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Blizzard has removed Hong Kong Hearthstone player blitzchung from Hearthstone Grand Masters and rescinded all his prize money
- Thread starter Lump
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He is pretty solid, lots of 1st place finishes, won over $100,000 on the game. Grandmaster invites are based on earnings, so he would be invited easily in the future - unless Blizzard now go on a blacklisting spree
Hopefully the crowds there will make the reaction to the Diablo mobile game seem like a pleasant memory.
I'm genuinely shocked that Blizzard has not offered any additional PR statements. Just...fuck it.
They painted themselves into a corner. They either say "ok we let money make us forget about our core values, fuck China" (which they won't), or they double down and make it worse. They basically don't have any move that doesn't cause a fuckton of damage right now. It's glorious.
Every day that goes by just cements Blizzard further as being massive cowards, I would say that they have permanently damaged their 'inclusive' reputation. It is going to be brought up with every new announcement they make in the future.
This is a fuckup of massive proportions.
This is a fuckup of massive proportions.
Tweets like this piss me off.
1. The assumption that nobody had any idea what was going on in Hong Kong before this.
2. This is why he made his statement. He wanted to raise awareness. It succeeded.
Wow. Good on them. Standing in solidarity with their fellow players is more of a backbone than Blizzard had demonstrated, by far.
It was done during an American broadcast, Blitzchung did what he did during an Asian broadcast. I assume that is the main difference.
They knew what they were doing. If Blizzard punished them, it would add more fuel to the fire. If they don't punish them, Blizzard looks like hypocrites.
Good, it makes it a good fucking play. Blizz activated their trap card - they're Yugioh now
If you think Blizzard cares about anything more than money, you are kidding yourself. Especially being part of Activision. I knew things were going to get rocky when the merger was announced.
For real... It's the dual assumption that there's no point to doing anything like this and then 'calling people out' for not being aware before it happened...
Some people really have trouble connecting easy dots.
like Hobbes says ultimately Blizzard China or Blizzard Irvine, its still Blizzard, they knew what they were getting into when they signed whatever agreements for the China branch to be able to do this. That being said, I can just imagine like, J. Allen Brack waking up the morning after it happened and going "wait what happened?" lol >_<
I tend too belive what jasson is reporting on this. it was a overeaction that they cant back down from. simply put they overeacted b/c they thought the ccp, might come knocking, but if they back down now, they will come knocking.
Shucks, poor multibillion dollar company.
Fuck em. Not our fault.
The Young Savage himself. Amnesiac is young but clearly a good head on his shoulders
And i thought that media people of the industry will stay silent.
Good for him.
Are you an employee? The statue isn't exactly visible from the street.
Even 5 seconds would be good.. The good man has it for 5 minutes... <slow clap>
Do they think can just not say anything then Announce Diablo 4 and everything will be okay?
Not an employee, but I live ten minutes from the office and have been there before and I know people who work there.
And reply from Chris Avellone:
edit: damn, JustJavi beat me by a minute :)
BTW, this is one hell of a streisand effect too, isn't it?
Had blizzard just left it alone or even just penalized the player in a normal way for injecting their political stance onto their venue, then blitzchung's words would be fairly inconsequential.
Instead, no, idiots had to 'defend the pride of china' and take away his prize money and double down and now this is shaping up to be the biggest controversy of the year, literally a month before their biggest advertising event of the year.
Great job, assholes.
Had blizzard just left it alone or even just penalized the player in a normal way for injecting their political stance onto their venue, then blitzchung's words would be fairly inconsequential.
Instead, no, idiots had to 'defend the pride of china' and take away his prize money and double down and now this is shaping up to be the biggest controversy of the year, literally a month before their biggest advertising event of the year.
Great job, assholes.
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