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Northern Ireland23732 Posts
On October 11 2019 03:01 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 01:15 BisuDagger wrote:On October 11 2019 00:54 Danglars wrote:On October 11 2019 00:16 BisuDagger wrote:Everyone has done a pretty good job of providing discussion. In the spirit of continued discussion this has been moved to general where you are encourage to continue constructive conversations with each other.  Will TeamLiquid (and aXiomatic Gaming LLC with its controlling interest) release a statement regarding Blizzard's actions, despite potential repercussions for its players competing in future tournaments in China? The cowardice from a major profic-centric corporation (Activision Blizzard) is almost expected in longstanding corporate tradition. The more player-facing organizations that have taken stands on social issues have less power and a lot to lose, but still must show that stuff like "TL Loves Esports, Equally" wasn't only posted because there was little backlash to fear. Does TeamLiquid still have values when it might have steep costs? I can't speak for TeamLiquid, but the beauty of TL.net itself is that every user is empowered and encouraged to share their opinion. This includes the ability for staff to speak freely as individuals without repercussion. So you will see in other threads staff members have already taken stances based on what they believe in. The being said, not one of us holds stake in Teamliquid and therefore cannot speak on behalf of its owners. I think it's a stronger statement anyway to have staff freedom of expression versus one blanket statement that may not truly encapsulate the varied (even if similar) opinions of everyone at work here. TLDR: Of course we love everyone, no need to beat a dead horse <3! I respect that TL does not retaliate against staff members for stating their own view. I dislike the “repeat the company line” style organizations. It’s a credit that Victor and others doesn’t muzzle their volunteers and paid staff, and in keeping with the organization. Now, when you have scattered individuals feeling powerless to make a difference in a big corporation, they band together to make their power felt. Boycotts are one of the primary methods employed. Make the company hurt in a way it actually feels the pain, and hopefully next time they recall wincing at the results and choose better. Gamer-first organizations are the next step of group action. TeamLiquid is linked on official Blizzard webpages, does partnerships with Blizzard, organizes teams for many Blizzard products. What if Blizzard didn’t just crunch some numbers for potential boycotts, and estimate the days until it’ll all blow over, but also reckoned with popular organizations with a big name in their events showing they’re true to their stated values? That’s a second major PR hit. From “TeamLiquid releases statement critical of recent Blizzard actions, says incompatible with values” to a more extreme “LiquidX team withdraws from Y competition over recent controversy,” that spectrum of possible responses shows TL is willing to do something that actually matters on gamer/caster independence and absurd censorship. Let me play devils advocate for Blizzard. “You call us cowards. Say we aren’t committed to our corporate values. What organizations among you wouldn’t cave also? Who really has spoken up as an organization against us? Your multi-team esports organizations? No! Your gaming websites? No.They’ll let individuals speak out, but collectively won’t breathe a word. Their stands and beliefs are just as malleable as ours, so don’t come crying to us, hypocrites. None of the big sponsored orgs have done any different, and are secretly glad the pressure isn’t on them to also force an open admission.” I’m fully aware that BisuDagger doesn’t speak for TL, and the question wondered if he knew about a coming statement. I’m using his post as a springboard for my question, and if no statement is made in the next couple of weeks, I’ll have my answer in the negative. Reminder: It was official TeamLiquid logo & Twitter & post that made the “Loves Equally,” social issue endorsement, not individual users allowed to state personal opinions. I’m a cynical man that thinks other major organizations will stay silent, when they have an opportunity to speak out against bad corporate decisions affecting the kind of gamers they ostensibly support.
You’re right to be cynical here, and basically right on everything else here.
TL the organisation, not TL the disparate collective made those endorsements of which you speak. Which in my opinion were easy things to do, pun/reference very much intended but changing the logo in a pro LGBT nod is very much closing the door after the horse has bolted. The right thing to do in my opinion, but not a hard thing to do.
Taking a stance and commenting on this issue is actually tough and may have ramifications down the line.
