
Blizzard Postpones World of Warcraft 15th Anniversary Event in Taiwan - ilamont
https://www.polygon.com/2019/10/17/20919539/blizzard-entertainment-world-of-warcraft-event-taiwan-hong-kong-protests
======
Iv
I wanted to delete my SC2 account then realize that boycotting a free to play
game makes little sense.

Instead I changed my name for "FreedomForHK". I saw another player with a
similar name on Asian servers (FreeHongKong). Received several praises for the
name, even got someone give me a free victory because of it. Did not receive a
single criticism.

Blizzard totally alienated its player base with this decision.

~~~
CharlesColeman
> I wanted to delete my SC2 account then realize that boycotting a free to
> play game makes little sense.

I think it does make sense to boycott a F2P game: I'm sure active players is a
metric they track closely.

Do they have any way to file support tickets? Maybe you could submit one (or
several) expressing your dissatisfaction with their actions. Escalate it as
high as you can. If enough people do that, I bet it'll get on their
executives' radar due to the noise.

> Instead I changed my name for "FreedomForHK". I saw another player with a
> similar name on Asian servers (FreeHongKong). Received several praises for
> the name, even got someone give me a free victory because of it. Did not
> receive a single criticism.

This might feel good, but it's a win for Blizzard. They want you to play and
you keep playing.

If you feel the way that you report, the only good reason I can think of for
keeping an account around is to actively use it to encourage other players to
_take action_ , not just pat each other on the back. Say something like: "I'm
going to delete my account in a week because of Blizzard's pro-authoritarian
stance, but in the meantime I wanted to spread a message encouraging more
players to do so."

~~~
chipperyman573
Blizzard has support tickets but like almost all companies the people
answering the tickets are totally disconnected from the people making the
decisions and filing a ticket won't do anything more than get a empty "we're
sorry" response

~~~
CharlesColeman
> Blizzard has support tickets but like almost all companies the people
> answering the tickets are totally disconnected from the people making the
> decisions and filing a ticket won't do anything more than get a empty "we're
> sorry" response

I know this, which is why any message you send to these people should be
polite and empathize with their situation.

But I disagree that those people are "totally disconnected" from the decision
makers. They are in fact _weakly_ connected, and likely need to report up
metrics and summaries to the decision makers. The goal is to 1) get them to
report up boycott messages (e.g. we're seeing a spike in support tickets
protesting the sanctions of the pro-HK player at the tournament) and 2) cost
them some money by bogging down their support operations.

~~~
smackay
3) the people handing the tickets will see that it's an issue and maybe
they'll pass the message on.

You move mountains one shovel at a time.

~~~
AstralStorm
Not if you want to move it in a reasonable amount of time.

Either manpower (many tickets) or big bulldozer (high visibility opinions
impossible to ignore by PR).

------
SirensOfTitan
I don't really know what I'd do in a leadership role at Blizzard or the NBA.
On one hand, both companies have acted with bounded rationality: China is a
huge market that can drive major growth. On the other: the more companies
develop market share in China, the more the Chinese government can dictate how
they act. In some sense, non-Chinese companies become de-facto arms of the
Chinese government.

~~~
kulahan
I'm curious what actions a government would need to take before you think it's
irrational to for a company to support them. Between the reported organ
harvesting, re-education camps, and massive invasion of privacy, I'd think it
would be an easy call at this point. If you're still holding out, where do you
personally draw the line? Or at least, where do you think companies should
draw the line?

~~~
paulddraper
On the other hand....what can you as a hypothetical company leader do about
it?

If you were a U.S. citizen who believed that the U.S. government was involved
in severely unethical behavior, would you continue to make income and pay
taxes?

I have no problem with applying lots of pressure to Blizzard, etc. for siding
with China.

I agree with grandparent that I can't say my decision as an executive would
necessarily be different though.

~~~
tripzilch
So would you do business with North Korea? Iran? Are you evading the question
or did you seriously mean to imply that there is literally nothing a country
can't do and you'll still go into business with them, no matter how horrendous
their actions?

I think you might just not realize, or take time to imagine, what these
regimes are actually doing to actual human beings. Maybe imagine it's your
family, said the wrong thing, gets shackled up, underground, unable to move,
injected with weird drugs for a couple of months--just one personal story I
heard from an Iran refugee. I asked about his background, I meant engineering
or what did he study, got a bit more background than I bargained for.

If your decision as an executive would be the same, then I suppose you agree
you'd deserve that "applying lots of pressure to" just as much right? Why do
it then? So you just get to ignore it and do it regardless? BTW this
"pressure" from the other side doesn't quite look like "pressure" but utter
disgust in the moral depravity of what people will do for money. If this is
your choice, then I know exactly what you are worth as a human being to me.
Don't forget to tell your kids their college is paid by torture prisons.

oh and IF you were a US citizen who _doesn 't_ believe the US government is
involved in severely unethical behaviour, gently go fornicate yourself. it's
called the CIA Torture Reports, it was a few years ago, and you can't pretend
it's optional to believe it exists, because it does. It happened and is
happening. I mean seriously, "IF" ??? Are you for real?

Sounds like your solution to this ethical dilemma is basically denial.

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kryogen1c
I uninstalled HS, which was the last blizzard game i had.

The real pain point for me is that i stopped supporting blizzard content
creators. Omnislash, Kripp, winter, serral, and others. Streaming is their
livelihood and/or competing. Such is the colatteral damage.

~~~
valgor
You make is sound like they are struggling. Some of those dudes are rich. I
wouldn't worry about them. And they have enough fans they could stream other
games and still be okay.

~~~
cwkoss
"Streaming is their livelihood" is such a weird argument for supporting
something.

Maybe I'm an old man, but I really feel like the best thing for the streamers
would be for them to get a real job. Streaming is a fragile source of income,
and many streamers 'work' 16+ hours a day trying to make enough money to
support themselves - with majority of them falling short.

~~~
kbar13
you're right. we should get rid of artists and actors and musicians and
everyone should just learn python.

~~~
imihai1988
Learn to code, Artsy edition.

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mikorym
Shouldn't we say "Activision-Blizzard"? At least that would make Starcraft 1
look like it was coded by a separate entity...

~~~
Skunkleton
Starcraft benefits Activision-Blizzard. IMO the full name is better, if only
to remind people of the non-classic-Blizzard titles that should be avoided.

~~~
raihansaputra
Yep. This is a sticking point for me too. I'm excited for the rebooted Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare, but it's released by Activision (and not mentioning
Blizzard in any of their trailers).

------
overgard
I like Blizzard, but fundamentally your business is its values. People come
and go, markets change, etc., so who you are as a company -- at least in the
long run -- is your core set of values.

I think their leadership has to realize they can't have it both ways. They
either need to choose their values, or China. There's no middle ground.

------
kingkawn
Blizzard Activision execs likely looked at video gaming market growth
potential and decided to make their bed where they see the future of their
industry. If the current execs hadn’t made this choice they’d be replaced with
ones who would. This is the cool rationality of the market turning against
western institutions, and everyone is shocked, shocked, that such a thing
could happen after so many centuries of dominance.

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sreque
Am I the only one that thinks Blizzard is in the right here and they are being
made into a scapegoat due to the political climate? Blizzard says "don't talk
about divisive things using our tournaments and communication channels." Why
can't they be allowed to do so? What would happen to someone if they protested
similarly at the Olympics?

If you are really upset about what's happening in Hong Kong, why don't you
boycott, I don't know, all of China? But that would take too much effort for
most airmchair activists.

Edit: several good responses from people, including links to actual olympics
protests, and links to blizzard pushing political agendas.

~~~
deminature
The internet gaming community is addicted to outrage. This is probably the
most substantive outrage of the past few years because there's actual
international geopolitics at stake, but the target of ire usually changes
month-to-month. Last few months it was Epic, next Month we'll probably be back
to EA or Ubisoft, and this saga will fade into the background.

~~~
okatsu
I'm tempted to agree with you, although in the case of Epic it was about stuff
like a Chinese company owning a minority stake, or devs choosing Epic as a
launch platform (for actual upfront money).

This time someone on a public American stage was shut down to cater to a
foreign, Big Brother-like government. It's a little less forgettable.

------
Guthur
It's amazing how many people completely misunderstand blizzards decision.
Blizzards decision is completely in line with other international sporting
events, football body FIFA also disallow political statements and I'm sure the
Olympics are the same.

If you allow this for Hong Kong can someone else call out support for other
political activities even ones you don't agree with.

~~~
alasdair_
>Blizzards decision is completely in line with other international sporting
events, football body FIFA also disallow political statements and I'm sure the
Olympics are the same.

Blizzard has had plenty of people make political statements about, say, LGBT
issues and has NEVER invoked this "rule" before. They even had a US-based team
do exactly the same thing and failed to issue any ban until the hypocrisy was
repeatedly pointed out to them.

It is the selective enforcement that is the issue, as well as the heavy-handed
punishment.

------
itronitron
i guess this is what it's like when someone you know is in an abusive
relationship

------
jammygit
It makes sense. In their new Chinese outlook, Taiwan does not exist

~~~
tasogare
I'm surprised they have Taiwan written on their anniversary page
([https://goblizzard.tw/wow/2019/15thanniversary/#collection](https://goblizzard.tw/wow/2019/15thanniversary/#collection)).
Maybe they didn't have the time to change it to Chinese Taipei yet.

------
LegitShady
Hilarious. If rather these guys go out of business that have them enforce
Chinese political censorship on the west. I have no use for companies that
undermine basic freedoms for money. All while virtue signalling in the west.

Get out of business blizzard. The freedoms that allow you to exist are more
valuable than your existence.

~~~
asulnatao
They follow the laws of countries they operate in. I don't see any problem
with companies refusing to judge what is good or bad and just following the
law.

~~~
nixpulvis
If we all agreed on following the same "law", we wouldn't need flags.

~~~
corodra
Ah, the days we will be drinking unicorn milk and Santa will start delivering
presents again.

Because that's totally going to happen. Countries within themselves barely
function without split alliances, different parties and ambitions. Now you
want 7 billion people to act as one? I'll faster reach richest guy on the
planet before that happens.

Quit pretending that wishful thinking is what you should bank on for better
things to happen in the world.

~~~
nixpulvis
You've missed my point.

Clearly we have flags => different "laws".

~~~
corodra
Maybe if I can learn to levitate, I can change the lightbulbs in my house.

No, get a ladder.

Because the no country, no flag idea makes people blind to finding practical
solutions.

------
colmvp
Isn’t it kind of weird that this isn’t news on the WoW subreddit?

~~~
plorkyeran
It was on /r/wow several days ago when it was first announced.

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proc0
Diablo 4 was the only "maybe" and that was a long shot, it will probably suck
balls like D3 because they will bend backwards to censor it. I don't get how
they can justify censoring a game that depends on its dark content, it's quite
obviously going to alienate the original player base that made it big. Why not
just create a different IP just for china? So many questions, I really think
they just lack technical innovation to solve this properly.

~~~
RandomTisk
I still can't get over the Cartoon-like art style of Diablo 3. It's not a bad
game, but the graphic style is such a massive contradiction with the subject
matter, it could have been a much better game. The story was similarly
butchered, having a degree of good execution but just full of demon-cliches,
if that makes sense, without really ever being interesting.

~~~
cwkoss
Diablo 3 was a bad game.

They destroyed the fun of the trading economy by making the auction house the
most efficient way to obtain things - even allowing real-money purchases for a
while to make it literally pay-to-win until they walked that back.

They entirely removed the concept of "builds" as everything about your
character was changeable at whim, so you just had to max out a class and you
had access to every build within that class. Made choosing builds feel
unimportant.

Then, they didn't add enough interesting unique item effects, so item grinding
largely just became "look for the item with a slightly bigger number"

~~~
dmerrick
Sounds like you played during launch, and didn't play after that

~~~
proc0
I played a recent season, and got pretty far in the completion checklist with
a few characters in hardcore mode. Overall the experience is just mediocre,
but the game itself is quite polished, which means the design itself is
flawed.

There's something about character progression that seems very shallow. The
overall feel and experience of the game is closer to an arcade action game
like Gauntlet (3d version) that has repetitive levels as oppose to an ARPG
with RNG content that has endless replay value like D2.

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jgalt212
There are so many ways that an NLP model would mis-interpret this headline.

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driverdan
This is blogspam for this article:
[https://www.polygon.com/2019/10/17/20919539/blizzard-
enterta...](https://www.polygon.com/2019/10/17/20919539/blizzard-
entertainment-world-of-warcraft-event-taiwan-hong-kong-protests)

~~~
dang
Changed to that from [https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/blizzard-postpones-
world-...](https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/blizzard-postpones-world-of-
warcraft-15th-anniversary-event-in-taiwan). Thanks!

------
ReptileMan
Well since Europe started requiring to have "hate" speech, the american
progressive "fake news", "harassment" and "abuse" removed it seems that a lot
of other factions seem to seized the opportunity to use the existing framework
to their own gain. Who could have guessed ...

It is rarely only the "good" guys that get to censor in the end ...

~~~
Supermancho
Blizzard is not censoring based on an SJW framework.

Blizzard is trying to satisfy an authoritarian regime that they have gotten
financially DEPENDENT on. These are not related.

~~~
ReptileMan
A rose by any other name ...

Blizzard appeases the SJW when twitter makes a shitstorm not to lose money.
Blizzard appeases China when Beijing makes a sting not to lose money. Both the
SJW and CCP sincerely believe that history is on their side and they are the
future. Both think of due process (as in some title IX cases) as an
inconvenience. Both think that ideological conformity is paramount.

I think I can see a vague overlap between the two.

~~~
Supermancho
There is overlap between a lot of systems, but meta-relationships (insofar as
HN comment votes look like Reddit comment votes) aren't relevant to the topic.
That being said, I see the overlap. