Blizzard Ruling on HK Interview - Worst thing a video game company has done?

@arcadefire: Given that EA was repeatedly voted "worst company in the world", when Blackwater was killing innocents, Nestle was poisoning water supplies, and BP still exists, I'd say that's a vain hope?

It's almost like capitalism is unethical or something.

Man fuck this too.

Y'all are gonna have a time at Blizzcon.

With Ellen’s statement and now Blizzard’s, it really is a time for idiotic platitudes. Though when has it not been.

I swear to God though, if I hear any more non statements even remotely resembling some Kumbaya let's all get together bullshit...

I actually think their new statement, taken on its own, is reasonable-ish. If they had initially given this minor penalty, with a better explanation, I wouldn't be that pissed off. BUT, Brack completely ignored the worst element of this debacle - the much more strongly worded and disgustingly obsequious statement made in Chinese on Weibo. And obviously, it's pretty hard to believe anything they are saying at the moment after their previous actions.

Hopefully this won't hurt the pro-Hong Kong fervor I'm looking forward to at Blizzcon...

Man, a statement on a major controversy after 5:00 pm on a Friday, huh? That one only comes out when there's some panicked PR person frantically pounding at the "Break Glass in Case of Colossal Fuckup" sign.

Seriously, they might be wise to just go ahead and cancel Blizzcon at this point. I don't know what they're expecting, but I have a feeling it's going to make the Phone Guy moment look pretty tiny by comparison. They are definitely going to have to cancel any Q&A sessions.

The statement reads as really insincere PR damage control to me. "Let me explain to you with Capital Letters our Bullshit Company Goals that we only really care about As Long As It Doesn't Cost Us Money." I just flatout refuse to believe that the initial punishment had nothing to do with the relationship with China. It was SO severe for something that wasn't inherently rude/disrespectful, just opinionated/political. Then they had no choice but to wildly backpedal after many Western casters and players were disavowing involvement with Blizzard.

Agreed that if this penalty had been the initial penalty, that this news story wouldn't have been as huge of a fuck up, but eh, I still think Blizzard looks totally spineless coming out of this. Technically the clause in the player handbook or whatever is so broad that Blizzard can say Blitzchung signed up for those rules and broke them, but everything about the rule seems written to punish disrespectful statements, not punish controversial statements. It still seems like they were absolutely willing to throw a pro player under the bus to preserve Chinese national dignity or whatever the fuck.

yeah, that's the thing. i can't say what any of this looks like to a casual fan- but from the enthusiast side, it feels like they've done real damage to their reputation. who knows what that's worth (they could release a killer diablo 4 and i feel like sadly all would be forgiven/forgotten)- but it's gotta be painful to watch for the people who built the thing.

then again, they sold it- so *shrug*

This statement is pretty much a big insincere nothing and it's just going to make things worse now that people can pick apart all the problems with this message too. That's the trouble with PR, if you put out a message that was rushed, it just adds fuel to the fire. Leave it too long before putting out a message, though, and you lose control of the narrative. In this case, not only did Blizzard take long enough to lose control of the narrative, they put out a weak statement that's just going to make things worse.

It always astounds me how large companies have some of the worst PR.

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.

Such bullshit.

It takes them one day to bring down the hammer on dissenting views and after that they take a week to carefully craft the absolute bare minimum to stop this spiraling out of control. And the worst part is they're probably going to get away with it.

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

You mean like your Chinese weibo account pledging to protect China's national honour?

Congrats to Blizzard on having only the second most bullshit statement this week!

@clush: I wouldn't be so sure to assume they are going to get away with it.

Like this article from Kotaku about further protests against Blizzard, for example.

It's hardly going to be the only thing to come up too, even in games. Honestly, and I don't mean this to try to call out anyone here who may be trying to see games stay as apolitical as possible so they can enjoy their hobby, this is all inevitable. Politics aren't going away people. It's not just a matter of sides, it's matter of the world being in a very bad place politically and even ethically/morally. You can't hide from this shit anymore.

Again, i'm not trying to call the apolitical crowd out, the crowd that bemoans for politics to be out of games, or out of this. I may disagree with that stance but I do understand the sentiment. Political issues like this can be toxic and not fun. When your using the medium for escapism for example, this becomes a hard pill to swallow. But again, the world is not in a great place right now. Across the board. Capitalism and moneys role in that play HUGE factors, and will continue to do so as things across the world destabilize more and more. The idea that you can just "hide" from the political stuff as things continue to cascade is a novel concept at best, and honestly is just unrealistic. It's not even a "pick a side" it's more, start figuring out what stuff matters to you as a person y'know?

Considering all that, I think Blizzards response was pretty much as trash as trash gets. The idea that this is going to get held to such a high standard that anyone who mentions anything politically will receive similar punishment is also a joke, and has been proven to be the case on many occasions. It would probably just be better if game companies in this instance y'know, let their community and casters/pro players be free to express the opinions they believe, provided they aren't harassing or offensive in nature. Saying "I side with X" on any complicated or sensitive subject matter almost never comes up as one of those things, so I don't really see how it's a problem.

personally I dont think Blizzard did anything wrong. The dude knew the rules and knew he would be punished.

@tunaburn: Uh huh. The casters, then?

@dodobasse: It was mostly in jest. I'm fully aware of how full of shit people can be. Everyone's screeching about blizzard and censorship, meanwhile, Apple literally has done it repeatedly and even as recent as a week ago and not a peep from the woke gamers.

@efesell they knew. He came up to the stage with a gas mask and they literally said "go ahead and say those 8 words you want to say" they were fully aware of it.

