I also posted on reddit that everyone wear a Winnie the Pooh costume to blizzcon if they even plan on going
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Blizzard has removed Hong Kong Hearthstone player blitzchung from Hearthstone Grand Masters and rescinded all his prize money
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I also posted on reddit that everyone wear a Winnie the Pooh costume to blizzcon if they even plan on going
& without the badass personal augmentation. so pretty much lose/lose...
I hope people give them hell at Blizzcon.
Might make "is this a joke" from last year look like nothing.
Might make "is this a joke" from last year look like nothing.
Feels like since Blizzcon 2018 they've been fucking up way more lately. I don't know what happened to Blizzard, but they've been off their shit for a long time. Blizzcon 2018 was the beginning of it.
good writeup by destructoid
To be fair, there was barely any fire to begin with. People let Riot off the hook with that shit so quickly it was hilarious. Riot is a trash company, but it seems like people must like them enough to look the other way when Riot does awful shit.
I feel like a pissed off western fanbase could easily get an online game banned in China, especially if it's esports.
I mean you could make a concerted effort to VPN onto Chinese servers and just spam pro HK comments. You could sit in the background of esports events with oversized jars of honey. Hell, just Blizzard trending right now is probably enough unwanted attention to freak out shareholders.
Seems like you just need a few incidents and you're done in China.
Not that I'm saying that I hope that happens of course.
I mean you could make a concerted effort to VPN onto Chinese servers and just spam pro HK comments. You could sit in the background of esports events with oversized jars of honey. Hell, just Blizzard trending right now is probably enough unwanted attention to freak out shareholders.
Seems like you just need a few incidents and you're done in China.
Not that I'm saying that I hope that happens of course.
At the very least it's sobering to see gamers across the board condemn this, with little apologia or rationalizing. The Blizzard subreddit is refusing to eat the BS from both the reddit mods and Blizzard themselves. This could be a shared learning experience about the dangers of relying on a totalitarian regime for labor and investors.
It seems like it's been going on for a bit before that. From what it sounds like, Activision is getting it's tendrils deeper into Blizzard and all of this is a manifestation of that.
sweet christmas
brilliant.
and make sure the tag says, "made in China"
I don't even think official Overwatch porn would make people forget what they did here.
I hope Jason from kotaku will try to investigate the morale and what the employees are going through. The 2 core values "vandalized" / covered up by employees is very juicy.
Bah, I just said perfect blizzcon costume.
It would be such a shame...
But the gun is photohshop
We already have enough characters tied to questionable shit :/
edit: I thought this was about Smash DLC for some reason, and im going to leave this post here anyway
I have to say this is a very bad look given the current situation, even though blizzard as a company have to right to censor things from their own platform, but amid the NBA things this make them look extra bad.
And as someone who grew up in China I can tell you appease to Chinese censor knows no end. A friend of mine use to admin a public forum in china, he describes it's like constuntly getting slapped while you lick the 'department of culture's boots, and they never tell you why they slapped you, so you simply go out your way to lick them harder.
So to the people think they are actually offended by certain words, they don't, the CCP did things much worse then things the western called them out for, and more morally corrupted then your curse word able to insult, they simply strategically picking bones from things to slap these company to keep then in check, so once you comply more slaps will sure come.
And lastly, for companies like NBA and blizzard, and I guess Hollywood too, they have more power than they realise in this situations. You know why they can do business in China? Because Chinese people love them, if it's up to the party they would never risk to allow these western to come in to begin with.
And as someone who grew up in China I can tell you appease to Chinese censor knows no end. A friend of mine use to admin a public forum in china, he describes it's like constuntly getting slapped while you lick the 'department of culture's boots, and they never tell you why they slapped you, so you simply go out your way to lick them harder.
So to the people think they are actually offended by certain words, they don't, the CCP did things much worse then things the western called them out for, and more morally corrupted then your curse word able to insult, they simply strategically picking bones from things to slap these company to keep then in check, so once you comply more slaps will sure come.
And lastly, for companies like NBA and blizzard, and I guess Hollywood too, they have more power than they realise in this situations. You know why they can do business in China? Because Chinese people love them, if it's up to the party they would never risk to allow these western to come in to begin with.
Jason is on paternity leave but it looks like Patrick from Waypoint is looking into it as well.