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On October 11 2019 03:22 Wombat_NI wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 03:01 Danglars wrote:On October 11 2019 01:15 BisuDagger wrote:On October 11 2019 00:54 Danglars wrote:On October 11 2019 00:16 BisuDagger wrote:Everyone has done a pretty good job of providing discussion. In the spirit of continued discussion this has been moved to general where you are encourage to continue constructive conversations with each other. Will TeamLiquid (and aXiomatic Gaming LLC with its controlling interest) release a statement regarding Blizzard's actions, despite potential repercussions for its players competing in future tournaments in China? The cowardice from a major profic-centric corporation (Activision Blizzard) is almost expected in longstanding corporate tradition. The more player-facing organizations that have taken stands on social issues have less power and a lot to lose, but still must show that stuff like "TL Loves Esports, Equally" wasn't only posted because there was little backlash to fear. Does TeamLiquid still have values when it might have steep costs? I can't speak for TeamLiquid, but the beauty of TL.net itself is that every user is empowered and encouraged to share their opinion. This includes the ability for staff to speak freely as individuals without repercussion. So you will see in other threads staff members have already taken stances based on what they believe in. The being said, not one of us holds stake in Teamliquid and therefore cannot speak on behalf of its owners. I think it's a stronger statement anyway to have staff freedom of expression versus one blanket statement that may not truly encapsulate the varied (even if similar) opinions of everyone at work here. TLDR: Of course we love everyone, no need to beat a dead horse <3! I respect that TL does not retaliate against staff members for stating their own view. I dislike the “repeat the company line” style organizations. It’s a credit that Victor and others doesn’t muzzle their volunteers and paid staff, and in keeping with the organization. Now, when you have scattered individuals feeling powerless to make a difference in a big corporation, they band together to make their power felt. Boycotts are one of the primary methods employed. Make the company hurt in a way it actually feels the pain, and hopefully next time they recall wincing at the results and choose better. Gamer-first organizations are the next step of group action. TeamLiquid is linked on official Blizzard webpages, does partnerships with Blizzard, organizes teams for many Blizzard products. What if Blizzard didn’t just crunch some numbers for potential boycotts, and estimate the days until it’ll all blow over, but also reckoned with popular organizations with a big name in their events showing they’re true to their stated values? That’s a second major PR hit. From “TeamLiquid releases statement critical of recent Blizzard actions, says incompatible with values” to a more extreme “LiquidX team withdraws from Y competition over recent controversy,” that spectrum of possible responses shows TL is willing to do something that actually matters on gamer/caster independence and absurd censorship. Let me play devils advocate for Blizzard. “You call us cowards. Say we aren’t committed to our corporate values. What organizations among you wouldn’t cave also? Who really has spoken up as an organization against us? Your multi-team esports organizations? No! Your gaming websites? No.They’ll let individuals speak out, but collectively won’t breathe a word. Their stands and beliefs are just as malleable as ours, so don’t come crying to us, hypocrites. None of the big sponsored orgs have done any different, and are secretly glad the pressure isn’t on them to also force an open admission.” I’m fully aware that BisuDagger doesn’t speak for TL, and the question wondered if he knew about a coming statement. I’m using his post as a springboard for my question, and if no statement is made in the next couple of weeks, I’ll have my answer in the negative. Reminder: It was official TeamLiquid logo & Twitter & post that made the “Loves Equally,” social issue endorsement, not individual users allowed to state personal opinions. I’m a cynical man that thinks other major organizations will stay silent, when they have an opportunity to speak out against bad corporate decisions affecting the kind of gamers they ostensibly support. You’re right to be cynical here, and basically right on everything else here. TL the organisation, not TL the disparate collective made those endorsements of which you speak. Which in my opinion were easy things to do, pun/reference very much intended but changing the logo in a pro LGBT nod is very much closing the door after the horse has bolted. The right thing to do in my opinion, but not a hard thing to do. Taking a stance and commenting on this issue is actually tough and may have ramifications down the line.
If you are pro LGBT and you want Chinese money, then I may have some bad news for you.
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I think part of the reason this is blowing up is because people are starting to see just how scary China is becoming. At least I hope they do.
What's amazing is that the country can be so oppressive but also stable and growing economically. I wonder and worry about how long it will last. I couldn't imagine having to life a lie my whole life just so I won't be persecuted by the government.
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On October 11 2019 04:07 travis wrote:
I think part of the reason this is blowing up is because people are starting to see just how scary China is becoming. At least I hope they do.
What's amazing is that the country can be so oppressive but also stable and growing economically. I wonder and worry about how long it will last. I couldn't imagine having to life a lie my whole life just so I won't be persecuted by the government.
Well, I mean Nazi Germany (at least on the surface) grew economically as well. One of the reason they had so much support was because the people who were left were doing pretty well compared to the aftermath of ww1.
The biggest difference today is that the growth is more actual rather than based on borrowed time, and the state-capitalistic grasp has somehow managed to embrace the rest of the world with it.
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On October 11 2019 04:29 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 04:07 travis wrote:
I think part of the reason this is blowing up is because people are starting to see just how scary China is becoming. At least I hope they do.
