
Blizzard Employees Staged a Walkout to Protest Banned Pro-Hong Kong Gamer - minimaxir
https://www.thedailybeast.com/blizzard-employees-staged-a-walkout-to-protest-banned-pro-hong-kong-gamer
======
jrockway
The Internet's reaction to this has warmed my heart a little. Overwatch and
Hearthstone are among my favorite computer games. I've certainly played more
Overwatch than any other game. I have made real-world and online friends in
Overwatch. I met my girlfriend in Overwatch.

It made me sad to have to throw all that away yesterday.

But the conversations we're having as a result of this is great. The
mainstream media is talking about it. Congress is talking about it. We're
going to have to ask ourselves: can we really let China have this much
influence? Is it really worth it? (Remember: this is what Europe is asking
about Silicon Valley with things like GDPR, and it's working out quite well
for them.)

Banning someone from Hearthstone GM doesn't matter. But we are heading down a
path where we decide what our values are, and they're looking pretty good.

~~~
jasonlotito
It's interesting to see people give up Blizzard games, but still continue
supporting companies like Apple that do far worse, like effectively giving the
keys to iCloud to China. I think the conversation is great, and maybe now
we'll actually reconsider what the TPP's goal was. But in the end, the people
picked money first, so it shouldn't be a surprise when businesses do this as
well.

~~~
kop316
I'm sad to see you downvoted. Its frustrating to me too when a company like
Apple champions human rights in the USA then hands over the management of
iCloud to China.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208351](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT208351)

~~~
capableweb
The juicy parts from the Legal Agreement for folks in China using iCloud:

> E. Access to Your Account and Content

> We reserve the right to take steps we believe are reasonably necessary or
> appropriate to enforce and/or verify compliance with any part of this
> Agreement. You acknowledge and agree that we may, without liability to you,
> access, use, preserve and/or disclose your Account information and Content
> to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or a third party,
> as we believe is reasonably necessary or appropriate, if legally required to
> do so or if we have a good faith belief that such access, use, disclosure,
> or preservation is reasonably necessary to: (a) comply with legal process or
> request; (b) enforce this Agreement, including investigation of any
> potential violation thereof; (c) detect, prevent or otherwise address
> security, fraud or technical issues; or (d) protect the rights, property or
> safety of GCBD, its users, Apple, a third party, or the public as required
> or permitted by applicable law. You understand and agree that Apple and GCBD
> will have access to all data that you store on this service, including the
> right to share, exchange and disclose all user data, including Content, to
> and between each other under applicable law.

~~~
BEEdwards
mind blown meme levels of wtf.

They sleep at night with the sad belief that because they hand it over to the
Chinese and don't do it themselves it's all fine...

------
ddtaylor
As much as I want to think change will happen, it's much more likely this will
be a few weeks of PR and ultimately nothing will change.

For something to change people have to vote with their wallets. In this
context that means cancelling subscriptions or dropping games they are already
playing in favor for ones by competitors with better integrity, and I don't
see that happening.

Diablo players could go to Path of Exile, its closest competitor, but that
game is massively invested into China as well and partially owned by Tencent.

Warcraft RTS players represent a small market right now with almost no
microtransactions or ongoing revenue.

WoW players have alternatives, but not many I am aware of that aren't heavily
Chinese based as the MMORPG category is dominated by Chinese companies like
Perfect World.

Starcraft players don't have a lot of alternatives as SC has dominated the
esports and highly polished RTS category for over 5 years with the same game.
The closest competitor would be Age of Empires or Warhammer, I'm not sure how
much influence China has over them, but they are different types of RTS games.

Heroes of the Storm players can go to Dota or LoL. LoL being owned by China
and Dota being owned by Valve with strong Chinese market involvement.

