Blizzard bans pro Hearthstone player a year for his support of Hong Kong protesters

ZeroGravity

ZeroGravity

Member


Here is the original incident for context:


Oh, and they fired the casters too, for good measure.

Another company shamelessly bending over backwards for their Chinese overlords. Been a big week for that and it's only Monday.
 
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Well if history taught us anything, it's that appeasement absolutely works with countries like China, given how they behave, and absolutely won't come back to bite us down the road.

So good on Blizzard, because I'm sure they and every other big business and government constantly doing everything they can to make China happy will definitely stop their expansionism, human rights violations and increasing power base any day now, and mean their ever amassing military might is definitely nothing to worry about for the future.
 
Whelp.

Blizzard is one less company getting my money.

Are they still owned by EA and Activison?

Because I'd LOVE another reason to hard boycott them.
 
We need two things to happen from this.

1. Player protests. For everyone who plays Blizzard games to reduce their playtime and stop paying for MTX, if only temporarily. A total boycott would be impossible, but reducing engagement should be doable and they should notice the downturn.

2. Pro player protests. For every pro player in Blizzards ecosystem to shout out in support of Hong Kong, and their right to freedom.

Unfortunately we don't live in a make believe world where people have the will power or conviction to make either of those a reality.
 
China has infiltrated all aspects of the western world. That's why so many game companies are censoring and banning so many things. Because the Chinese want them to. I bet Sony's whole censorship bullshit is all because they want to sell more games in China and want to please the cunt communists. You see the influence of China on campuses etc. corporations etc. in the west. China has been at it for a long long time. Fuck China and fuck all communists
 
Just remember this next time Blizzard does some Pride bullshit or lectures you on morals.

They don't give a fuck about anything other than money.
 
Hu Jin tao was the better leader. He was opening China up a lot more when I first got there in 2010 they were much less censored than when I left this January. I don't think I'll ever go back except to visit old friends. Never to live and contribute to their economy. Xi's just a little bitch.
 
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Pretty tough punishment for such a small interview segment, hopefully the guy has a second job outside of Hearthstone and can come back next year.

Hearthstone seems highly regulated and he's basically banned now from making a normal living. That's a horrible thing to be having hanging over you if you play Overwatch or whatever.
 
Spineless. His views shouldn't matter when they rewarded him on game performance.

Pretty sure it wasn't stated that they could take away all of this for not kneeling to the communist Chinese leviathan.

Happy to see blizzard becoming more irrelevant as the days move forward. Maybe if they actually made game content anymore..

The big 3 (ea, Activision and ubi) are bound to create more sterile experiences as they cater to Chinese and younger generations of hipster pussies.

Next generation should be good. The old guard will fall.
 
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Waiting on Jason Schreier to do a huge exposé on this :messenger_tears_of_joy:
Inside Blizzard's culture of censorship and communist propaganda

Seriously though, at this point there is no valid excuse for not knowing ActiBlizz is as bad as EA, Ubisoft or Take2
 
There is nothing as bad as Ubisoft.

Ubisoft recycle factory makes it feel like you're playing an exceptionally loaded and epic game experience... until you realized their last 12 games are exactly the fucking same. Even if one has cars and the other guns... same game ... find the question mark icon.

Actually, at least The Crew 2 has variety. The Least worst of the Ubisoft imo.
 
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Virex said:
China has infiltrated all aspects of the western world. That's why so many game companies are censoring and banning so many things. Because the Chinese want them to. I bet Sony's whole censorship bullshit is all because they want to sell more games in China and want to please the cunt communists. You see the influence of China on campuses etc. corporations etc. in the west. China has been at it for a long long time. Fuck China and fuck all communists
Click to expand...

Sony whole censorship is because USA not China
 
ThePiddle said:
Yup, no more ActiBlizz games for me ever. We absolutely cannot support this shit.
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Blizzard and Activision don't make stuff I want to play. Last was Diablo 2 from Blizzard. As for Activision, I haven't bought a game from them since MW1 on 360. The only game that remotely has something to do with Activision's name on it that I own is Sekiro. Luckily that is just publishing and Activision didn't fund etc. anything to do with it. Just the publishing. Activision simply doesn't make stuff I want to play. So I'm happy to not support them or Blizzard in any way. Both are shit
 
Was only a time, before you could also lose your job for "good opinions"
That's what people wanted. Hope they're happy with what they got.
 
I don't understand what's the story here. Blizzard is a profit seeking company and it will do what's in its best interests.
 
Audioout said:
We don't know this at all. They simply claim it's because different cultures are offended by different things so they take the easy way out.
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When Sony was censoring on West, Asia releases hadn't been censored yet. So, China is not the problem here.
 
shoegaze said:
I don't understand what's the story here. Blizzard is a profit seeking company and it will do what's in its best interests.
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This. Of course it's morally shitty, but you're delusional if you think a company like Actiblizz is going to actively piss off the Chinese Government.
 
Now I feel dirty for buying that breast cancer charity skin in Overwatch and making Blizz look more like good guys in the process. Fucking scumbags.

Well, ain't buying anything else from them now, even if it's for a good cause.
 
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AV said:
This. Of course it's morally shitty, but you're delusional if you think a company like Actiblizz is going to actively piss off the Chinese Government.
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They should have simply ignored it and adopted a wait and see attitude, at the very least. I also disagree this would be actively pissing off China since it's not Blizz making the offensive statement
 
Funnily enough, Blizzard breaks its own rules merely by existing.

But yeah, them bowing over to their chinese overlords is pathetic.
 
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I'd love to ask Blizzard an Overwatch lore question 'Late April Fools' style at Blizzcon.
"Is the Communist China in this setting a pluralistic democratic nation respecting LGBT rights". Just to watch the fuckers squirm on stage, with more work the question could be formulated in such a way it's impossible to answer without pissing off the CCP.
 
Katsura said:
They should have simply ignored it and adopted a wait and see attitude, at the very least. I also disagree this would be actively pissing off China since it's not Blizz making the offensive statement
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For one, nobody knows whether or not someone contacted them immediately and demanded action. Honestly, the scale of the reaction here suggests it.

Even if they didn't, choosing to simply ignore something that the government would quite obviously not like is not going to do Blizzard any favours with them.

Again, is it pretty? No, not at all. Does it make sense from a business perspective? Yeah. Not saying what they did was nice, but it seems like an obvious move to me.
 
AV said:
For one, nobody knows whether or not someone contacted them immediately and demanded action. Honestly, the scale of the reaction here suggests it.

Even if they didn't, choosing to simply ignore something that the government would quite obviously not like is not going to do Blizzard any favours with them.

Again, is it pretty? No, not at all. Does it make sense from a business perspective? Yeah. Not saying what they did was nice, but it seems like an obvious move to me.
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Right and customer outrage is also something that would obviously happen and rightfully so. Time will tell if Blizz desperate moves to compete in China will make up for all the lost goodwill in the west. Personally i think it's a very short sighted, investor driven, strategy that will ultimately lead to their downfall
 
Katsura said:
Right and customer outrage is also something that would obviously happen and rightfully so. Time will tell if Blizz desperate moves to compete in China will make up for all the lost goodwill in the west. Personally i think it's a very short sighted, investor driven, strategy that will ultimately lead to their downfall
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"Customer outrage" applies only to anyone that was already buying Blizzard products and now won't, specifically because of this. As this forum (rightly so) spends most days pointing out, this kind of outrage usually comes from people that don't actually buy the products. I'd wager that group of people is less than every Blizzard product owner living in China.
 
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