What's amazing is that the country can be so oppressive but also stable and growing economically. I wonder and worry about how long it will last. I couldn't imagine having to life a lie my whole life just so I won't be persecuted by the government. Well, I mean Nazi Germany (at least on the surface) grew economically as well. One of the reason they had so much support was because the people who were left were doing pretty well compared to the aftermath of ww1. The biggest difference today is that the growth is more actual rather than based on borrowed time, and the state-capitalistic grasp has somehow managed to embrace the rest of the world with it.
For the average person if the system is on borrowed time and crashes after improving your standard of living by 500% it still worked. If it then drops to only a temporary improvement of 200% until it goes back up, it still worked. Even if you change currency and default on all loans to fix it the buildings, infrastructure and societal structure built up is still there to recover from.
If they are willing to gouge the people that has become rich from being CEO of the state run companies (most of them) the average people won't feel the crunch nearly as much as the economy as a whole.
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I see that a lot of people seem to care or pretend to care about this, so I'll tell you briefly what is actually happening.
China and the US are the two most powerful countries in the world and there is an ongoing battle for power. The US exploited China to grow their economy profiting from the "evil" communism where labor was cheap. However, the US obviously understands that this is symbiotic relationship whereby China will expand their economy very fast given the US investments, so they need to plan in advance. Religion was already used to death in middle ages, nationalism had been used since French revolution till WW2/Nazi party, so the next ideological tool that hey had was liberalism. Liberalism here means mainly "freedom", but freedom doesn't exist when you're part of a society as you have to give up a good amount of freedom, which is fine. Because freedom is not synonymous with happiness. This is not a concept that the typical modern western person will understand, because they're not supposed to. What you're supposed to understand is that freedom is good and America is freedom. This is of course not true, and there are multiple varieties of freedom, but I don't expect many of you to understand this kind of stuff, cause that's literally not your role--your role is to propagate propaganda, and this is antithetical to critical thinking.
Anyway, moving on. West brainwashed the west with liberalism aka american-flavored freedom, while China brainwashed the Chinese with collectivism and Chinese-flavored freedom. Both think they're free; neither are free. Nobody is free. Now what's happening in Hong Kong is simply a battle between US and China. The HK people started the riots, but it's long since the HK riot is actually Hong Kong. The riots now are US-sponsored "pro-democracy" professional rioters and "NGOs" taking the riots well outside of the interests of HK (liberate Hong Kong is literally Western propaganda and not the purpose of the revolution.) No one cares about Hong Kong at this point; it's the US trying to get at China, and China knows it. In response to this, China attacks the US corporations whose existence is reliant on Chinese economy. One of the casualties happen to be Blizzard, which is what the thread is about.
Blizzard is irrelevant in the larger picture, of course. They're just a random computer games company that was sacrificed in the US vs China international political war. Blizzard doesn't have a choice here because they play by the rules that the US set; namely, you have to expand in China if you want to stay in business. Blizzard is a casualty that is now used by the US as ammunition to get all brainwashed liberals in arms. Everyone has already been prepared for this to strongly believe that China is bad; there's no question among Americans, because the people don't ask questions, they just react. So Blizzard is further exploited by the media to further propagate the anti-China propaganda and help US-China international relations in favor of the US as China is now strong enough to reject the restrictions that the US wants to impose.
US is highly dependent on China. Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned by Chinese. Forbes Media sold majority stake to Chinese company.
This is simply a political war, and every one of you are used as pawns. Hong Kong is a pawn, gamers are another pawn, everyone is just playing the game designed by those two powers.
Reality is, if you care to know, freedom doesn't exist. The lower class is not affected by the flavor of democracy. For most people, it doesn't matter if they're allowed to criticize gay people, the government, or sexists. These are all manufactured overblown issues to get people to focus on superficial differences to weaponize their ideologies. People want to be happy, they want food, a career, etc. But that's not enough for rulers because they need their population to be angry against their enemies because the rich have not finished getting richer, and they need you. Democracy is a highly flawed political regime that you're not allowed to criticize because it benefits the rulers. The many are the easiest to manipulate as you can see (or you cannot see) in this thread, in news, in any forum, on Reddit, on anything. The exact same thing happened in history at all times: crusaders thought they were fighting the holy wars, Islam thought they were fighting for the Qu'ran, Nazis thought they were fighting for purity, Soviets thought they were fighting for equality, Spartans thought they were fighting for spirit, French thought they were fighting for liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Now Americans will think they're fighting for freedom.
The truth is that this is not your war, you don't understand what you're fighting, there is no moral superiority, there is no freedom, no right, no good out of this.
Enjoy being mad at Blizzard
User was banned for this post.
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 11 2019 04:50 forgotmyaccount wrote:
I see that a lot of people seem to care or pretend to care about this, so I'll tell you briefly what is actually happening.