More alternatives are needed IMO.

~~~
minimaxir
A common albeit reductive meme around the entire controversy is that Blizzard
games were already declining in popularity (especially Starcraft and HotS) so
it's easy to boycott them.

Path of Exile is an interesting case as I know a lot of Diablo players went
there since Diablo III is effectively on life support (including myself), but
the resurfacing of the Tencent ownership news is causing ethical
complications:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/df5zx7/anyone_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/df5zx7/anyone_else_suddenly_worried_about_ggg_censoring/)

~~~
jknoepfler
I think the good will that Blizzard earned with their early games has been
eroding for a long time. They did, legitimately, used to have enormous
community good will. I can think of two ways that's eroded:

(1) Blizzard's early games earned huge amounts of goodwill by enabling players
to mod them. The map editor of Warcraft and the UI mod-ability of WoW let
people build entire communities around modded content (DotA, for example!). To
my knowledge games after Starcraft II have largely lacked anything resembling
this kind of functionality (please correct me if I'm wrong). Hearthstone,
HotS, Diablo 3, and Overwatch all have 100% of their content locked down from
the top down. I don't think the contribution of mods to the longevity of
Blizzard's early titles can be overstated, and I'm confused why they haven't
kept up that spirit.

(2) Blizzard has had a long string of eyebrow-raising failures to foster the
competitive gaming scene, which they've been tone-deaf on since at least
Starcraft II. They pulled the cord entirely on HotS after getting the game
into great shape, the kept the Overwatch meta unbelievably stale for years,
the Hearthstone Grandmaster League has been a joke on multiple fronts (in
addition to an objectively stupid format decision for the first season, they
insist on reserving seats in their flagship tournament for popular streamers
rather than top players, resulting in some just... awful games). In general
they try to retain far too much control and stifle anything they feel
inconveniences them.

Add to that (3) a string of jaw-droppingly bad community management moves
("you think you want that"... Diablo for mobile...) and (4) Activision looming
like an insect and (5) lots of Bizarre changes to games to appease Blizzard
China

I don't know, I used to perceive Blizzard as a good steward for games. Now I
don't think the game makers have that degree of control over the company's
decisions, or their priorities have changed.

So it doesn't surprise me that people were as quick to kick them to the curb
as they were. It would have 10 years ago, but not today.

~~~
hnick
You're right, the goodwill has been eroding for this lifelong fan. I adored
Starcraft: Brood War, it was great to play online even over dial-up and
relatively well balanced (though looking back I think that was mostly by
accident) and as you say it had a great mod scene when you wanted to take a
break from serious competition.

I didn't particularly like the shift to heroes, creeps, and semi-3D in
Warcraft 3, but that's a personal opinion.

Then they hit me with Diablo 3 -> Starcraft 2 -> Hearthstone. Diablo 3's
faults are well documented, it's apparently in a good place now but that ship
has sailed for me. Starcraft 2 just didn't feel good to play for me. The
snappy control and clean sprites of SC:BW was replaced with muddy 3D visuals
and slow turning 3D models. And Hearthstone was fun, but they dialed up the
RNG to entice casual players and make streams exciting. It got annoying to
keep rolling the dice - both when opening packs and in the game (Dr Boom
anyone?).

It took a while but eventually I realised their spark and magic was gone.
They're just another AAA developer that I mostly ignore now.

~~~
K0SM0S
I experienced the loss of that "spark and magic" in games twice in my
lifetime.

The first time with Japanese console games, sometime during the PlayStation/2
era. There was something of a golden age on the way to mastery of 2D in the
1990's. I'm talking about the craftsmanship, the attention to minute details,
the cognitive approach in designing difficulty and progression and outright
"fun" games playing on our senses etc. The ingenuosity of some RPG systems,
etc.

All that gradually took a back-seat as 3D was emphasizing visuals and "shiny"
replaced "smart", "realistic" replaced "immersive".

The second time was with Blizzard, in very comparable ways — when you go back
to the basics, how characters move and behave, how actually fun it is to press
a button over and over, etc. Things that make some games absolutely stellar
and others garbage and you just can't know until you try your hands on it for
some time.

Needless to say I don't bother with most AAA today. (not that I game a lot if
at all)

~~~
hnick
Yes the shift to 3D was absolutely a mixed bag. It is simply so much more work
to make a 3D world, from level design to art. It enables some genres and games
to exist (something like Monster Hunter: World just wouldn't be the same, and
while Dark Souls is similar to Zelda and Metroid it also gains a lot from 3D)
but it just diverts so many resources.

A common complaint about the open world trend is that environments feel bland,
sparse, and copy-pasted. There is a lack of that hand-crafted attention to
detail you mention when compared to something like Hollow Knight with
beautiful backgrounds and precise control.

