
Ex-World of Warcraft developer's thread about China and the gaming industry - seapunk
https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1181736075775004672
======
remon
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.

~~~
remon
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
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.

~~~
kej
> 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
The overarching sentiment here seems to be "western consumers are less
valuable now that China is huge and has more money"

------
roenxi
It is interesting to look back at the last ~50 years from a strategic
standpoint. The West gambled that economic prosperity would usher in an age of
Chinese liberty, if not actual democracy, and that attempts to resist that
would lead to economic collapse.

With benefit of hindsight maybe that strategy was too passive. China has
embraced the technical aspects of Western society but it looks dangerously
like it will carry them with an authoritarian philosophy. It is a pity;
particularly since the English Common Law system combined with separation of
power is the greatest accomplishment of the Anglosphere and China would have
really ushered in an age of enlightenment had they taken that on.

~~~
cafard
Did the West make that bet? Or did the businesses of the West see a big market
and ultimately a big, inexpensive supply chain?

~~~
eropple
I tend to think that, worst of all, the West saw an _inexhaustible_ supply
chain.

Nobody was thinking about what to do next after all that money filled the
coffers of a political establishment not under any pressure to liberalize.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Speaking of that, can someone explain me how did the West figure that both
this and oil imports were a good deal? A book on energy/climate I'm reading[0]
is making a point that in the last decades, the West funneled ridiculous
amounts of money to oil exporters, which are predominantly authoritarian
nations that don't give a fuck about human rights or Western values. And those
nations used the money to gain control over companies and assets in the
Western nation. The exact same thing can be said about outsourcing
manufacturing to China and them using the money to buy Western companies and
real estate.

So, what am I missing here? How on Earth was this a good idea?

\--

[0] - a polish one, [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22310339-wiat-na-
rozdro-...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22310339-wiat-na-rozdro-u).

~~~
eropple
_> How on Earth was this a good idea?_

On whose time horizon?

If yours is "the next five years", it probably looked pretty good for a solid
thirty years or so.

------
0xDEFC0DE
>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

Resisting that takes strength. $2m to take more money and keep quiet? I'd
probably quit in shame or be fired eventually, but that's life-changing money.

I do wonder if we could take some amount of money from China and simply not
give them what they ask for though when they start making demands, or giving
them the run-around.

~~~
faet
Well, from people who worked with him they said he was frequently absent and a
bad leader. He is also blamed for much of their financial troubles for wanting
to frequently change direction.

[https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130737-Updated-
Red...](https://v1.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130737-Updated-
Red-5-Studios-Employees-Speak-Out-Against-Dismissed-
CEO?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=news&utm_reader=feedly)

Additionally, the company took Chinese money 3 years prior to him being fired.
Red 5 Studios was majority owned by The9 (a Chinese company) early 2010. Prior
to being bought out they closed one office and fired about 30 people. So, I
kinda doubt he was removed solely "for refusing to take an investment from
china". Especially, when they were already owned by a Chinese company.

~~~
blue11
I was disappointed to find out that the ex-WOW developer in the title was Mark
Kern. Sometimes the messenger can undermine the message. Reading his Twitter
thread seemed like he is rewriting history. He took The9's money after
spending the VC money (Benchmark, Sierra) he had raised originally and not
being even close to releasing the game. I'm not sure who he refused a bribe
from later (or maybe he meant that he refused to give a bribe to someone?),
but he brought The9 to begin with.

------
martin_bech
This is also next level Streisand effect. I would have never heard of any of
all this, if Blizzard had just ignorred the player. Now its on HN a bunch of
times, on my twitter timeline etc.

~~~
danso
Not really. Presumably it was already big news in Asia.

~~~
dx87
My wife heard about it, and she doesn't follow any gaming at all. She said
that writers and beauty bloggers she follows on twitter were talking about it.
US politicians from both sides of the isle were criticizing Blizzard as well.
Blizzard made it a big deal everywhere.

~~~
danso
Right, but ostensibly Blizzard's main reason for this sanction was to protect
its business interests in China. The parent commenter suggests that if
Blizzard just "ignored" it, the issue would go away, as if Chinese censors and
the mainland public hadn't already taken notice.