China and the US are the two most powerful countries in the world and there is an ongoing battle for power. The US exploited China to grow their economy profiting from the "evil" communism where labor was cheap. However, the US obviously understands that this is symbiotic relationship whereby China will expand their economy very fast given the US investments, so they need to plan in advance. Religion was already used to death in middle ages, nationalism had been used since French revolution till WW2/Nazi party, so the next ideological tool that hey had was liberalism. Liberalism here means mainly "freedom", but freedom doesn't exist when you're part of a society as you have to give up a good amount of freedom, which is fine. Because freedom is not synonymous with happiness. This is not a concept that the typical modern western person will understand, because they're not supposed to. What you're supposed to understand is that freedom is good and America is freedom. This is of course not true, and there are multiple varieties of freedom, but I don't expect many of you to understand this kind of stuff, cause that's literally not your role--your role is to propagate propaganda, and this is antithetical to critical thinking.
Anyway, moving on. West brainwashed the west with liberalism aka american-flavored freedom, while China brainwashed the Chinese with collectivism and Chinese-flavored freedom. Both think they're free; neither are free. Nobody is free. Now what's happening in Hong Kong is simply a battle between US and China. The HK people started the riots, but it's long since the HK riot is actually Hong Kong. The riots now are US-sponsored "pro-democracy" professional rioters and "NGOs" taking the riots well outside of the interests of HK (liberate Hong Kong is literally Western propaganda and not the purpose of the revolution.) No one cares about Hong Kong at this point; it's the US trying to get at China, and China knows it. In response to this, China attacks the US corporations whose existence is reliant on Chinese economy. One of the casualties happen to be Blizzard, which is what the thread is about.
Blizzard is irrelevant in the larger picture, of course. They're just a random computer games company that was sacrificed in the US vs China international political war. Blizzard doesn't have a choice here because they play by the rules that the US set; namely, you have to expand in China if you want to stay in business. Blizzard is a casualty that is now used by the US as ammunition to get all brainwashed liberals in arms. Everyone has already been prepared for this to strongly believe that China is bad; there's no question among Americans, because the people don't ask questions, they just react. So Blizzard is further exploited by the media to further propagate the anti-China propaganda and help US-China international relations in favor of the US as China is now strong enough to reject the restrictions that the US wants to impose.
US is highly dependent on China. Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned by Chinese. Forbes Media sold majority stake to Chinese company.
This is simply a political war, and every one of you are used as pawns. Hong Kong is a pawn, gamers are another pawn, everyone is just playing the game designed by those two powers.
Reality is, if you care to know, freedom doesn't exist. The lower class is not affected by the flavor of democracy. For most people, it doesn't matter if they're allowed to criticize gay people, the government, or sexists. These are all manufactured overblown issues to get people to focus on superficial differences to weaponize their ideologies. People want to be happy, they want food, a career, etc. But that's not enough for rulers because they need their population to be angry against their enemies because the rich have not finished getting richer, and they need you. Democracy is a highly flawed political regime that you're not allowed to criticize because it benefits the rulers. The many are the easiest to manipulate as you can see (or you cannot see) in this thread, in news, in any forum, on Reddit, on anything. The exact same thing happened in history at all times: crusaders thought they were fighting the holy wars, Islam thought they were fighting for the Qu'ran, Nazis thought they were fighting for purity, Soviets thought they were fighting for equality, Spartans thought they were fighting for spirit, French thought they were fighting for liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Now Americans will think they're fighting for freedom.
The truth is that this is not your war, you don't understand what you're fighting, there is no moral superiority, there is no freedom, no right, no good out of this.
Enjoy being mad at Blizzard
I think your cynical view on things does neither cover all of reality or does it pretty accurate in the details you mention.
There are values to freedom, even if every choice in life indeed comes with consequences that maybe make you think you never can really be free.
Hong Kong protest started to fight a very direct threat. The possibility to be "abducted" to china. They reacted to that threat.
Like you would react if somebody is about to punch you in the face. You don't think about the greater picture (yeah you die anyway, why dodge, run or fight back, roll over and get punched).
To get on with the discussion:
Here is a link to a list of companies that "bend the knee" - when and how.
https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina
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On October 11 2019 02:07 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 02:05 Shuffleblade wrote:On October 11 2019 01:52 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On October 11 2019 01:42 Shuffleblade wrote:On October 11 2019 01:33 KT_Elwood wrote:
I don't think that risk will justify reward here. Blizzard can easily stomp TL, and won't lose a significant marketshare.
I am totally confused what to think of all the SC2/WC3/WOW streamers/Casters right now. I'd love them to be able to show a reaction, but I also know that - if Activision-Blizzard bans them from streaming - they'd have to find another game or another job.
