EPThttps://kotaku.com/blizzards-hong-kong-missteps-prove-video-games-arent-ne-1838913631
Blizzard bans HS Pro for political statement - Page 31
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Blizzard’s Official Statement: https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23185888/regarding-last-weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament Comment by JJR in case Blizzard tries to pull off a ninja edit: https://tl.net/forum/general/551816-blizzard-bans-hs-pro-for-political-statement?page=27#529 | ||
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Psyonic_Reaver
United States4341 Posts
https://kotaku.com/blizzards-hong-kong-missteps-prove-video-games-arent-ne-1838913631 | ||
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Starlightsun
United States1405 Posts
On October 13 2019 02:13 Xlancer wrote: Why do I want Blizzard E-Sports to remain as politically neutral as possible??? Because I like the fact that SC2 is an global sport, and I would like it to remain global. The Chinese viewers out numbered the western viewers by nearly 2 for every one western viewer. And that was without a single Chinese player even qualifying for Blizzcon. ( https://escharts.com/tournaments/sc2/wcs-global-finals-2018 ) This year TIME did qualify, so the viewers will likely increase by 2 or 300%. It's very likely that Blizzard will cut and eventually completely eliminate their support for SC2 E-Sports without the Chinese viewership. Why sacrifice SC2 E-Sports over buzzword political statements that change absolutely nothing in the world? If I want to read or discus politics, there are thousands of places I can do that freely already, but sometimes I get tired of politics and just want to enjoy SC2... How has politics ever improved the viewing experience of E-Sports? It just makes me feel more depressed about the world... Is Blizzard really going to cut SC2? That leaves me speechless considering they actively tried to kill BW in order to promote SC2. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26242 Posts
On October 13 2019 02:13 Xlancer wrote: Why do I want Blizzard E-Sports to remain as politically neutral as possible??? Because I like the fact that SC2 is an global sport, and I would like it to remain global. The Chinese viewers out numbered the western viewers by nearly 2 for every one western viewer. And that was without a single Chinese player even qualifying for Blizzcon. ( https://escharts.com/tournaments/sc2/wcs-global-finals-2018 ) This year TIME did qualify, so the viewers will likely increase by 2 or 300%. It's very likely that Blizzard will cut and eventually completely eliminate their support for SC2 E-Sports without the Chinese viewership. Why sacrifice SC2 E-Sports over buzzword political statements that change absolutely nothing in the world? If I want to read or discus politics, there are thousands of places I can do that freely already, but sometimes I get tired of politics and just want to enjoy SC2... How has politics ever improved the viewing experience of E-Sports? It just makes me feel more depressed about the world... I understand the desire for that, but eSports is relatively new and perhaps its future direction is important to us. Speaking purely from my own viewpoint anyway, both football and formula one are two sports that I love and used to follow closely with my dad respectively. In the vacuum created by an understandable desire to keep politics out and grow the sport, authoritarian regimes have stepped in to use these mediums as propaganda vehicles for their states. I don’t see eSports as being immune to this process, indeed it’s far more vulnerable potentially because the investment needed to get that influence is trifling compared to that. | ||
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hitthat
Poland2311 Posts
On October 13 2019 02:23 Starlightsun wrote: Is Blizzard really going to cut SC2? That leaves me speechless considering they actively tried to kill BW in order to promote SC2. Meh, it's totaly comprehensible for me. | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9768 Posts
On October 13 2019 02:18 Psyonic_Reaver wrote: Because it is impossible for things to remain neutral as the world grows more politically charged. This is exactly the problem though. Demanding that companies take specific political stances will create a situation where the world grows more politically charged. The more politics is allowed to enter video games, the more demand there will be for specific types of politics. All this will do is alienate people who hold different beliefs and divide, divide, divide. What you want is for companies to pander to your beliefs. Also you only want it in this case because there seems to be fairly unanimous support for Hong Kong among the people you talk to. That isn't true worldwide though. When you start getting into more heavily divided domestic issues you can see why politicising this stuff is a fucking awful idea. Taking this to its logical conclusion: How long before leftists play Blizzard games and Trumpies play some other companies' games (random example)? Are we going to divide the whole of our society along political lines or are we going to allow neutrality anywhere? Perhaps I should go canvas my local supermarkets to see which ones support which political policy. Maybe I should stop supporting the football team I support because they didn't make a statement about the UK selling weapons to Saudi Arabia. There's a guy who goes in the pub down the road who supports austerity, should I find a new place to drink or just demand that he explains himself every time I see him? | ||
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Deleted User 26513
2376 Posts
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9768 Posts
As I said in another thread, Disney erased Tibet from Dr Strange, which is equally as heavy handed. | ||
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Emnjay808
United States10665 Posts
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WombaT
Northern Ireland26242 Posts
On October 13 2019 02:49 Jockmcplop wrote: You're right the response was heavy handed. In fact, it was shit, but I don't really expect better. As I said in another thread, Disney erased Tibet from Dr Strange, which is equally as heavy handed. In China. Which I’m not particularly a fan of but I would consider altering content to be published in China for Chinese sensibilities as different from censoring other people for offending Chinese sensibilities. I believe some WoW models were altered as they were offensive in some manner for example, I think that’s a totally reasonable adjustment to culture. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada17252 Posts
can you possibly also include a link to the original statement Blizzard made that i copy-pasted into the forum? It is here. https://tl.net/forum/general/551816-blizzard-bans-hs-pro-for-political-statement?page=27#529 Its a good idea to do this in case Blizzard decides to ninja edit their "Official Statement" because some of the grammar errors indicate a non-native english speaker constructed Brack's "statement". | ||
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Excludos
Norway8232 Posts
On October 12 2019 23:03 Jockmcplop wrote: The simple answer to that is that they never had a stance. Blizzard's only stance is that they say the best thing that they think they can say at any given place/time to give themselves the best chance of making more $$$. This is what big companies do. If you feel like a liberal company has let you down then you need to look at your own perspective on what massive companies' motives are. The fact that they would portray themselves as defending gay rights is nothing more than pandering, its just a kind of pandering that you happen to enjoy. Eh, that's fair. But, like you said, it was pandering that I enjoyed. So it has en extra effect on me when they show their real face for what it is. On October 13 2019 02:13 Xlancer wrote: Why do I want Blizzard E-Sports to remain as politically neutral as possible??? Because I like the fact that SC2 is an global sport, and I would like it to remain global. The Chinese viewers out numbered the western viewers by nearly 2 for every one western viewer. And that was without a single Chinese player even qualifying for Blizzcon. ( https://escharts.com/tournaments/sc2/wcs-global-finals-2018 ) This year TIME did qualify, so the viewers will likely increase by 2 or 300%. It's very likely that Blizzard will cut and eventually completely eliminate their support for SC2 E-Sports without the Chinese viewership. Why sacrifice SC2 E-Sports over buzzword political statements that change absolutely nothing in the world? If I want to read or discus politics, there are thousands of places I can do that freely already, but sometimes I get tired of politics and just want to enjoy SC2... How has politics ever improved the viewing experience of E-Sports? It just makes me feel more depressed about the world... So to hell with the world as long as you get your entertainment, is that it? The rest of us chooses not to support a company that is willing to defend human rights violations so they can keep padding their quarterly report. On October 13 2019 02:36 Jockmcplop wrote: This is exactly the problem though. Demanding that companies take specific political stances will create a situation where the world grows more politically charged. The more politics is allowed to enter video games, the more demand there will be for specific types of politics. All this will do is alienate people who hold different beliefs and divide, divide, divide. What you want is for companies to pander to your beliefs. Also you only want it in this case because there seems to be fairly unanimous support for Hong Kong among the people you talk to. That isn't true worldwide though. When you start getting into more heavily divided domestic issues you can see why politicising this stuff is a fucking awful idea. Taking this to its logical conclusion: Basic human rights should not be a "divisive political stance". We can and should demand at least as much from our companies, yes. | ||
Falling
Canada11413 Posts
On October 13 2019 03:33 Emnjay808 wrote: Hm. So sports SHOULD stay apolitical then? Or rather there should be an appropriate place and time for them, given a respective platform. They have a platform all right. But it's not so clear very many of them have much of value to say on it. I think of the typical Hollywood type, swooping down on small communities to protest the seal hunt- never mind the seal in question is the wrong one (the one on all the pictures is very cute and cuddly, but not the one hunted by the Inuk). But will these Hollywood types actually engage in conversation with the Inuk {whose livelihood depends on the hunt and live in pretty dire circumstances), no. They are cowards. As soon as the Inuk decide to show up at the protests, the protesters vanish. If an Inuk finally gets a chance to speak their piece on national tv, the celebrity guest protester refuses to appear. Angry Inuk is an interesting documentary on this. People with that sort of platform, tend to use it very safely to promote their own brand and run from controversy. Not much of value would be lost if they didn't use their platform as they tend to be under-informed in the issues they promote. | ||
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Xlancer
United States126 Posts
On October 13 2019 04:06 Excludos wrote: So to hell with the world as long as you get your entertainment, is that it? The rest of us chooses not to support a company that is willing to defend human rights violations so they can keep padding their quarterly report. I'm not saying to hell with the world, I'm just saying that athletes should use one of a thousand other forums for their political statements. Why is it the belief that every communication forum must be used for political statements??? Can't we have some that are reserved solely for sports??? | ||
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fishjie
United States1519 Posts
note i dont care about hong kong protestors and their whining, but i support their right to whine. blizzard taking away someones prize winnings is just disgusting. | ||
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CorsairHero
Canada9491 Posts
On October 13 2019 05:14 Xlancer wrote: I'm not saying to hell with the world, I'm just saying that athletes should use one of a thousand other forums for their political statements. Why is it the belief that every communication forum must be used for political statements??? Can't we have some that are reserved solely for sports??? Because saying it on broadcast has maximum impact? If blitzchung said this on weibo, no one on here would give a shit | ||
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Jockmcplop
United Kingdom9768 Posts
On October 13 2019 06:01 CorsairHero wrote: Because saying it on broadcast has maximum impact? If blitzchung said this on weibo, no one on here would give a shit Also no-one would give a shit if Blizzard hadn't banned him. | ||
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aSpeaker
26 Posts
On October 12 2019 22:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote: huh? you think Americans are ashamed of being a superpower? do you spend any time in the USA and interact with Americans in the real world? The "Make America Great Again" catch phrase has been around since 1980. Of course not. I mean, it's good to be a superpower, although we would rather have more quasi-superpowers to help us fight against the United States. The world will not be a better place for the United States and its allies. But the United States and several quasi-powers are certainly better than the former.You should contact the previous article. He said that I was worse than the superpowers（actually）， but I felt that greater influence was a necessary feature of the superpowers, although it would make small non-allied countries uncomfortable. | ||
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aSpeaker
26 Posts
On October 13 2019 06:07 Jockmcplop wrote: Also no-one would give a shit if Blizzard hadn't banned him. Also no-western-one would give a shit if Blizzard hadn't banned him. Oh, by the way, Twitter administrators are from Hong Kong and Taiwan. It seems that the objections can not be sent from China. This is also a false freedom of speech.At that time, they will say that all these accounts are backed by the Chinese government. Everyone knows that the Chinese government will only use some new accounts.And most people do not realize that many people do not express their opinions on Twitter. This is the saddest thing. When there are so many people who agree with one point of view, people who hold another point of view will remain silent. Think about the last U.S. election. | ||
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Integra
Sweden5626 Posts
The official heartstone china twitter, explicitly stated that the casters were fired and the player had his entire price removed along with a suspension and that they would keep continuing to protect the pride of their country. They clearly made an connection between China as a country and the penalties for each party in that twitter. | ||
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Danglars
United States12133 Posts
Just a little sarcastic break there. Some meta thoughts at a small remove from the actual event:
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