limit. You don't handle the error properly, and the client gets an inaccurate error. Its a story as old as time.
I went through the drivers license verification just fine. Its totally possible that they're being malicious, but its just so much more likely that engineering fucked up and it was blown out of proportion.
So now some Chinese player should make a statement praising China and condemning Hong Kong.
(But I've already said it: with Blizzard controlling a huge money market in WoW and China being big on farming that gold all day every day, there's zero chance Blizzard would give that up.)
Any other calculations are just cryptocurrency-esque market cap dreams.
and this isnt just an option, but something done extremely frequently. tokens are usually sold within one day.
(and blizzard takes ~40% more € for that token than a subscription would take, so blizzard actually has a massive profit margin there)
The real world money to purchase those token (and anything else) come from people. Those people do not have infinite resources to spend on the game.
Ergo, if you exhaust their real world resources, and then offer them the best item in the game for $1, they wouldn't take it.
At that point, you've got the value of the total in-game economy. Because anything virtual after that would be worthless.
(Subject to demand curve, etc. But in aggregate it boils down to the same point.)
(You might be able to make the case that speculators without interest in the game would come in at that point to buy items, but I'd question how many would take the risk after the playerbase was already financially drained)
there is an actual cashflow happening - and not just for speculation like with cryptocurrencies - as people are actually spending the ingame currencies on their respective markets, which often removes the money from the market entirely. (not everything you buy ingame is sold by players)
* Blitzchung will receive all his prize money.
* Bliztchung's suspension from pro play halved to 6 months
* Casters will now be allowed to cast Blizzard events after 6 months
Key statements:
* In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly
* The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision.
* We have these rules to keep the focus on the game and on the tournament to the benefit of a global audience, and that was the only consideration in the actions we took.
* If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.
Source: Reddit comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/dgnqp...
The contrarian viewpoint is "what were you expecting?" in which case the reply is "an actual apology."
> In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly.
No explanation of how that happened. No discussion about what they are doing to make sure it doesn't happen again. It's not even saying, "We made a snap decision and it was wrong." It seems to be saying, "We made all the right decisions, but we're going to tune the degree a little."
I'm not even sure here what "reacted too quickly" means. If the player did clearly violate an unobjectionable Blizzard policy, one would hope that the sanction would be swift -- it shouldn't take a week to (for example) ban a player for blatant cheating.
Had they not done that they might be believable, but because of the way the kowtow to china, definitely hard to find any honesty/truth in their statement.
It’s easy for companies, after some backlash by a loud yet small crowd on social media, to blacklist a certain high profile individual out of risk. It’s hard for that same group to make a difference against an organization as large as Blizzard. Most people still want their product.
I've seen others in StarCraft related subreddits share similar feelings. I agree the majority seem to still want the game and community to continue on as is.
Can’t speak for other people though
I'd be more worried about the influence that propaganda machines can have, and what's freaking me out is that you actually have to look to spot those sorts of posts. Most people don't look.
"Tech companies: We tolerate harassment and hate so we can enable political dissent, public squares, free speech
Also tech companies: Censor the Hong Kong protestors and kill all their communication channels"
From all the subreddits that were closed, I’d be hard-pressed to name one that I felt contributed to free speech.
She is correct in her tweet, however.
Also once upon a time reddit praised itself for free speech. It held itself to a higher standard... supposedly.
As in US Constitution free speech? I can think of dozens.
r/SanctionedSuicide
r/DarknetMarkets
r/shoplifting
r/gore
r/watchpeopledie
However, it seems to me that free speech is intended to protect the expression of unpopular viewpoints. In that case, I think that we should protect people's right to advocate that suicide, shoplifting, or advocating watching people die should be legal.
However, as long as those things are not legal then it doesn't necessarily violate free speech to restrict the practices themselves or information on how to engage in the practices.
They are a US based website subject to those laws, even if those words posted on their site didn't violate laws, it's entirely legal for them to censor at will for any reason they deem ok.
What does it mean to "contribute to" free speech?
She lead the charge in censoring and banning Reddit communities that offended her.
> The actions that we took over the weekend are causing people to question if we are still committed to these values. We absolutely are and I will explain.
Is basically saying, "What we did actually exemplifies our values", or maybe saying, "Well actually, our values..."
Combined with the complete lack of acknowledgement of wrongdoing and not addressing their initial online response at all, I don't expect this will smooth things over at all.
But 6 months is outlandish.
Whatever Blizzard set out to do, it’s exceptionally naive not to acknowledge that demand changes a public technology.
… but of course we know what this is about. We know it’s about not wanting to cut off a large revenue stream.
[0] https://www.lawinsport.com/content/sports/item/politics-and-...
https://i.imgur.com/xQfRoPa.jpg
https://kotaku.com/college-hearthstone-players-who-held-up-f...
Them pretending otherwise is a complete, outright lie.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SGBluebell/status/118281758814705...
I thought there was some awkward speech but didnt realize why.
What are prizings? This definitely was not written by an English speaker which takes it from corporate BS to totally creepy.
It's a little weird that they say they "believe he should receive" his prize, rather than saying that he actually will. It's hard to think of a reason they would word it that way, except to give the false impression that he's getting the prize he won.
a) what was said in the statement, and Blizzard's statement made on Chinese social media at the time, and
b) the lack of discipline on American tournament players who also protested.
Furthermore a written statement is nothing compared to a video, where vocal intonation and body language communicates a lot.
Bottom line, releasing this statement will only intensify criticism that Blizzard is "Lawfully Evil".
The irony is that Blizzard's fanbase are 'heroes' who overcome evil in their games. Blizzard's actions are the very antithesis of their player bases' psychology.
This isn't over, and with Blizzcon around the corner, I predict escalation and Blizzcon being a total PR disaster.
In fact, the language used here, about openness and 'feeling welcome' (cf hurt feelings) comes close to the CCP phrasebook. CCP, to remind you, has publicly stated that opinions on China affairs from foreigners and utterings that make people feel unwelcome ot hurt feelings, are not free speech.
HK people are fighting for their freedom and their lives. They need public support in the West to have a chance. Blizzard sanctioning them or others for this shows abundently clear on which side this company is!
This HN comment from 6 years ago comes to mind: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6154475
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This hurts. But until Blizzard reverses their decision on blitzchungHS I am giving up playing Classic WoW, which I helped make and helped convince Blizzard to relaunch. There will be no Mark of Kern guild after all.
Let me explain why I am #BoycottBlizzard.
I am ethnically Chinese. I was born in Taiwan and I lived in Hong Kong for a time. I have done buisiness with China for many years, with serveral gaming companies there.
So I think I have a valid perspective here, having been a Team Lead at Blizzard and having grown up in Asia.
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.
I’ve also seen how American company reps in China have been offered similar bribes to get licenses for large AAA titles. Not everyone refused like I did.
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.
Unfortunately, US and European companies are loath to take risks and invest in game companies legally as much as China was. China remained one of the few places mid tier studios could get funding.
So again, China influence grew. I’m sure this is the same for movies as well.
But now we are in a situation where unlimited Communist money dictates our American values. We censor our games for China, we censor our movies for China.
Now, game companies are silencing voices for freedom and democracy.
China is dictating that the world be authoritarian.
Of all the companies in the world, Blizzard is the LAST company I ever expected to give in to China’s demands.
Blizzard was always about “gamer first” and “don’t be greedy.”
At least, it was when I was there.
It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom.
I take a huge risk by saying this. China monitors all social media and I know this means that we will probably never get an investment from China for my new MMO, and probably never get a license to operate there.
But enough is enough. I stand with Hong Kong, and I oppose Blizzard’s obvious and laughably transparent fear of China.
It’s time for Blizzard to grow the spine it used to have, and to do what’s right for gamers once again.
Gamers, rise up.
And yes, this means I will be refusing any deal for Epic exclusivity. The money comes from Tencent. Em8ER will never be an Epic game store exclusive.
This might mean we never make a dime, but more is at stake now than just games. A line has to be drawn, and I’m drawing it now.
Mealy-mouthed corpospeak will not save you now.
There's no explanation for Blizzard's actions that does not include feared pressure from China, and it's just insulting for them to claim otherwise.
Maybe the CEO even thinks "you can't make everyone happy, at least I did something.". And in the back of his head he probably thinks "but make sure China is happy!".
Very sad. Whatever piece of the original Blizzard may have been left in Irvine is surely on life support from the beating that Activision has been giving it for the last decade(s).
> Every Voice Matters, and we strongly encourage everyone in our community to share their viewpoints in the many places available to express themselves. However, the official broadcast needs to be about the tournament and to be a place where all are welcome. In support of that, we want to keep the official channels focused on the game.
One of their core values is "every voice matters" and with this paragraph they are trying to twist it from what it actually means, to supporting their decision to suppress dissent
I suppose one must immerse oneself in the scientific system of Mao Zedong thought to see the truth—that Diablo is best played on a smartphone.
But on the other hand, blitzchung might have said or done many things during his segment. And just about everyone who is upset about Blizzard booting blitzchung here would demand that they boot him for at least some of those. Say, if he had ranted about gender issues, for example.
As always, perceptions depend on whose ox is getting gored.
I write a post, tell everyone what happened in Hong Kong and try to persuade everyone not to make political opinions so easily, especially if a place is very far away from you.
Stand with Hong Kong, but which side? https://chloerei.com/2019/10/11/stand-with-hong-kong-but-whi...
The content may make you uncomfortable because it is different from the reporting position of some Western media. But looking at the problem from multiple angles will give you a more comprehensive understanding.
Needless to say, this line has generated a very large amount of snark on social media.
And the hope is they’d blink twice rather than not blink.
Because it's not like they mention that out of nowhere: They are directly referring to accusations that they were pressured into shutting that particular player down by the Chinese government.
There's a whole lot of people out there who will not be satisfied with any answer contradicting that narrative.
Heck, even if Blizzard went out there and would fully admit "The Chinese government pressured us to shut this particular player down", then people would complain how Blizzard could ever buckle to those demands in the first place.
The reality is that nobody needed to pressure Blizzard because its competitive scene has already seen quite a number of bans, some controversial, many not, over players using the spotlight to share their particular political messages.
It's nothing new and just like they explain in the statement: They do this regardless of the political views being aired, they just consider it not a platform for that.
Very comparable to how the Olympics are supposed to be an "unpolitical event", at least in theory.
I do give points to Blizzard for the amount of Orwellian doublespeak here. They were just compelled to punish and deplatform because of their values of "Thinking Globally, Leading Responsibly, and Every Voice Matters!" Certainly nothing political about that!
Yet that's exactly what most major publishers have been doing with their crackdown on toxicity.
We've created these "safe spaces" where anything that could be interpreted as even remotely controversial is off-limits and ban-worthy because profit maximation is the only actual goal for a company like Blizzard.
No.
There are two fan axes here: agreement and respect.
Companies (and your comment) seem to focus on the former, while being completely oblivious to the latter.
If Blizzard had said "Our Chinese economic interests pressured us into doing this" they would have faced intense disagreement.
But, they would have retained as least a modicum of respect.
Instead, they forfeited both.
And really? Putting out equivocal PR fluff in response to an issue in 2019? Activision-Blizzard's entire Communications department should be sacked.
How did they forfeit both? Do we have any evidence for Blizzard being pressured do this?
We absolutely have not, all we have is a bunch of social-media hysteria were this claim originally came from, in complete ignorance of the fact that Blizzard has banned plenty of pro-players before for voicing "negative speech" [0].
In that context your response is exactly what I was referring to: People are not interested in what actually happened, people only want to hear what they THINK happened, even if there's zilch evidence backing it up and it never actually happened.
Again: What evidence is there that Blizzard was pressured into doing this and as such debunking their reaction as a straight-faced lie? There is none, while there's a long list of other competitive players who've been banned for exactly the same reason.
I do not even understand why this is so controversial on HN out of all places. This whole comment section reads like Reddit, lots of appeals to emotions, very little sticking to the facts at hand.
I hear your point, but what would a smoking gun look like?
An email or recorded conversation from the CCP about the actions they would take if Blizzard didn't keep the ban in place?
That positive confirmation bar seems unreasonably high.
How about anything concrete that isn't just sheer hearsay and speculation out of the social media sphere?
And yet you consider it outrageous that I take Blizz statement at face value? I already explained my reasons for that: To me this ban is very in line with other previous bans Blizzard issued.
That does not mean that I condone them or that I agree with them, but it gives precedence to the situation, precedent that had absolutely nothing to do with China.
We have precedent for Blizzard having banned players over political statements before, we have no precedent for Blizzard having been pressured by the CCP to do so. So what is the most likely thing that happened here?
The fact that Blizzard has banned people for making political statements before does not mean that there were no ancillary motivations in this instance.
You may feel otherwise, but I don't think a pattern of previous behavior unambiguously resolves the motivation behind an action.
> There's a whole lot of people out there who will not be satisfied with any answer contradicting that narrative.
> Heck, even if Blizzard went out there and would fully admit "The Chinese government pressured us to shut this particular player down", then people would complain how Blizzard could ever buckle to those demands in the first place.
Exactly. They did a shit thing and now there's shit on their face, of course it's going to be a negative outcome. There isn't always magic words they can say to make everything better again.
Please share some examples. I vaguely recall stuff over the years about the Olympics. But I don't follow gaming.
As somebody following gaming, this has much more to do with "safe space" culture than Blizzard being pressured to do anything by external actors. These are massive corporations, they do not need an external force pushing them to keep everything they do as "uncontroversial" as possible.
Having your sponsored event be the spotlight for political statements is the exact opposite of that. Something too many people here completely ignore because they happen to agree with that particular political statement.
But I doubt these same people would support similar freedom of speech, in that situation, if a player used their spotlight to prostylze for a religion, or tell the world about their personal views on things like homosexuality.
[0] https://liquipedia.net/overwatch/Banned_players
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/01/29/blizzard-co...
Also, changing the suspension period of the casters is a joke, they will clearly never work with Blizz again regardless of the 'official' length of the suspension.
Maybe I just want blood but it feels pretty unsatisfying.
Makes me feel really positive about Blizzard
Sanctions are typically adapted: symbolic at most for something unsurprising (a Black athlete campaigning for racial equality, an athlete defending a popular political movement in their home country) and stronger for something heinous (a football made Nazi references).
Command + f "mistake": 0 results
Command + f "apologize": 0 results
They still aren't listening to a PR expert, and this is only going to throw gasoline on the fire. This blog post [1] counseling Burning Man back in their dumpster fire of pain when they switched to a lottery system is very instructional, Blizzard should be following it to the letter if they intend to get out of this hole.
[1] https://alyssaroyse.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/burning-the-man...
Of course, if they had listened to a PR expert and written a first-rate apology letter, then we'd be calling them out as insincere and saying it was just PR fluff, a la the StackExchange letter recently.
Something to remember is China was a much different place 10 years ago when Blizzard started being distributed there.
I don’t see this as being about the money as much as it is about really freaking complicated relationships. You can’t turn off a billion dollar business in an afternoon.
Sure, but it’s telling which lose they chose. If we don’t want this to keep happening, the consequences from losing us have to be greater.
It's unfortunate, and it's counterintuitive because it's not what makes sense in everyday life. But a media circus is not everyday life.
One recent incident I've been tracking jumps immediately to mind.
Recently, a D&D streamcast, Critical Role, decided to participate in a Wendy's promotion, to the horror of their fanbase which largely eschews big corporations and their _marginal_ (in all senses of the word ;-) ) food products. A vocal contingent of the community felt this promotion was not at all aligned with the progressive values of the streamcast and community, and they let the org have it!
Within 24 hours, the Chief Creative Officer (and general face of the stream) apologized, and the org announced it was donating all its profits to a charity supporting farm workers.
Sure, there were a couple of angry people who were still not satisfied, and there are probably unpleasant longer-term consequences with potential future advertisers that they will have to deal with. But, in large part because they pay careful and compassionate attention to their community, you could see that the bulk of the community immediately jumped back on board.
Do not let Trump erode your sense of what is right for your product, company, and community. The dark side, after all, is not more powerful – only easier and more seductive.
To use your example, Burning Man still sells out within minutes, and few current burners actually remember the ticket lottery of 2012. There have been numerous fiascos including the Ticketfly data breach, tickets getting lost in the mail and sent without signature confirmation, and cancellation scams. Volunteers being denied the staff tickets they were promised. Yet for every jaded burner who stops attending, a fresh virgin (first-year burner) takes their place.
> official broadcasts [should] remain focused on the game and are not a > platform for divisive social or political views.
Same goes with NFL and the kneeling. Just say "hey, we're a business" and leave it at that. Hate all the moralizing.
That is where the problem comes in, it isn't a single censored outburst by a single player and not a single company doing the censoring. China is using that uncaring greed to ensure that these protests are censored on a larger scale.
It’s depressing how stupid he thinks we are.
I wonder if protesters supporting Catalonia, Cuba, Venezuela, Kashmir, Sudan, Indonesia, or Palestine did this, if it would get more attention than a single article or thread?
Heck, 100 people have been killed in the current Iraq protests and there are less articles and outrage compared to this. Maybe future protests will focus on getting punishments from large companies? Perhaps this is the start of a new type of activism.