------
mimikatz
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_XJxqnxzaY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_XJxqnxzaY)
has to be the most clever means for the creative class to fight back. Reminds
me of cultural jammers of the 90s.

~~~
ethbro
I'm not sure if it was as prevalent in other games (WoW et al), but the
cutthroat, zero-sum nature of Eve Online produced a ridiculous volume of user-
made, pro-group propaganda videos.

Goonswarm was especially famous for it.

All versions of "People sitting on the sidelines outnumber people with an
opinion, so it's more productive to sway them to your cause than your enemy."

------
Miner49er
> It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent
> of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out
> against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom.

What does he mean by this tweet? It seems somewhat contradictory. I assume he
means that he's against Blitzchung bringing up politics, but he's more against
Blizzard's punishment? Seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too.
Not sure how you can prevent politics in gaming without creating and enforcing
rules to prevent politics in gaming, which is what Blizzard has done here.

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's politics, and there's politics. There's a difference between
discussing whatever the US President blurted out on Twitter today, discussing
whatever gaffe some local politician made, discussing which party is better
and why, whether a group is pushing it too far, and then "abuses of human
rights and freedom". The difference has a bit of "you'll know it when you see
it" flavor to it. I think that in this light, he sees the issue of Hong Kong
not as "politics", but as the real deal, an issue of more fundamental values
and freedoms.

I've recently noticed that some people don't see the difference between
"types" of politics. I don't understand why. To me, the difference has always
been obvious. Some politics are about really important issues. Most of it is
bullshit, just something that makes people with nothing better to do to jump
at each other's throats. People have been creating "safe spaces" shielded from
the latter for ages. The concept of not talking about the bullshit politics
and religion at the dinner table is quite old.

~~~
dfxm12
Yeah, advocating for human rights isn't a political issue. To claim "I don't
want politics in my games" is a cop out to ignore having to deal
with/learn/understand what's going on.

If someone just doesn't care, OK, but don't hide behind "I don't want to talk
about politics". This isn't politics. This is _life_.

------
ben_jones
Is it safe to assume those same bribes to game studios and gaming journalists
have likely also been applied to Software start ups and tech journalists?

------
euix
blizzard hasn't made a good game for about 15 years now. When I was kid
Blizzard produced games like warcraft 2 and Diablo. That all ended when they
discovered the cash cow of mmorpg. The last unequivocally old blizzard quality
game was frozen throne.

~~~
rejschaap
People have a tendency to remember games from their childhood more favorably.
World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 were very high quality games. Obviously the
business model had to change, we don't live in the 90's shareware world
anymore.

~~~
dragonwriter
> we don't live in the 90's shareware world anymore.

We do more than any other time since the 1990s; the modern F2P + IAP model is
pretty much exactly a resurrection of the 1990s shareware model taking full
advantage of low-friction online payments.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
The difference being the Shareware was much less obnoxious - you got the first
act of Doom or Wolfenstein, and it was fully functional, you could enjoy it as
much as you liked, the only impetus was to get more via shareware - modern F2P
means that your experience is always hampered - even what you do experience is
less than what it could be. Doom E1M1 was complete - you couldn't make the
experience better by paying money, but there's always that XP potion or better
item in a F2P model.

------
homulilly
Kern is an unhinged, extreme right whackjob so I would take anything he claims
with a grain of salt regardless of your feelings on Hong Kong or Activision
Blizzard.

------
LinuxBender
I am certain nobody will agree with my opinion, but I will share it anyway.

This sounds to me like a design problem. If you don't want to risk someone
expressing an opinion, then give them a drop down of things they can choose
from to say. "zug zug" "LokTar O'Gar!"

If you want a social platform where people can express opinions, then keep
that thing distanced far away from anything where money, competition,
politics, etc... are involved. People will do what people can do. In this
circumstance, humans were set up for failure and they will fail again. Keep
the social platform identifiable names away from names used in a competition.

------
manicdee
And yet the International Postal Union still considers China a developing
country so we all subsidise their shipping.

What counts as a developed country if it isn’t giant pools of money that every
corporation around the world wants to be involved in?

------
4b11b4
The writer of the thread opened my eyes to an entire new perspective on the
world. History, philosophy, humanity...

Much more than about a video game...

------
curiousgal
For some reason, gamers appear to care about Hong Kong but didn't bat an eye
when other gaming companies shut their servers down in Syria/Iran in order to
comply with the U.S..

If a large portion of Blizzard's players hadn't been Chinese they wouldn't
have reacted that way. So to me, Blizzard is the victim here, they were put in
a lose-lose situation.

Regardless, I don't see how a company refusing to have its events politicized
is considered so bad.

If people are so adamant about sticking it to China, they should boycott their
actual products instead.

~~~
fesoliveira
If I am not wrong, the situation in Iran/Syria was due to sanctions imposed by
the U.S. government, not by censorship demanded by those countries. See the
recent situation with Adobe and Venezuela for something similar going on.

~~~
stunt
Indeed it isn't a fair comparison.

What companies can do about it? They have to comply with trade control laws
and we can't boycott companies for complying with the law.

In the other hand probably some pro government Chinese could argue that was
incitement or act of encouraging violence. So probably it depends who you are
asking.

~~~
fesoliveira
I think in this case we could argue that Activision Blizzard is an American
company and it is obliged to follow U.S. trade laws, but not Chinese laws. A
trade embargo is also something that multiple countries agree and abide to, so
it can't really be seen as censorship in the same level as Chinese censorship.
And while I understand the appeal of the Chinese market, that thirst for
profit should not trump values that the company imposes on itself, which in
this case are "Every voice matters" and "Think globally". Nor should the
company go against the values of the country it belongs to, in this case the
democratic values of the U.S..