~~~
K0SM0S
Oh totally agreed on the diversion of resources, and even before the machine
(skills hired, teams divisions etc).

However open worlds, imho, pose challenges but not to the extent that it
explains or excuses the lack of 'basic' low-level (physiological almost)
engagement. It's a different problem I think, e.g. consider the 'blandness' of
a typical NES or early PC world, and yet how engaging some titles managed to
be. That's what I'm talking about. Sure, visuals help immersion (so a great
open world may help, a bland one may deter), but this is at another, higher
level than controls.

For instance, even in 3D, I remember having more fun "farming" in old-school
ugly MMOs — up to and including WoW 1.x — than in later very "rich" worlds.
The problem is so basic: for instance, visual feedback not perfectly timed to
provoke "satisfaction" or a "reward" feeling, but rather feels frustrating
and/or working _against_ me (the worst feeling ever in a game, when the part
that's _yours_ — e.g. feedback, hitpoints — seems rigged or not fair or simply
deceitful / obfuscated).

I remember reading Square Enix devs for FFXIV that "yes, boss X is essentially
'cheating' but that's because hollywood experience! better this way!"... —
err, no, sorry, not ever was a game better because your opponent is visibly
unfair — hasn't anyone learned from Metal Gear. This was the day I knew I just
couldn't keep playing the game, it would never be satisfying to me because of
its design philosophy.

As a friend in game dev at Capcom explained to me once, player controls is a
very tedious work of finding the "ideal" timing windows and key combinations /
orders that just make it "fun", subjectively. It's a lot of back-and-forth
between code and testing some alpha — hundreds of times over a typical day.
It's almost biological in nature, like good music. And stupid loads of time +
great tooling are paramount to do this job well — one reason PlayStation SDKs
are so appreciated in the industry ever since day 1, 1994; a polar opposite to
Nintendo's for instance (I hear they got better, but look no further to
explain 'lack of third-party support' on many of their platforms).

Controls may be "precise" but above all need to be predictable, learnable —
like Sonic has always been 'sloppy', unlike Mario, but this ties in well with
his speed (hence inertia) and persona (go-getter), and it's a small learning
curve for players, but one that sets 'experienced' players appart. A great
"sloppy" implementation, nonetheless precise mathematically.

I definitely have to check out Hollow Knight, though!

Sorry for a long piece, it's one of my 'truths' in game 'quality'. Note that
this is all good advice to design UI in general for any kind of software —
especially the timing of action, feedback, effect on events. There's a way —
through testing — to make it all just 'flow' 'naturally' and with a weirdly
'satisfying' feeling.

~~~
hnick
Yes game feel is hard to quantify sometimes. There have been games that on
paper I should adore, but in practice I struggled to enjoy. Bastion and Hyper
Light Drifter are two - beautiful presentation, but the controls and gameplay
feel just didn't click for me personally.

I play FFXIV and I'm not sure what the quote is referring to but in general I
think it has a very good feel. They made a conscious choice to decouple
animations from hits, meaning they can go nuts with extensive and flashy
animations but your job is to just not be in the ground AOE marker when it
vanishes - if you didn't get out in time you are hit, regardless of how long
the following animation takes or whether you've walked a few steps since. This
has a learning curve and confuses new players so should be explained better,
but it makes for snappier gameplay and tighter movement patterns at the higher
skill levels once you get it. Top raids are very much a dance of positioning,
movement, and maximising uptime, which I enjoy a lot.

To the contrary (referring to ugly old MMOs) I also enjoyed FFXI and that was
anything but quick and precise, the battle log itself was delayed and sluggish
and abilities only came out every few minutes if you weren't a caster. I'm not
sure what it was, but I think it was that feeling of overcoming a challenge in
a group (or the challenge of just finding a group!) and the ability to break
the rules by beating enemies with 2 skilled people instead of a full group. I
revisited it recently and still mostly enjoyed it, so it's not just a case of
it being the best we could do back then.

------
undefined3840
By far the most egregious example of western firms working with China are
management consulting companies like McKinsey that work directly with
governments on expensive contracts, including of course China.

I mean, in those cases they are often writing the playbook for the government
when it comes to implementing certain policies. Crazy that is even legal for a
western firm.

~~~
mrosett
That's a really good point and not one I had considered in the context of
everything that's happened recently.

McKinsey has been involved with a lot of bad stuff internationally over the
last decade or two. Monitor's work with Gaddafi was also really gross. There's
an odd dichotomy though - the ex-McKinsey employees I know personally and work
closely with are all very thoughtful, ethical people.

~~~
undefined3840
A lot of good, decent human beings justify doing awful things in their day
job. Wasn’t there just a post on here a few days ago about someone who worked
at Capital One writing about how everyone working there justified getting poor
people deeper in debt?

~~~
throwaway66920
FWIW, most McKinsey employees won’t be doing anything immoral. In fact it’s
perfectly cool to turn down assignments for personal ethics. E.g. not wanting
to work for a gas company, even if the specific task doesn’t have any moral
implications.

~~~
undefined3840
Immorality is subjective. McKinsey is hired to (maximize|minimize) some
objective. The fact someone didn’t want to work on the Purdue Pharma opioid
marketing project when McKinsey employs a fungible pool of thousands of
consultants means nothing.

~~~
throwaway66920
I don’t really think that contradicts anything I said

~~~
undefined3840
Just because you choose not to work on a project due to personal reasons
doesn’t free you of the unethical or immoral things the company you chose to
work for does. And if you actually believe it does then it only supports the
argument that these firms have found a way to act immorally in the pursuit of
fees while making sure their staff don’t become too demoralized. They know
there will always be someone to take on the work because the workforce is
highly fungible so they don’t care either way, and if anything makes them look
compassionate to their employees which benefits them.

~~~
throwaway66920
Conversely, just because a few people do a bad thing does not characterize the
moral stature of a large decentralized organization. Sometimes, bad decisions
are made. That doesn’t mean the day to day is one that makes the world worse,
both in fact and in personal perspective.

The Purdue thing was really bad. That’s acknowledged. Nobody is happy about
it. Plenty of work has been done pro bono to combat the opioid crisis even
prior to the realization of what had happened. I have worked at other places
and I legit feel comfortable saying that relative to most American businesses,
the firm is not an evil purely profit maximizing machine. Most people’s day to
day is benign and well intended and you can just straight up talk to people
about it because people are interested in such things.

tldr: while I fully recognize bad things have happened I would say that on
average McKinsey is more morally self conscious than your average us company.
Take it as you will

------
mantap
If Hong Kong becomes a Palestine-style cause celebre it will be bad for China.

China is trapped. They are stuck with this democratic appendix attached to a
communist body. China can't keep Hong Kong under a democratic system as they
have zero understanding of democracy. But if they try to repress it they risk
endangering China's relationships with the rest of the world. They made a
mistake thinking they could transform a democratic territory into a communist
one without any consequences.

~~~
_bxg1
It's worth pointing out that today's China is communist in name only. They
literally arrested the president of Peking University's Marxist society on
ideological grounds: [https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-
leader-...](https://news.yahoo.com/china-arrests-marxist-student-leader-
celebrating-maos-birthday-005941312.html)

China in 2019 is a simple fascist dictatorship.

Edit: Fixed a broken link

~~~
tossAfterUsing
> China in 2019 is a simple fascist dictatorship.

Maybe the community could help me to understand whether this is accurate?

~~~
rodgerd
Consider Eco's writing on Ur-Facism:
[http://www.interglacial.com/pub/text/Umberto_Eco_-
_Eternal_F...](http://www.interglacial.com/pub/text/Umberto_Eco_-
_Eternal_Fascism.html) and note that the apologia for the Chinese government
by the owner of an NBA team focused heavily on point 8 (for example).

The CCP has long ago abandoned ideas of collective ownership; China has many
very wealthy individuals whose wealth is private.

------
mrybczyn
I cancelled my blizzard account as soon as I heard this news.

I doubt I'll renew - since the root cause is unlikely to be fixed with any PR
expedient move at this point. They have shown the world where their true
nature lies - and it ain't good. Cancel yours if you have them...

------
_bxg1
And still no (American) statement from Blizzard. Whoever runs their PR team is
getting fired, if they haven't been already.

~~~
shadowgovt
... or is currently being held in check by management, who has absolutely no
idea how to spin this yet.

