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Comment by ashtonkem | Hacker News Reader

Union busting behavior is not that surprising, but talk about awful timing. Do the people at the top not consider the PR implications of this stuff?

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The might be banking on the “crush the SJWs” crowd. Who knows what their market research showed, but I think we will see soon enough.

Given that their first response to the lawsuit was to complain about “unelected bureaucrats”, I think their response is being driven more by their id than by careful market research.

They're probably more worried about what happens if they have to actually face a unionized workforce than what the public might say about them hiring a union-busting law firm.

Not enough people are going to unsubscribe from WoW for it to make a difference, enough of the public is anti-union and many of the rest don't care.

I’m actually seeing a lot of rage directed at them from the gaming forums I interact on, including a lot of people claiming that they’ve canceled. Completely anecdotal, I know, but it was not what I expected at all. I think this one is going to hurt more than usual.

>I think this one is going to hurt more than usual.

I hope that's true. I hope COVID has woken up labor to the power it has if it organizes (see also the restaurant industry).

There's a decently sized cohort that hasn't forgiven ActiBlizzard for what they did to Warcraft III as well. Nothing like ruining a 20 year old game by forceably replacing it with a broken, partial reimplementation.

I am out of the loop, could you elaborate?

Blizzard has been under a lot of bad press because they have screwed game releases lately (mostly because of shitty management?). They've also had bad press on political issues like the hong kong esports things and others iirc.

for warcraft3: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/blizzard-botched-warcraft-iii-re...

This article has quite conveniently _lost_ some important words:

>Blizzard also faced widespread criticism and calls for a boycott after banning a player who .

>In lieu of official support, a group of fans began writing their own patches for the game, building a service called that aims to add back missing features.

I think the service they're referring to is https://www.w3champions.com/

Don't let this be a confirmation bias type of situation though. The number of people that are vocal in forums rarely outnumbers the silent majority that just aren't bothered.

These messages are quite common. "What terrible PR, what are they thinking."

The truth is? It doesn't matter nearly as much as people think. Companies have caught on - a vocal minority will call them out, but it won't matter. People will still buy the next COD. At the end of the day, that's all anyone cares about top to bottom.

If you're having a bad news cycle, why not just dump the rest of the trash with it. Let it all blend in together instead of clearing one cycle, then creating another. People can only focus on so much at one time. In a few months, people won't remember and order their next release.

Is it something they need to be worried about? I mean Activision Blizzard has been shit all over the years, and kids still buy their games. On the other hand hiring a firm is not a proof of wrongdoing for the ongoing trial.

> kids still buy their games

Any source on that? I always imagined the current Blizzard customer demographics in the 20-40 years old range. Kids definitely don't play WoW, Diablo or StarCraft/Warcraft. Not sure about Overwatch but I'd guess kids prefer Fortnite. So perhaps Hearthstone? You kinda need a credit card to enjoy the game tho.

But you have a point, people still buy their games, expansions, loot boxes, skins, monthly subsriptions and so on.

Blizzard might not be targeted at the younger demographic, but teenagers still play CoD, which is made by Activision. ActiBlizz also owns King, which makes games like Candy Crush, which kids also play.

I don't like Microsoft, but i enjoyed playing elders scrolls, had a char of 300+ lvl, but when Microsoft bought zenimax i just requested to delete my account and licenses/dlc, a friend told me it was not worth giving up entertainment for ideas, nothing can change etc

I refer as kids for those who in general aren't able to sacrifice anything in order to be empathetic to others or true to their ideas

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