Can you imagine if they deny entrance to folks wearing a costume to blizzcon........because if there are enough people who do it, they cant livestream anything with him in it to China.......have to blur the screen lol
User Banned (permanent): troll account
I'm a little afraid to get involved, but I feel like I need to say something.
Where does a situation like this even end? Like this is getting more than just disgusting, its crossing a line into the legitimately frightening territory at this point, I'll keep the (SUPER CRAZY) radical stuff to myself. Since literally no one is on board with that in this day to begin with, and I'm a clumsy bumbling idiot outside of my comfort zone.
I will say I think people are actually blowing that Winnie the Pooh stuff out of proportion, as someone who is similarly hated in certain circles, (Though in my case, its for very stupid reasons for the most part). Taken at face value, comparing the leader of China to that bear IS very childish, I mean what? You can't come up with a more clever way to do it? Thats also similarly subtle? It seems like its wasting everyone's time to keep referencing it. Most things in life are two way streets though. Its disingenuous to imply they don't potentially have legitimate reasons to ban Winnie the Pooh. If I was leader of a country, I would personally ban the game Fortnite, since its weirdly popular despite doing very little right, and most people don't improve from playing games like that. (They tend to have skill Plateaus from what I've seen). I'm not gonna harp further on something that potentially gave some people some solace.
Yes Blizzard is a business, but what IS the right answer here? To seem demonstrably psychotic? They DON'T have a leg to stand on here, this is a risk you run when you do business with a country like that. I don't understand why people do business with China at all to be honest. Regardless, they already signed up for this ride a while ago, and judging from people's reactions, this won't be forgotten to quickly.
Was this also the same company that fired everyone for doing too GOOD a job? I seriously don't know. If it is, we really shouldn't be ignoring them. We SHOULD be making sure they don't have the potential to harm anyone else, because the sky is the limit at that point. Its not like they are the only such industry in America either. Americans have relatively easy ways of fixing things, yet no one is taking any initiatives. You'd think somebody would take a shoot at it.
Theres certainly ways this could blow up further! You people have VERY shallow perceptions on the precedents that are potentially being set here! (potentially leaving a LOT of people dead, depending on how far certain entities want to take this) I dare not speak those things, because I don't need to give people in power any more ideas.
To be fair, Its completely possible this is just a sign, and NOT a CAUSE, of things to come. I'm not so arrogant to think this wasn't brewing for a while.
I redacted certain things, because I don't need police showing up here over something I'm completely incapable of starting.
Where does a situation like this even end? Like this is getting more than just disgusting, its crossing a line into the legitimately frightening territory at this point, I'll keep the (SUPER CRAZY) radical stuff to myself. Since literally no one is on board with that in this day to begin with, and I'm a clumsy bumbling idiot outside of my comfort zone.
I will say I think people are actually blowing that Winnie the Pooh stuff out of proportion, as someone who is similarly hated in certain circles, (Though in my case, its for very stupid reasons for the most part). Taken at face value, comparing the leader of China to that bear IS very childish, I mean what? You can't come up with a more clever way to do it? Thats also similarly subtle? It seems like its wasting everyone's time to keep referencing it. Most things in life are two way streets though. Its disingenuous to imply they don't potentially have legitimate reasons to ban Winnie the Pooh. If I was leader of a country, I would personally ban the game Fortnite, since its weirdly popular despite doing very little right, and most people don't improve from playing games like that. (They tend to have skill Plateaus from what I've seen). I'm not gonna harp further on something that potentially gave some people some solace.
Yes Blizzard is a business, but what IS the right answer here? To seem demonstrably psychotic? They DON'T have a leg to stand on here, this is a risk you run when you do business with a country like that. I don't understand why people do business with China at all to be honest. Regardless, they already signed up for this ride a while ago, and judging from people's reactions, this won't be forgotten to quickly.
Was this also the same company that fired everyone for doing too GOOD a job? I seriously don't know. If it is, we really shouldn't be ignoring them. We SHOULD be making sure they don't have the potential to harm anyone else, because the sky is the limit at that point. Its not like they are the only such industry in America either. Americans have relatively easy ways of fixing things, yet no one is taking any initiatives. You'd think somebody would take a shoot at it.