Can't march with no marching orders.

~~~
_bxg1
Generally it's the PR department that figures out how to spin things

~~~
bduerst
True, but Execs will gatekeep the final review and approval for larger
responses and campaigns.

~~~
alkonaut
This shouldn’t be hard though. Execs shouldn’t think “we should maximize
shareholder value while following the law”. Execs should think “what will I
wish I had done when I’m 90”. Does it really hurt _that_ much to tell your
shareholders “we think it’s the right thing to stand up for democracy and
human rights even if it means we are bennes from China and our profits are
halved”.

~~~
themacguffinman
As much as I'd like execs to do that, I think it is actually hard. The board,
made up of investors and other stakeholders, have a lot of power too. Execs
can tell shareholders that they want to stand up for human rights, but
shareholders can also tell execs to stand up for human rights somewhere else
(ie. they get fired; execs can be fired too).

~~~
alkonaut
I should have been more clear: I expect execs to choose what’s right even if
it means they do get fired at the first difficult choice. I mean “I need my
job” or “what we are doing is legal” isn’t an excuse.

~~~
rendall
I think this is naive.

Expecting a corporation's officers to enforce moral corporate behavior will
generally lead to disappointment. Only law or the market will impose morality
and ethical behavior on a corporation. This is by design.

~~~
alkonaut
> Only law or the market will impose morality

Yes. To be even more clear, when I say "I expect" I mean I'll not purchase
products/services unless they do what I expect. I firmly do believe that
people should be held to high moral standards - it's not ONLY a question of
laws+market though. There are other pressures available. For example, I think
NBA execs should be publicly shamed in this case. Right now they are mostly
faceless.

This is one segment of a market expecting a compoany to not insult their
national pride, and another segment of the market expecting the same company
to not infringe on freedoms.

When I say I "expect" NBA, Blizzard etc to leave money on the market it's
because I _hope_ that enough people will feel that way, so the market sorts
it. I don't think you need to have a number boycotting NBA or Blizard to equal
the size of the chinese market - I think moral and ethics actually plays a
part once the backlash from the "good" part of the market is big enough, even
if it isn't as large as the Chinese market.

~~~
rendall
That makes sense! I find myself agreeing with you.

------
cwkoss
Somewhat tangential: Is there a website that tracks companies which do not
have Chinese investors and does not use Chinese manufacturing in their supply
chain?

I'd like to try to avoid giving money to China, but they are so ingrained into
the American economy I'm not sure how to do this in practice.

~~~
nsporillo
Yeah I'm in the market for a new memory foam mattress and being made in China
is non starter. I'd also love to see a website like this.

------
Quanttek
Now, a protest by "a dozen to 30" employees is unlikely to change Blizzard
policy, even with the public backlash. While employees staging walkouts could
actually hamper Blizzard's ability to make money, when each employee is
individually up to the whims of the larger company, they may face negative
repercussions and many, out of fear of reprisals, don't protest in the first
place.

That's why we need unions in the software industry. Via collectivized action,
the power differential between employer and employees is leveled. This is not
only about collective bargaining, being able to enforce adequate labor
standards (e.g. no/less/compensated "crunch" time), but also about being able
to force company policy. If the majority of employees would strike/walk out
and any negative repercussions against individuals would be met with more
strikes, Blizzard would very quickly change.

~~~
cwkoss
Sounds like a great time to 'accidentally' break production

~~~
joshschreuder
Sounds like a great time to 'deliberately' get fired

~~~
cwkoss
Just need to be sure they can't prove it was malicious in court

------
atarian
>The demonstration’s numbers fluctuated throughout the day, the two employees
said, ranging from a dozen to 30, and the protesters departed sometime in the
late afternoon.

So less than 1% of the company? Not trying to minimize the issue here but
let's also not make events sound bigger than they really are.

~~~
beirut_bootleg
In the same vein, let's say there are only 400k people online showing outrage
at this. That's less than 0.01% of the world's population. Now weigh this
ratio against the violation of human rights, police violence, ethnic cleansing
and organ harvesting, and ask your question again.

Thinking that numbers is all that matters is the same as valuing $$$ over
morals, which is what this is all about.

~~~
atarian
You're making a strawman argument about morals, which is not in the same vein
as what I said. My point was this piece was sensationalized.