Activision Blizzard has become this scary.
Blizzard cant ban anyone from streaming on twitch, they don't own twitch. Blizzard also cant ban anyone from playing any of their games because they post on YT/twitch/twitter/whatever that they support the liberate HK movement. Overwatch's Jeff Kaplan said they'd be looking on Youtube.com for people saying stuff they don't like so they can pre-emptively ban people without them ever doing anything "wrong" on BNet. i can't get my gf to play OW with me any more... she is a libertarian and hates Kaplan so much. LOL. waitwaitwaitwait, that should be absolutely impossible. Are you telling me Blizzard has a part of their EULA that says: - If you make a political statement that we don't agree with you are not allowed to play our game? So basically as if they would make a game and say "only Trump supporters may play this game, anyone found out to not be a Trump supporter will be banned". There just no way that is possible, they can't put having a certain opinion as a requisite for playing a game and they cant ban someone for saying their opinion. I mean they can during Blizzards own broadcasted events but they cant on youtube, thats just pure BS. Please keep in mind that this is coming from Kotaku which has its own bias. However, there is some truth in this article. https://kotaku.com/blizzard-is-now-monitoring-youtube-for-toxic-overwatch-1822465612If Blizzard determines that users bringing up all the ways China has been fucking over Hong Kong for the past 20+ years is considered "toxic" I guess they can ban the users. I'm not sure to the degree to which the China//HK conflict is true. Maybe China has been screwing over Hong Kong since 1997 .. maybe not.. I don't know enough about the topic. However, Blizzard could easily declare the entire topic "toxic" and start banning people if they want.
Thank you for the link, it made it much clearer to me.
I don't believe it is written anywhere that this has anything to do with saying stuff about political views. The way I interpret this is that if they watcha a youtube video were player x is toxic, for example telling someone else they are a "Insert aggresive offensive language here" then Blizz can ban them that player from the game.
That would be totally in their own right since the player was toxic in their game towards other players. Nothing makes me think they are talking about political standpoints here. Its as if Blizz would read the "hilarious BM thread" here on TL and ban the players that were toxic, not a bad idea tbh.
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On October 11 2019 02:17 ThaddeusK wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 02:05 Shuffleblade wrote:On October 11 2019 01:52 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On October 11 2019 01:42 Shuffleblade wrote:On October 11 2019 01:33 KT_Elwood wrote:
I don't think that risk will justify reward here. Blizzard can easily stomp TL, and won't lose a significant marketshare.
I am totally confused what to think of all the SC2/WC3/WOW streamers/Casters right now. I'd love them to be able to show a reaction, but I also know that - if Activision-Blizzard bans them from streaming - they'd have to find another game or another job.
Activision Blizzard has become this scary.
Blizzard cant ban anyone from streaming on twitch, they don't own twitch. Blizzard also cant ban anyone from playing any of their games because they post on YT/twitch/twitter/whatever that they support the liberate HK movement. Overwatch's Jeff Kaplan said they'd be looking on Youtube.com for people saying stuff they don't like so they can pre-emptively ban people without them ever doing anything "wrong" on BNet. i can't get my gf to play OW with me any more... she is a libertarian and hates Kaplan so much. LOL. waitwaitwaitwait, that should be absolutely impossible. Are you telling me Blizzard has a part of their EULA that says: - If you make a political statement that we don't agree with you are not allowed to play our game? So basically as if they would make a game and say "only Trump supporters may play this game, anyone found out to not be a Trump supporter will be banned". There just no way that is possible, they can't put having a certain opinion as a requisite for playing a game and they cant ban someone for saying their opinion. I mean they can during Blizzards own broadcasted events but they cant on youtube, thats just pure BS. Every EULA you have ever agreed to has a section that says they can ban you for any or no reason.
Even if true they cant act on such a EULA. Sorry but I payed for a product, there are multiple ways gaming companies have done business in ways that are not legal. Not taking any refunds was one of them, that went all the way in the courts and Steam was forced to offer refunds. If game companies would start banning people for their political or private opinions, lets just say that would go into the courts and it would not look pretty.
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On October 11 2019 05:03 KT_Elwood wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On October 11 2019 04:50 forgotmyaccount wrote:
I see that a lot of people seem to care or pretend to care about this, so I'll tell you briefly what is actually happening.
China and the US are the two most powerful countries in the world and there is an ongoing battle for power. The US exploited China to grow their economy profiting from the "evil" communism where labor was cheap. However, the US obviously understands that this is symbiotic relationship whereby China will expand their economy very fast given the US investments, so they need to plan in advance. Religion was already used to death in middle ages, nationalism had been used since French revolution till WW2/Nazi party, so the next ideological tool that hey had was liberalism. Liberalism here means mainly "freedom", but freedom doesn't exist when you're part of a society as you have to give up a good amount of freedom, which is fine. Because freedom is not synonymous with happiness. This is not a concept that the typical modern western person will understand, because they're not supposed to. What you're supposed to understand is that freedom is good and America is freedom. This is of course not true, and there are multiple varieties of freedom, but I don't expect many of you to understand this kind of stuff, cause that's literally not your role--your role is to propagate propaganda, and this is antithetical to critical thinking.
Anyway, moving on. West brainwashed the west with liberalism aka american-flavored freedom, while China brainwashed the Chinese with collectivism and Chinese-flavored freedom. Both think they're free; neither are free. Nobody is free. Now what's happening in Hong Kong is simply a battle between US and China. The HK people started the riots, but it's long since the HK riot is actually Hong Kong. The riots now are US-sponsored "pro-democracy" professional rioters and "NGOs" taking the riots well outside of the interests of HK (liberate Hong Kong is literally Western propaganda and not the purpose of the revolution.) No one cares about Hong Kong at this point; it's the US trying to get at China, and China knows it. In response to this, China attacks the US corporations whose existence is reliant on Chinese economy. One of the casualties happen to be Blizzard, which is what the thread is about.
Blizzard is irrelevant in the larger picture, of course. They're just a random computer games company that was sacrificed in the US vs China international political war. Blizzard doesn't have a choice here because they play by the rules that the US set; namely, you have to expand in China if you want to stay in business. Blizzard is a casualty that is now used by the US as ammunition to get all brainwashed liberals in arms. Everyone has already been prepared for this to strongly believe that China is bad; there's no question among Americans, because the people don't ask questions, they just react. So Blizzard is further exploited by the media to further propagate the anti-China propaganda and help US-China international relations in favor of the US as China is now strong enough to reject the restrictions that the US wants to impose.
US is highly dependent on China. Chinese Tencent owns 5 percent of Blizzard, if full owner of Riot Games, 48% of Epic Games, 11.5% of Bluehole (Fortnite and PUBG), 5% of Ubisoft. They are also investor in Discord. AMC is fully owned by Chinese. The largest movie theater chain in the United States is fully owned by Chinese. Legendary Entertainment Group is owned by Chinese. Forbes Media sold majority stake to Chinese company.
This is simply a political war, and every one of you are used as pawns. Hong Kong is a pawn, gamers are another pawn, everyone is just playing the game designed by those two powers.
Reality is, if you care to know, freedom doesn't exist. The lower class is not affected by the flavor of democracy. For most people, it doesn't matter if they're allowed to criticize gay people, the government, or sexists. These are all manufactured overblown issues to get people to focus on superficial differences to weaponize their ideologies. People want to be happy, they want food, a career, etc. But that's not enough for rulers because they need their population to be angry against their enemies because the rich have not finished getting richer, and they need you. Democracy is a highly flawed political regime that you're not allowed to criticize because it benefits the rulers. The many are the easiest to manipulate as you can see (or you cannot see) in this thread, in news, in any forum, on Reddit, on anything. The exact same thing happened in history at all times: crusaders thought they were fighting the holy wars, Islam thought they were fighting for the Qu'ran, Nazis thought they were fighting for purity, Soviets thought they were fighting for equality, Spartans thought they were fighting for spirit, French thought they were fighting for liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Now Americans will think they're fighting for freedom.
The truth is that this is not your war, you don't understand what you're fighting, there is no moral superiority, there is no freedom, no right, no good out of this.
Enjoy being mad at Blizzard I think your cynical view on things does neither cover all of reality or does it pretty accurate in the details you mention. There are values to freedom, even if every choice in life indeed comes with consequences that maybe make you think you never can really be free. Hong Kong protest started to fight a very direct threat. The possibility to be "abducted" to china. They reacted to that threat. Like you would react if somebody is about to punch you in the face. You don't think about the greater picture (yeah you die anyway, why dodge, run or fight back, roll over and get punched). To get on with the discussion: Here is a link to a list of companies that "bend the knee" - when and how. https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina
Thanks for the link. Some of these are more egregious than others, but it will generally function as a list of companies I will no longer do any business with (Not that I, a small single man, is going to make much of an impact on my own of course. But it would be cool if this spread and more people chose to follow the same route)
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Politics ruin sports and any sense of a SC community. Politics promotes tribalism. Let's keep politics far away from any and all sports, so we can still have something in this world were we can forget our tribal differences. I support Blizzard's decision to keep politics out of their games.
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On October 11 2019 05:16 Shuffleblade wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 02:17 ThaddeusK wrote:On October 11 2019 02:05 Shuffleblade wrote:On October 11 2019 01:52 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On October 11 2019 01:42 Shuffleblade wrote:On October 11 2019 01:33 KT_Elwood wrote:
I don't think that risk will justify reward here. Blizzard can easily stomp TL, and won't lose a significant marketshare.
I am totally confused what to think of all the SC2/WC3/WOW streamers/Casters right now. I'd love them to be able to show a reaction, but I also know that - if Activision-Blizzard bans them from streaming - they'd have to find another game or another job.
Activision Blizzard has become this scary.
Blizzard cant ban anyone from streaming on twitch, they don't own twitch. Blizzard also cant ban anyone from playing any of their games because they post on YT/twitch/twitter/whatever that they support the liberate HK movement. Overwatch's Jeff Kaplan said they'd be looking on Youtube.com for people saying stuff they don't like so they can pre-emptively ban people without them ever doing anything "wrong" on BNet. i can't get my gf to play OW with me any more... she is a libertarian and hates Kaplan so much. LOL. waitwaitwaitwait, that should be absolutely impossible. Are you telling me Blizzard has a part of their EULA that says: - If you make a political statement that we don't agree with you are not allowed to play our game? So basically as if they would make a game and say "only Trump supporters may play this game, anyone found out to not be a Trump supporter will be banned". There just no way that is possible, they can't put having a certain opinion as a requisite for playing a game and they cant ban someone for saying their opinion. I mean they can during Blizzards own broadcasted events but they cant on youtube, thats just pure BS. Every EULA you have ever agreed to has a section that says they can ban you for any or no reason. Even if true they cant act on such a EULA. Sorry but I payed for a product, there are multiple ways gaming companies have done business in ways that are not legal. Not taking any refunds was one of them, that went all the way in the courts and Steam was forced to offer refunds. If game companies would start banning people for their political or private opinions, lets just say that would go into the courts and it would not look pretty.
Correct. EULAs are not legally binding in court whatsoever. They're, in fact, practically useless. But more importantly, the fact that a company can ban you for no reason is not the same as being banned for any reason. They are, technically, allowed to, but we as people don't need to sit back and accept them for doing so.
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On October 11 2019 05:35 Xlancer wrote:
Politics ruin sports and any sense of a SC community. Politics promotes tribalism. Let's keep politics far away from any and all sports, so we can still have something in this world were we can forget our tribal differences. I support Blizzard's decision to keep politics out of their games.
Please. Sports and politics have gone hand in hand since the dawn of..well, sports. Blizzard didn't make a decision to keep politics out of their game, they made a blatant decision to support China. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to dish out such an insanely harsh punishment, fire the casters, and then release an official message to trough the Chinese equivalent of Twitter that they are going to "Defend the Chinese people".
This isn't Blizzard being apolitical, it's Blizzard taking a stance against Hong Kong.
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On October 10 2019 23:05 Herpin_Along wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2019 20:05 tigon_ridge wrote:
When you choose to compromise your own integrity in order to appease the mob... In the long run, that will be bad for business. I could easily replace this with "When you choose to compromise your own integrity in order to appease an incredibly sensitive authoritarian regime... In the long run, that will be bad for business" Like seriously people. I don't get this view - it's such a bad long-term business model to subjugate yourself to China like this. Like the whole NBA thing - it was a fucking tweet. Like this huge shitstorm was caused by a god damn tweet. China has cut all official business ties with the NBA - and let me repeat this again - over a god damn tweet, in a country where people actually have freedom of speech. You will never be able to control people to that extent in a place like America, where anti-authoritarian tendencies run strong (which is great, btw, its one part of the US I appreciate a lot). I genuinely hope that businesses start to reconsider investing in China over this shit. How are you ever going to satisfy the whims of a capricious, incredibly easily offended authoritarian regime? A regime that can, on a whim, essentially nullify any investment you've made in the country - over a god damn tweet. Like the NBA is literally going to lose hundreds of millions of dollars over a tweet from someone that they actually can't even control. Investing hundreds of millions into a country like that just seems like bad business to me.
Amen. If my comment wasn't clear, by "mob" I definitely meant the chinese communist party. I mean, they're no longer squishing completely innocent protesters with tanks, so I guess that's progress. Last I checked, they also stopped destroying artifacts and buildings that are remnants of their long history and culture. Progress. Still, this regime has an extremely long way to go before I would consider it a legitimate government.
Every time I hear a caster use the term "chinese taipei" to refer to Taiwan, I'm like -_-... lol But it's so obvious that strings are being pulled. It would be great if both Taiwan and HK could acquire nukes, and tell the mainland regime to screw off. Nothing but a big bully that doesn't understand how precarious their political and economic standings are, once the world finally decides it's had enough of their crap.
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On October 11 2019 05:37 Excludos wrote:
This isn't Blizzard being apolitical, it's Blizzard taking a stance against Hong Kong.
nah, I don't think Blizzard is "for" or "against" Hong Kong. They are parroting some words to protect a revenue stream in a massive consumer market. China and Hong Kong are not cultures and countries in the eyes of Blizzard. China and Hong Kong are revenue and profit sources.
Likewise, I do not think Blizzard is "for" or "against" homosexuality. They do their gay pride celebrations in countries where it is politically expedient to do so. They are silent in countries where they deem it too controversial to bring up.
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On October 11 2019 06:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 05:37 Excludos wrote:
This isn't Blizzard being apolitical, it's Blizzard taking a stance against Hong Kong. nah, I don't think Blizzard is "for" or "against" Hong Kong. They are parroting some words to protect a revenue stream in a massive consumer market. + Show Spoiler +China and Hong Kong are not cultures and countries in the eyes of Blizzard. China and Hong Kong are revenue and profit sources.
Likewise, I do not think Blizzard is "for" or "against" homosexuality. They do their gay pride celebrations in countries where it is politically expedient to do so. They are silent in countries where they deem it too controversial to bring up.
Of course they are not communists by heart, but that does not matter. They have become an proxy-executor for chinese propaganda.
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I guess the rules aren't the same for everyone
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On October 11 2019 06:24 KT_Elwood wrote:Show nested quote +On October 11 2019 06:01 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On October 11 2019 05:37 Excludos wrote:
This isn't Blizzard being apolitical, it's Blizzard taking a stance against Hong Kong. nah, I don't think Blizzard is "for" or "against" Hong Kong. They are parroting some words to protect a revenue stream in a massive consumer market. + Show Spoiler +China and Hong Kong are not cultures and countries in the eyes of Blizzard. China and Hong Kong are revenue and profit sources.
Likewise, I do not think Blizzard is "for" or "against" homosexuality. They do their gay pride celebrations in countries where it is politically expedient to do so. They are silent in countries where they deem it too controversial to bring up. Of course they are not communists by heart, but that does not matter. They have become an proxy-executor for chinese propaganda.
nah, Blizzard keeps things really slippery and vague. They do not get involved in the Hong Kong//China disagreement over how extradition should work. Blizzard just said what the player did was "offensive". They didn't get into any details. Blizzard keeps things really slippery and vague. Blizzard wants to sell video games to both sides of any political debate.
I can tell you what their next move probably will be. Blizzard will release some vague general statement about how much they love both Hong Kong and China and they want to see both countries work together better. Such harmony will improve the whole wide world and make the whole world a better place! 
i'm feeling warm and fuzzy just typing out this drivel.
Likewise, Blizzard is probably "pro abortion" and "pro transgender rights". They'll never delve into the details of how this impacts the Vancouver Rape Crisis Centre though. Blizzard keeps everything really vague.
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On October 11 2019 03:07 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 10 2019 19:08 CraigWT wrote:
Have you ever seen what they are doing? Hopefully you are honest about statement that you came to hk recently, the real hk is we cannot go out our living area during the weekend because of them and we barely cannot find a opening restaurant during the last weekend. They are ruining the city and most of us don’t support them. Also please visit some hk local online forums to read what we think (u can use google translate). These riots doesn’t represent hk.
Dude, do you even live in HK? How can you not find a restaurant opening in HK? There's hundred of thousands of restaurants literally crammed next to, below, on top of, within residential areas all within a tightly packed area around the area where the protestors operate and the protests occur only in localised areas. If most people in HK don't support the protesters, where exactly are these protestors coming from that are closing down every restaurant in Wan Chai and Kowloon, presuming that's where you live if you can't even go out.
Please come to hk during the weekend and see if you can easily find open restaurant for dinner in major HK island area (Central to Causeway bay) and major Kowloon area (TST to Mongkok). Please don’t believe your own imagination
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This is sad and scary :/ That an American company would actively censor political speech on behalf of a murderous one-party regime does not bode well for the future.
The political systems in Europe and America are not well equipped to deal with corporations stifling freedom of expression/religion/thought etc because it has not been particularly relevant. But now that there is an increasingly large amount of money to be made by actively suppressing speech the communist party finds objectionably it seems like we as citizens will find ourselves censored not by our governments, but by the private organisations that increasingly run all societal infrastructure.
Chinese companies operate trains throughout Europe, how long until wearing the wrong kind of t-shirt will get you kicked off one?
"It's a private company, take your business elsewhere"
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EPT
