Oh absolutely, of that I have no doubt. They're going to try and ride this thing out and hope everyone forgets/loses momentum by the time Blizzcon takes place.
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Blizzard has removed Hong Kong Hearthstone player blitzchung from Hearthstone Grand Masters and rescinded all his prize money
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Oh absolutely, of that I have no doubt. They're going to try and ride this thing out and hope everyone forgets/loses momentum by the time Blizzcon takes place.
I said this would happen. More companies need to push back because I bet 9/10 China will fold. They don't want a chain reaction that ends their success in censoring western content.
I can't see how, unless the whole presentation approach changes this year. Even with Brack, that Welcome Address at Blizzcon is always filled with more heart and soul than your average conference or presser. They always talk a huge game about family, and friends, and how Blizzcon is where everyone reunites every year. LIke coming home. Ignoring this massive PR disaster will be at odds with the tone they've communicated with every single year at this address. I mean, I have no doubt that they'd be capable of re-envisioning that entire opening ceremony in the wake of all of this, but fuck would that ever be a shame.
I'm still holding out hope that they'll do the right thing here and address this with some kind of walk-back, but as someone else said, the silence right now is deafening.
Correct, Blizzard did not walk into this blind. They intentionally do business in China and know full well what is required to communicate to the Chinese audience.
Nah it doesn't, it's basically just 'guilt by association.' It doesn't mean that it's not true or that he didn't know what went on or was involved with it though but this isn't proof that he was. Maybe enough for an investigation into their relationship with Epstein but that might have already happened.
also I cant see the ccp happy ether, this does not halp their goals. may be the groups I am in, but outside a rare cnn peice this is by far and away the most the hong kong issue has come up ever.
While this might be major. Should be noted that is from July. It's not new.
Damn. All these brave players saying shit and there's. RDU joined Thijs in also censoring Honk Kong in chat but you can still type China. It's ok if they don't want chat being spammed but to not even comment on it at all has made me unfollow both. RDU had a weird thing where you type !politics and it states that there will be no talk about Hong Kong.
There's a 0% chance he made a statement to employees and it didn't leak about this issue imo.
So they are down TJ (unrelated, health issues), Kibler and Admirable as casters for events this fall. Quite a hit, even with Sottle staying on.
On /r/Blizzard, the picture showing Blizzard logo in the upper left of PRC flag got deleted by Reddit at 182k upvotes.
I think there is a difference though when you look at this compared to other issues. This is ongoing. It's just not a one time event, an apology - and people move on like the THQN stuff. Especially considering 8chan doesn't even exist anymore.
I think China's influence on gaming companies and how they react to their censorship and crimes against HK are just beginning. And as long as that persists, people will be reminded of Activision Blizzard and what they did.
Reddit is banned in China anyway... why would Reddit ban this user? What difference does it make to them?
Clown shoes everywhere.
Well, Tencent has stakes in Reddit...
Bit too Tin foil hat?
Maybe they are looking to get unbanned in China or maybe the user getting banned was unrelated to that post and was for some other infraction. There's unfortunately not enough information to know for sure.
I think it's censorship for Tencent. It's actually the least far fetched reason imo.
I disagree. Why would you censor, and create a lot of shit for yourself, for a 7% or so shareholder?
The all the might dollar is the reason why companies are willing to bend to China. But it goes both ways. China is dependent on foreign companies to bring their money and products into China. They also need to keep their people happy with material things to help maintain their total grip on power. This is all the more reason to call companies like Blizzard out of their bullshit. It puts the Chinese government in uncomfortable positions as well, however minor it is on a case by case.
The front page of reddit is inundated with content protesting China.
And yet, this mysteriously disappeared as well as r/hongkong MAGICALLY disappearing from the top trending reddits yesterday after sitting at number 1 for a day anda ahalf.
It's at number 15. The top subreddits seem to change widely. r/hongkong dropped 14 ranks, but other subreddits have changed by hundreds or thousands of ranks. That speaks to its continued presence.
Because it had 182k votes. That would've been top three of all time of all subreddits if it stopped growing.
They had to censor it because the message wouldve stayed on forever and they probably don't want to be on the bad side of their investors.
Fortnite never really hit that critical mass popularity in Asia like it did in the West. I dont know if you should expect any major tourney in Asia any time soon.
Fortnite isnt really a thing in China, PUBG is the big one there
I think that Blizzard logo was for whatever reason seen as more offensive than most things. That was blowing up.
Also the chinese Fortnite version is kinda censored and different from the non-chinese version
i think some people forget that threads aren't permanent on reddit and no matter the upvote amount they will eventually dissapear for new content
Frodan absent from this week's Omnistone. They didn't say why. Kibler repeated what he said in his statement. Firebat (for those that don't know, also a competitor in the Grandmaster league) agreed, saying he understood some sort of punishment but thought Blizzard was wrong to make it so harsh and it seems like they want to kill blitzchung's Hearthstone career. Said it feels like there's something else going on and they might be making an example out of him.
They will. However it was 3rd top voted of all time for all subreddits. That would've been easily growing if it wasn't removed.
You'll have to forgive me, but the only one I see on Reddit with at least 100k votes is the tianmen square one. Nothing else within the last twenty four hours has hit 100k upvotes.
Try within the last week instead of 24 hours. It's been more than 24 hours since this happened :-) There's a lot of stuff there that China would want censored.
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