@tunaburn: They fucked over the casters pretty hard. While I have a hard time imagining they didn't know what was going to happen, I also just had a conversation with a fairly intelligent friend who didn't know there were (attempts at) impeachment proceedings going on in our country. Some people actively tune out of "politics"

Similarly, they chose a particularly harsh penalty for Blitzchung (that they since walked back) while also feeling the need to go above and beyond to tell their chinese audience that they aren't getting involved in this (which inherently protects the status quo)

If you want to argue that folk need a bit of perspective before saying "the worst thing ever done" then I am right there with you. But "did (nothing) wrong" is pretty extreme. And even Blizzard are acknowledging they were overly harsh in their punishments.

I wonder where all that outrage was when Blizz was banning competetive Overwatch players for voicing their particular political views?

How about GB community guidelines that actually prohibit political discussions and are usually enforced very strictly?

The thing is: Corporate America does not care about ethics, it cares about profits.

In that context it's mindboggling how many people think they are taking some kind of stand when they declare "I'll be attending Blizzcon to make my voice heard!", you know, a private corporate event. If those people would be serious then they'd be boycotting Blizzcon instead throwing even more money at Blizzard by attending.

@nethlem: I think those people would argue that attending Blizzcon, and disrupting the various events with protests instead of reacting with typical fanboy fervour, accomplishes something different from simply boycotting the event. Yes, boycotting the event would show a dip in attendance numbers or something, but who knows if Blizzard would even release the numbers if they got bad, and Blizzard probably doesn’t care that much if they make a little less money from Blizzcon ticket sales.

If people attend and disrupt the event, it could have enough impact that the media covers the disruptions and brings further negative PR for Blizzard on this topic. I mean, the whole narrative of last Blizzcon was that some fan sassed a Blizzard dev about making a mobile Diablo game, so it’s entirely possible that fans/protestors attending Blizzcon could affect the media narrative of this year’s Blizzcon.

I’m sure Blizzard is VERY aware of this, both because the Diablo thing and because of how much damage control they’ve had to do regarding the Blitzchung thing. I imagine they’re going to be extremely strict with how much/little fans can say on mic, and how quickly people will get ejected if they say political stuff or cause a disturbance.

@nethlem: I think those are pretty weak arguments to be making, to be honest. The first two are whataboutisms, and not even very good ones at that.

And corporate america caring about profit over ethics is exactly what people are protesting against. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say, there.

Lastly, the fact that some people are going about their protests in a weird or illogical way has little bearing on the actual issue.

I mean, if you don't care about this situation that's fine with me. And if you do, I think simply speaking up has its own merit. Is it going to fix the situation? Probably not. Could people do more? Perhaps. But even if it accomplishes nothing concrete, simply saying 'yo, that's messed up' is still a good message to send if that is how you feel.

@nethlem: I think it can go both ways.

I think Blizzard would care a lot more if people actually didn't attend. But video game (or media in general) boycotts don't work: People aren't going to deprive themselves of something they want. So at best you have just the hardcore fans who don't care anyway attending.

In theory, attending with the intent of "disrupting" could be a good idea. I know that over the years there have been some really good "impromptu" questions asked during panels that threw companies for a loop. I also know that most companies lock down the Q&A to the point that can never happen again.

So that leaves being an asshole. Maybe folk will care enough about this to remember and support the obnoxious shitheads. More likely people will have moved on from caring about this and will just get angry that "the crowd are being rude". Or it will all get recontextualized as "They haven't announced that Starcraft Ghost is launching today? No wonder the crowd was angry"

At the end of the day: This is no different than any other "drama" where it doesn't directly impact the players. Some feel very strongly. Others get angry that people are "wasting time" talking about it. And most people go back to their status quo of supporting the company they were mad at a week ago.

But fuck 'em. What matters is you. Do you feel strongly enough to stop buying ActiBlizzard stuff? Then stop. Do you want to go give them more money so you can MAYBE get thrown out on day one? Have fun. And so forth.

@bisonhero: If fans actually end up disrupting Blizzcon. Even then: The press on it can easily end up pretty mixed because in the end, this is just another Blizzard event where Blizzard makes the rules of how to behave and has the legal right to expel anybody breaking their house rules.

@clush: There's nothing whataboutist about any of that. Corporate America is blind to the content of the political message, it's allergic to controversial topics in general, of which politics is pretty much the biggest one.

I mean would you be okay if a Russian player would have used the spot-light to advertise for "Crimean independence!"?

I seriously doubt it, similarly, we don't blink twice when other political messages we happen to disagree with get shut down, like homophobic and xenophobic drivel.

But when the message is something parts of the Overton window can agree with, then we suddenly want more nuance in how the topics are filtered out.

This is something that simply doesn't work in reality, you are asking for corporations to develop a moral compass, a consciousness, to be the final judges on what political speech can pass to the public and which one can't. That idea alone is highly problematic.

All that in a time when it's been literally raining money for publishers like Blizz due to peddling gambling mechanics to literal children. Of course, they gonna stick to "When in doubt, better shut it down", taking sides is the last thing they want to do in anything when it could cut into their profits.

Without boycotts that's a very easy calculation for Blizz: Just endure trough the moaning, people will keep playing and paying, while still enjoying access to the Chinese market of over a billion more customers.

Everything else is just a PR problem for them they can throw a couple more of hundreds of millions of $ at.

This is some NFL level shit right here

You all seem 'misinformed'. Think of the potential shoe deals, the jersey rights, the... oh, wrong thread.

By Blizzard reacting they made it a political issue and took a stand. Saying it had nothing to do with China is absurd otherwise they would not have reacted they way they did and still are. If all they did was take the clip down on Twitch and never made it an issue no one would have cared at all, they created this mess and by trying to clean up this up they made a awful situation worse.