Theres certainly ways this could blow up further! You people have VERY shallow perceptions on the precedents that are potentially being set here! (potentially leaving a LOT of people dead, depending on how far certain entities want to take this) I dare not speak those things, because I don't need to give people in power any more ideas.
To be fair, Its completely possible this is just a sign, and NOT a CAUSE, of things to come. I'm not so arrogant to think this wasn't brewing for a while.
I redacted certain things, because I don't need police showing up here over something I'm completely incapable of starting.
I feel like these Hong Kong protests are a real tipping point for China. We have to turn Western corporations in support of HK and against China. China has let Western corps in to the point that the government removing them en masse would likely cause unrest internally.
Blizzard shouldn't just be ashamed of what they've done and apologize - they should categorically reverse course for the greater of good of the world population.
It's like the dilemma where one person says "what good can I do? I'm just one person among millions." But with corporations, it's one company among hundreds - so much easier to positively affect change if consumers can really dig their heels in the ground to impact corporate sentiment with regard to China.
Fuck Blizzard, NBA, Disney, Nike, Vans and everybody else. Review bomb everything. Cause a fucking mess. Unsubscribe. Create incendiary memes. Whatever.
Blizzard shouldn't just be ashamed of what they've done and apologize - they should categorically reverse course for the greater of good of the world population.
It's like the dilemma where one person says "what good can I do? I'm just one person among millions." But with corporations, it's one company among hundreds - so much easier to positively affect change if consumers can really dig their heels in the ground to impact corporate sentiment with regard to China.
Fuck Blizzard, NBA, Disney, Nike, Vans and everybody else. Review bomb everything. Cause a fucking mess. Unsubscribe. Create incendiary memes. Whatever.
Reddit can be okay sometimes.
If blizzard has a question and answer session with the crowd at blizzcon, somebody is going to say something
Matthew Gault's write up at Vice. I saw Patrick reach out to blizzard folks for comments so hopefully he gets some Blizzard ppl to talk to him and update the article
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If Blizzard hopes this is going to go away...
.... This is not going to go away.
Its been longer then that it started with the merger with Activision and an increased focus on a higher profit margin especially with Blizzard reaching on all time high with World Of Warcraft they need ways to offset the now lower subscriptions, and alot of age old talent has left and has caused alot of low moral.
Xi banned literally all of Winnie The Fucking Pooh because of a low effort meme comparing them. The Winnie The Pooh stuff absolutely deserves to be mentioned and mocked because fascists are insecure motherfuckers who can't take the slightest ribbing. They will kill or brainwash anyone that poses a threat. Fuck China, and all glory to Pooh.
Sure, but the consumer response can end up decreasing it. So, we'll see.
Btw, I used to have Activision stock and I sold it not long ago, but if I hadn't I sure as hell would sell it now (I'm talking about as an investor here)
crap, sorry about that, I'll edit my post. Patrick posted it and i skimmed the name part
US Senators are taking notice of this. It's going to be much bigger than Blizzard though. Can't wait to see their answer.
Assuming you're right, a political statement taking a side is very different than being politically neutral. I see everyone else' arguments and I dont think they are wrong or anything, I just dont think we have a definitive understanding of the whole situation and there is a lot of jumping to conclusions. I also really understand not wanting their games and events to be a platform where these kind of statements can be made.
So let's try and look at it from Blizzard's point of view; they had 3 choices:
1) Do nothing - This can mean 2 things, either that they are in support of the people of HK, or that they are neutral but are fine with their platform being used for these kind of political statements.
2) React positively - Basically taking sides and supporting the HK protests
3) React negatively - Which is what they did, which can either mean they are on China's side or that they are not fine with their platform being used this way.
From my point of view, we do not know for certain why they went with the 3rd choice. We dont know what would happen if a Chinese player came on stage and had a pro-Chinese political statement made; of course, if they allowed that then there would be little guess work.
I think the first step is for them to come clean and be very clear on why they did what they did. I think that's probably their big mistake here.
But either way, I still think the punishment and reaction towards the player and 2 hosts was over the top, specially given their rule book is vague.
Blizzard has been on a slow downslope for multiple years, this story just shows the decline is worse than we thought. I'm done with Blizzard.
I don't think there will be an answer. They (Blizzard) will just wait it out...
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