------
lsniddy
Free Tibet never seemed to be controversial here in the US, makes me wonder
why supporting Hong Kong is.

~~~
ahaferburg
Because it started in the eighties and we didn't have Reddit to make shitposts
about it:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/dfmgst/oc_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/dfmgst/oc_a_quick_look_at_todays_reddit_storm/)

I remember it being mentioned in the "Work rules" book by that Google guy.
They had a desert in their canteen called "Free Tibet Goji-Chocolate Creme
Pie..." in the canteen. They said "well, the food is free, and the berries
come from Tibet, so ..." Trying to be cheeky. But several people threatened to
quit over this, and they had a huge discussion on the internal mailing list
with over 1300 replies. The chef who created it got suspended, and then people
got worried because of the chilling effect that this would have on free
speech. Eventually the suspension was reversed. Very dramatic.

------
sgt101
WOW classic is ramped in English realms tonight - coincidence ? much!

------
icu
I can't verify this but a video game YouTube channel I subscribe to has
reported that the following statement was released on Chinese social media by
Blizzard representatives:

"We are very angered and disappointed at what happened at the event and do not
condone it in any way. We also highly object the spreading of personal
political beliefs in this manner. Effective immediately we've banned the
contestant from events and terminated work with the broadcasters. We will
always respect and defend the pride of our country."

If true, the Chinese side of Blizzard is anti-Western values and the US
corporate side is ultimately responsible for allowing the situation to happen.

As the US/China trade war drags on, as the HK protests continue, I think US
corporations will have to choose between profits or values. Some brands and
reputations will be reinforced, others--like Blizzard--will take a massive
hit.

------
gtirloni
Boycotting Blizzard is easy and achieves almost nothing.

Boycotting Chinese products on the other hand...

~~~
cwkoss
Is there a website that helps consumers identify brands that do not have
Chinese investors and don't use Chinese manufacturing in their supply chain?

~~~
Can_Not
I thought buycott would have this as a trending campaign but I couldn't find
it.

------
dmix
> Protesting Blizzard employees from multiple departments gathered at an
> iconic statue of an Orc warrior charging into battle in the center of the
> company’s main campus in Irvine, California

The link says the statue that was made in China, heh.

------
nyxyn
So, basically, 3 people walked out? If they're anything like most corporations
the majority of their workers are contractors.

------
dvt
> “Doing business in China, it’s been easier to ignore the authoritarianism of
> the government because they were asking us to do things like remove a
> skeleton [from a game],” he said.

It looks like China learned nothing from the USSR (or from their own Great
Leap Forward, for that matter). Escalation is not going to go their way.
Hawkish members of the CCP are going to blow the whole thing up.

This is much bigger than Activision-Blizzard and it's clear that Western
companies are going to have to pick a side soon. There's a very salient
conflict between Wall Street and the Classical Liberal underpinnings of our
modern democracies. As it stands right now, this is going to get worse before
it gets better. Is anyone worried about the HKD/USD peg falling?

~~~
CamperBob2
Wall Street has nothing to do with it.

[https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-
has-...](https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-invested-
in/)

~~~
dvt
I'm not sure if I agree. "Expansion in Chinese markets" seems to be a staple
of quarterly earnings reports.

~~~
CamperBob2
Do you see companies that _aren 't_ partially owned by Chinese interests doing
things like this?

Admittedly I'm not fully up to speed on the situation, but I doubt Blizzard
would have taken this action without considering Tencent's influence.

~~~
tomnipotent
> without considering Tencent's influence

At 5% ownership, Tencent doesn't have the muscle to force Blizzard to do
anything it wouldn't have already done of its own volition.

~~~
oarsinsync
Activist investors often have less than 10% stakes in the companies they’re
trying to institute changes in. 5% is not a meaningless amount to hold.

~~~
morningseagulls
Agreed, but Epic Games, which is 40% owned by Tencent, is now claiming it
won't do what Blizzard did:

[https://www.insider.com/epic-unlike-blizzard-wont-ban-
player...](https://www.insider.com/epic-unlike-blizzard-wont-ban-players-
talking-politics-hong-kong-2019-10)

------
ganitarashid
Freedom is always more important than money. Shame on these greedy companies

------
anon1m0us
I figured it out!

Why are we so up in arms about this? Why not before this?

Well, because we were insulated from China's behavior. Their heavy handed
approach only affected their own citizens. They jailed their own citizens, but
not Americans, not other people.

We got our supply chain from them and they gave us what we wanted, so we're
good.

However! _Now_ China's tyranny is leaking out of China. It's getting into
arenas where _we_ are. You could have been playing that game. _You_ could have
said something that offended China -- maybe without even knowing it.

Plus, they are in our IoT devices, our iphones, our cameras. China is watching
and controlling _us_ now. They are restricting _our_ access to games -- not
just their own people.

The culture and rules of countries don't exist solely within the borders of
that country.

This is new for Americans. It's not new for the rest of the world. What USA
wanted, USA got.

Now, what China wants, China gets -- even if it's not what _we_ want.

~~~
mmazing
Now here's a thought ... could video games and entertainment be tools for
generating change in countries?

Could every game developer and internet service pulling their services from
China completely compel the population to try to change their regime?

I know if suddenly my entertainment was taken away I would flip my shit if it
was my government that was responsible.

Edit : To offset potential cost to companies, could this behavior be
subsidized by _our_ government?

~~~
anon1m0us
_Interesting!_

It's certainly subsidized by _China_ , so yes.

Continuing your thought. In the past, wars were fought physically by
_damaging_ the opponent. We are at a place in history where we can fight not
with fists and bullets, but with _entertainment_.

Like national rap battles.

Wars were fought over _resources_ : water, oil, food. Now they are fought over
games, movies, ... _products_.

Instead of war winners being those who can inflict the most _harm_ on the
opponent, maybe now we can shift that into the winner being the most
_entertaining_.

This _could_ be a good thing.

~~~
morningseagulls
>We are at a place in history where we can fight not with fists and bullets,
but with _entertainment_.

Not sure if sarcastic or genuine, but er... you know that this used to be
called "soft power"? As in America used to have all this soft power and made
the whole world worship how awesome American life is? Like, even Rammstein
sang about how "we all live in Amerika / Amerika ist wunderbar"?

------
finnjohnsen2
I just got some faith back in Blizzard. It was lost.

~~~
wffurr
I don't know why "a small group of Activision Blizzard employees" would do
anything to change your "faith" in the company as a whole.

Wake me up when their C-suite staff and board of directors "walk out" or make
a meaningful public statement.

~~~
baq
from the looks of it (they shut down their whole subreddit for a while) their
pants are a shade of brown right now. they're in a damned-if-you-do damned-if-
you-don't situation and that's what the one of the comments here is alluding
to by saying that they have to pick a side. there isn't going back to business
as usual after this now, though they'll sure try before Chinese new years.
we'll see how the bigger picture will look like in a couple of weeks.

google was there a few years ago, i can't imagine their COs aren't grateful
for dodging the bullet right now.

~~~
enlyth
Just a slight correction, the subreddit has no affiliation with Blizzard, one
of their mods went rogue and made it private, but it's open now and mods are
in full support of the Hong Kong movement.

~~~
baq
thanks for the correction.

------
lambdasquirrel
This is probably not going to be a popular opinion here, but I wonder if any
folks have considered what it looks like on the China side? Specifically, you
are in China, and the HK protestors want _what_ to happen to China?

You have HK protesters waving American and British flags. These are the
countries that have started wars all over, in the last 70 years since the end
of WWII, ostensibly to promote democracy, and everywhere this happens there is
chaos and destruction.

Add to that, China's cultural history of being invaded and exploited by
various foreigners whenever it was weak or divided, and what happened to
Russia in the 90s after democracy and neo-liberal capitalism were introduced,
and you don't really have a good story here.

So, imagine then, you are in China, and the HK protestors sound like they want
_what_ for China?

The popular notion is that China would become a place friendly to Western
ideals if it became successful. But even here, the West – and in particular,
the US/UK – doesn't "get" China. Whatever is said here, China will bypass the
US/UK, for practical purposes. But in any case, it is not as if they are
representative of the West as a whole, nor can they claim to have a better
human rights record – or equality record – or a fairer society.

~~~
dang1234throw
I'm Chinese and can say some words explaining the perspective from where I
sit. I don't think memory of historical wrongs lie at the root of Chinese
reactions. They may be the reasons most commonly given, but I don't think it's
psychologically operative for most Chinese people. (This as following partly
from introspective observation as a Chinese, and partly from the general
principle against giving much credence to reasons given in explaining one's
own actions and attitudes.) I think what lies at the root of Chinese reactions
is simply the perception that the all the noble moral condemnations from the
West do not feel _genuine_ at all, that they do not feel like they come from
the noble place they purport to. There are so many alternative explanations of
what really lies behind these moral condemnations (e.g. that they really come
from a place of self-interest (the Plaza Accord theories are very popoular
here), from bias and hostility, from a malevelant intention to do harm, or
simply from the desire to find someone to blame) and --- I hope this is
something even an American can agree with --- the West has done very very
little, nothing even, by way of ruling out those explanations for China. It
simply repeats the moral condemnations. It's hard not to see this as showing
either gross arrogance (I don't need to prove anything to _you_ ) or that one
of those explanations really is true.

We can all agree that if someone criticizes us morally we should examine our
behavior, so we can do better. However, what if you have reasonable suspicion
that ulterior motives lie behind the critic's "criticism", that the critic is
doing this only because he stands to profit from it somehow at your expenses,
and that the critic doesn't really believe in the noble ideals he purport to
believe in? Are you to give in to such a person so that he can get what he
wants?

~~~
cwkoss
Freedom of speech is a core moral principle in the United States: it is
literally the first right enshrined in our constitution and for good reason.

I believe much of the recent moral outrage stems from China (and Chinese
companies on their behalf) using the financial threat of lost profits to force
American businesses to self-censor in ways that do not uphold this value.

Allowing totalitarian censorship of unpleasant truths like Tiananmen Square
and organ harvesting of political prisoners gives governments the ability to
continue committing similar atrocities in the future. If you look at American
political discourse that is critical of the government, a significant portion
of it is related to similar government suppression of information that
prevents the public holding government officials responsible for the
atrocities they commit: see Abu Ghraib, Wikileaks Collateral Murder, Bay of
Pigs, Snowden revelations, current Trump whistleblower crackdown, etc.

I would strongly encourage you to read Orwell's 1984 if you can access it: it
is somewhat superlative and dated, but artfully illustrates the danger to
personal freedoms that can result from totalitarian government control of
discourse.

~~~
dang1234throw
Of course I'm aware that freedom of speech is in the US constitution. It is in
the Chinese Constitution as well. My point is that just as you hold genuine
doubts about the level of sincerity behind this second fact I gave, most
Chinese harbor just as genuine doubts about the level of sincerity behind the
first fact you gave.

There are rarely any self-consciously unjust wars. Throughout history, all
wars have been justified on moral grounds (including the Nazi invasion of
Poland). Doing bad things in the name of morality is extremely common. Why is
the Chinese not allowed to wonder whether this description fits current US
behavior? (By many American's own admission, it fits American behavior towards
the Japanese during the 70s and 80s)

~~~
cwkoss
You have every right to your opinions, and I vouched this (then [dead]) reply
because I do not think you should be censored, despite being skeptical of your
argument.

I'm glad you are suspicious of the US, that is a healthy emotion to feel when
you are on the weaker side of a power imbalance. I am also suspicious that the
US intelligence apparatus may play a role in the Hong Kong protests - though I
sincerely hope they are not.

I believe the 5 demands being made by the Hong Kong protests are rooted in
noble moral principles, so I am comfortable supporting them regardless of
their origin. Powerful secretive organizations manipulating discourse always
ends up hurting the common man, and the more we as humans stand together, the
more we make a just world for all people into the future. I believe
individuals choosing their actions and words based on consistent moral
principles is one of the best defenses we have remaining in a world of
increasing ambiguity of truth. Allowing free and open discourse seems like
another good defense.

------
jcims
I know it's the original but this title is turrible.

'Staged' \- usually means faked

'Protest Banned Pro-Hong King Gamer' reads like they are protesting the gamer

~~~
dvtrn
Synonyms and context clues exist, you know.

~~~
jcims
Sure but what's wrong with something like:

Blizzard Employees Protest Banning of Pro-Hong Kong Gamer

~~~
dvtrn
Nothing unless, as I said in another comment one is either just not a native
English speaker or is deliberately trying to misconstrue the words used in a
vacuum of context.

But I fear we’re quibbling the point now and getting pretty far off topic. So
I’ll desist.

