14 ms·

One of these again. I struggle to form a coherent opinion on this one. Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on t

by remon 7y ago

One of these again. I struggle to form a coherent opinion on this one. Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone. But oh my god. Even if they banned him just on the basis of enforcing that rule rather than pampering to the Chinese market (and that's a huge if) the visuals of this are so predictably bad. What meeting can they possibly have had where the options were "Just reprimand him in private" or "Ban him, get into the news cycle and face weeks of public backlash" and they landed on the latter? It's hard to imagine the decision wasn't almost completely fuelled by Tencent's part ownership of Blizzard and Blizzard's stated goal to expand their marketshare in China. If so, it devolved from a company increasingly known for just poor decisions and communication (mobile Diablo announcement anyone?) to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics. And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in.

baud147258 7y ago
Perhaps the decision wasn't taken in a meeting, it might have been a single exec high enough in the food chain to apply such a decision, with perhaps either a panicked or knee-jerk action.
- remon 7y ago
  Maybe. If so it might be in their interest to publish the decision making process.
remon 7y ago
Interesting followup: I just tried to permanently delete my Blizzard account and the request is being denied regardless of my method of verification. The SMS passcode verification claimed on first attempt that it was denied "Due to too many attempts". Makes you wonder if they're intentionally breaking the delete account flow in hopes of weathering the storm.
- Ocerge 7y ago
  This is now the 3rd place I've seen this. As a dev I immediately just assume it's a bug, but maaaaaaan it doesn't look that way if you're not. I've settled for cancelling my Wow Classic sub in place of deleting the account completely. It's not heroic and means nothing to Blizzard, but this is a line I find hard to cross.
  - ben_jones 7y ago
    I support Hong Kong Protesters: To play devils advocate, SMS is super wonky and it’s possible they have virtual limits for outgoing message volume at multiple points that they’ve hit at peak hours and caused this poorly worded error message.
    - remon 7y ago
      I agree, this is a perfectly valid reason for the SMS flow to error on "Too many attempts".
  - kej 7y ago
    > It's not heroic and means nothing to Blizzard On the contrary, I suspect that canceling a subscription is the only thing that means something to them.
    - mostlysimilar 7y ago
      The overarching sentiment here seems to be "western consumers are less valuable now that China is huge and has more money"
- mehlmao 7y ago
  I deleted my account yesterday, had the same experience. SMS and the authenticator app both told me I was either incorrect or I'd made too many attempts. Ended up taking a picture of my driver's license on a paper that says FREE HONG KONG and uploading it.
- bcrosby95 7y ago
giancarlostoro 7y ago
There's people who will hardcore boycott them though. I for sure wont be playing Diablo 3 finally (I know, I'm super late). I'll take my money elsewhere to someone who shows they cares about the basic freedoms.
Beltiras 7y ago
I don't know if Blizz would consider me a whale but I did spend a pretty penny on their games and just deactivated my WoW subscription and uninstalled all their games from both my PC and phone. I'm not only doing that. I speak up in forums where Hearthstone is discussed, talk to friends and family members and advocate against money or time towards Blizzards bottom line. F2P even gains with an audience so it's not a solution to just not spend money, you must divest from their platform entirely. I didn't even keep SC2 around, if I were to contribute any views on Twitch or Youtube it's engagement that benefits Blizzard. I hate them with the fury of a thousand suns for having destroyed the 3 games I loved most of all the games I have played.
wlesieutre 7y ago
>Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone. The rule in question is >Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image Which is so open ended that it's impossible to not break it if you have an opinion and are speaking to a global audience. You could go up on stage and say "It's bad to murder people for being gay" and a portion or group of the public in some other countries would get offended about it. But Blizzard wouldn't be banning people and taking their prize money for that. 100% this is about Tencent and Blizzard's access to the Chinese market.
- mwyah 7y ago
  >Which is so open ended that it's impossible to not break it if you have an opinion and are speaking to a global audience. You are a professional player in a tournament, you should not use an official stream to spew political opinions... or opinions of any other kind.
  - stronglikedan 7y ago
    Yup. Basically misappropriation of company resources, and any company would (and should) fire someone for that.
  - reroute1 7y ago
    No opinions of any kind... sounds like a super interesting stream!
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Well, being a professional e-athlete means being an entertainer first and foremost. Everything you do and say is supposed to maximize the amount of money made for you, people who manage you, and the sport. Just like in physical sports. In this case, the player violated this on their own accord. As right as this was, no surprise it made the business people unhappy. 'stronglikedan is correct in saying it's pretty much like misappropriation of company resources. (In other news: entertainment is fake to the core. It's not about the game, it's about making money.) But I also think it's 100% fair for the audience to be angry about this. It's a free market, and if people don't express their morality and/or politics through ways that impact the profits of the offenders, the market will not take those morals and politics into account. Bad press is a market signal too.
CreepGin 7y ago
> there's not that much anyone can do about it Sell their stock. Public opinion do hurt stock prices (the only thing you can count on to make a public company care).
- andromeduck 7y ago
  that'll just make it cheaper for Chinese capital to gobble up
  - gruez 7y ago
    This. Obligatory post on divestment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948
  - enjo 7y ago
    Which is fine. They can have them.
- navigatesol 7y ago
  >Sell their stock. To whom? Eager buyers of the stock?
  - CreepGin 7y ago
    Divestment. Non-invesment. Making Mei meme to get Overwatch banned in China. Okay yeah, the last one is probably the best.
spoovy 7y ago
"And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in." That is such a depressing thing to read. Is this attitude normal? It seems to me that it's very simple to "do something about it" -- just don't give them any more money by buying their games. What price do you put on staying true to your own morals? A video game?!?
swarnie_ 7y ago
> face weeks of public backlash I think you're over selling gamers here, they're generally quite pathetic when it comes to organised protests and self control. They all cried for a week when Blizzard screwed up Diablo, then a few months later those exact same people bought wow classic and another HS expansion. Nothing remotely serious will come of this.
- Spooks 7y ago
  I think you are selling gamers short. Star Wars battlefront 2 controversy lasted a fairly long time from what I remember, and still talked about to this day.
  - swarnie_ 7y ago
    And it still sold 9 million units + god knows how much MTX.
bigYahnz 7y ago
Nope, quit playing all of them. I'm able to find better ways to waste my life than sitting in front of a television. How many decades has it been since they've released an objectively good game, anyways? WoW was actually a gigantic turd compared to other mmos at the time. It was just successful because it was easier to progress and had vomit-tier graphics. The game was trash.
chooseaname 7y ago
> ...to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics. Pretty much every company now depending how for down the ethics rabbit hole one traverses. Is returning as much money to investors as possible over giving employees raises ethical?
mikestew 7y ago
And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in. Ya know, for a company like EA, I am exactly like that. "G-ddamn it, EA! The next time you release a title I'm on the fence about, I'm not going to buy it! {BTW, what's release date for Battlefield X again?}) That's because they have what are, IMO, shitty business practices. But I'm not a very principled man, so I conveniently forget that $GAME_I_REALLY_LIKE is published by EA. But there is not game on this planet I need play badly enough that I will support "let's all play nice with the big, bad authoritarian government and not make them feel uncomfortable with our rude words". Nope, you go right on the list with Exxon ("I'll walk before I buy fuel from Exxon." And I have.), unlikely to ever be removed again. (Note: I've not read up on the whole stink yet, so I'm not saying Blizzard's on that list now.) Even more so because it isn't really about the authoritarian government. In some cases, they say jump and you ask how high on the way up. Because they have tanks and shit. But Chinese tanks won't roll to the Blizzard offices. No, they'll roll to the gates of China's economy and keep Blizzard out. Which is even worse, because now the story is, "hush now, or someone might not get their bonus."
brightball 7y ago
After reading the thread, your comment doesn't follow the content at all. You're talking about the Hearthstone incident while the Twitter thread is discussion is about investment in US companies by China. > I have watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years. It’s a shame US companies never believed as strongly as China and Asia in investing in games, but this allowed China to have unprecedented influence over our media. > Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash. This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies. > I’ve seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken pubically about it. > Chinese companies tried to ruin my career with planted press stories. Money is often paid for favorable press in China and some of that money flows here to the US as well. Unfortunately, money talks. China has succeeded in infiltrating all levels of tech, gaming and more.

by remon 7y ago

baud147258 7y ago

Perhaps the decision wasn't taken in a meeting, it might have been a single exec high enough in the food chain to apply such a decision, with perhaps either a panicked or knee-jerk action.

remon 7y ago
Maybe. If so it might be in their interest to publish the decision making process.

remon 7y ago

Interesting followup: I just tried to permanently delete my Blizzard account and the request is being denied regardless of my method of verification. The SMS passcode verification claimed on first attempt that it was denied "Due to too many attempts". Makes you wonder if they're intentionally breaking the delete account flow in hopes of weathering the storm.

Ocerge 7y ago
This is now the 3rd place I've seen this. As a dev I immediately just assume it's a bug, but maaaaaaan it doesn't look that way if you're not. I've settled for cancelling my Wow Classic sub in place of deleting the account completely. It's not heroic and means nothing to Blizzard, but this is a line I find hard to cross.
- ben_jones 7y ago
  I support Hong Kong Protesters: To play devils advocate, SMS is super wonky and it’s possible they have virtual limits for outgoing message volume at multiple points that they’ve hit at peak hours and caused this poorly worded error message.
  - remon 7y ago
    I agree, this is a perfectly valid reason for the SMS flow to error on "Too many attempts".
- kej 7y ago
  > It's not heroic and means nothing to Blizzard On the contrary, I suspect that canceling a subscription is the only thing that means something to them.
  - mostlysimilar 7y ago
    The overarching sentiment here seems to be "western consumers are less valuable now that China is huge and has more money"
mehlmao 7y ago
I deleted my account yesterday, had the same experience. SMS and the authenticator app both told me I was either incorrect or I'd made too many attempts. Ended up taking a picture of my driver's license on a paper that says FREE HONG KONG and uploading it.
bcrosby95 7y ago

giancarlostoro 7y ago

There's people who will hardcore boycott them though. I for sure wont be playing Diablo 3 finally (I know, I'm super late). I'll take my money elsewhere to someone who shows they cares about the basic freedoms.

Beltiras 7y ago

I don't know if Blizz would consider me a whale but I did spend a pretty penny on their games and just deactivated my WoW subscription and uninstalled all their games from both my PC and phone. I'm not only doing that. I speak up in forums where Hearthstone is discussed, talk to friends and family members and advocate against money or time towards Blizzards bottom line. F2P even gains with an audience so it's not a solution to just not spend money, you must divest from their platform entirely. I didn't even keep SC2 around, if I were to contribute any views on Twitch or Youtube it's engagement that benefits Blizzard. I hate them with the fury of a thousand suns for having destroyed the 3 games I loved most of all the games I have played.

wlesieutre 7y ago

>Yes the player broke tournament rules and yes you can argue that he should be banned on that basis alone. The rule in question is >Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image Which is so open ended that it's impossible to not break it if you have an opinion and are speaking to a global audience. You could go up on stage and say "It's bad to murder people for being gay" and a portion or group of the public in some other countries would get offended about it. But Blizzard wouldn't be banning people and taking their prize money for that. 100% this is about Tencent and Blizzard's access to the Chinese market.

mwyah 7y ago
>Which is so open ended that it's impossible to not break it if you have an opinion and are speaking to a global audience. You are a professional player in a tournament, you should not use an official stream to spew political opinions... or opinions of any other kind.
- stronglikedan 7y ago
  Yup. Basically misappropriation of company resources, and any company would (and should) fire someone for that.
- reroute1 7y ago
  No opinions of any kind... sounds like a super interesting stream!
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Well, being a professional e-athlete means being an entertainer first and foremost. Everything you do and say is supposed to maximize the amount of money made for you, people who manage you, and the sport. Just like in physical sports. In this case, the player violated this on their own accord. As right as this was, no surprise it made the business people unhappy. 'stronglikedan is correct in saying it's pretty much like misappropriation of company resources. (In other news: entertainment is fake to the core. It's not about the game, it's about making money.) But I also think it's 100% fair for the audience to be angry about this. It's a free market, and if people don't express their morality and/or politics through ways that impact the profits of the offenders, the market will not take those morals and politics into account. Bad press is a market signal too.

CreepGin 7y ago

> there's not that much anyone can do about it Sell their stock. Public opinion do hurt stock prices (the only thing you can count on to make a public company care).

andromeduck 7y ago
that'll just make it cheaper for Chinese capital to gobble up
- gruez 7y ago
  This. Obligatory post on divestment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20998948
- enjo 7y ago
  Which is fine. They can have them.
navigatesol 7y ago
>Sell their stock. To whom? Eager buyers of the stock?
- CreepGin 7y ago
  Divestment. Non-invesment. Making Mei meme to get Overwatch banned in China. Okay yeah, the last one is probably the best.

spoovy 7y ago

"And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in." That is such a depressing thing to read. Is this attitude normal? It seems to me that it's very simple to "do something about it" -- just don't give them any more money by buying their games. What price do you put on staying true to your own morals? A video game?!?

swarnie_ 7y ago

> face weeks of public backlash I think you're over selling gamers here, they're generally quite pathetic when it comes to organised protests and self control. They all cried for a week when Blizzard screwed up Diablo, then a few months later those exact same people bought wow classic and another HS expansion. Nothing remotely serious will come of this.

Spooks 7y ago
I think you are selling gamers short. Star Wars battlefront 2 controversy lasted a fairly long time from what I remember, and still talked about to this day.
- swarnie_ 7y ago
  And it still sold 9 million units + god knows how much MTX.

bigYahnz 7y ago

Nope, quit playing all of them. I'm able to find better ways to waste my life than sitting in front of a television. How many decades has it been since they've released an objectively good game, anyways? WoW was actually a gigantic turd compared to other mmos at the time. It was just successful because it was easier to progress and had vomit-tier graphics. The game was trash.

chooseaname 7y ago

> ...to a company that publicly and blatantly prioritises shareholder interests over ethics. Pretty much every company now depending how for down the ethics rabbit hole one traverses. Is returning as much money to investors as possible over giving employees raises ethical?

mikestew 7y ago

And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in. Ya know, for a company like EA, I am exactly like that. "G-ddamn it, EA! The next time you release a title I'm on the fence about, I'm not going to buy it! {BTW, what's release date for Battlefield X again?}) That's because they have what are, IMO, shitty business practices. But I'm not a very principled man, so I conveniently forget that $GAME_I_REALLY_LIKE is published by EA. But there is not game on this planet I need play badly enough that I will support "let's all play nice with the big, bad authoritarian government and not make them feel uncomfortable with our rude words". Nope, you go right on the list with Exxon ("I'll walk before I buy fuel from Exxon." And I have.), unlikely to ever be removed again. (Note: I've not read up on the whole stink yet, so I'm not saying Blizzard's on that list now.) Even more so because it isn't really about the authoritarian government. In some cases, they say jump and you ask how high on the way up. Because they have tanks and shit. But Chinese tanks won't roll to the Blizzard offices. No, they'll roll to the gates of China's economy and keep Blizzard out. Which is even worse, because now the story is, "hush now, or someone might not get their bonus."

brightball 7y ago

After reading the thread, your comment doesn't follow the content at all. You're talking about the Hearthstone incident while the Twitter thread is discussion is about investment in US companies by China. > I have watched China slowly take over as the dominant investing force in gaming and movies over the years. It’s a shame US companies never believed as strongly as China and Asia in investing in games, but this allowed China to have unprecedented influence over our media. > Chinese game companies have grown huge not just because of market size, but because the government subsidizes them. They get free land, free offices, and huge infusions of cash. This cash was and is used to do expand and buy up stakes in US gaming companies. > I’ve seen firsthand the corruption of Chinese gaming companies, and I was removed from a company I founded (after Blizzard) for refusing to take a 2 million dollar kickback bribe to take an investment from China. This is the first time I’ve ever spoken pubically about it. > Chinese companies tried to ruin my career with planted press stories. Money is often paid for favorable press in China and some of that money flows here to the US as well. Unfortunately, money talks. China has succeeded in infiltrating all levels of tech, gaming and more.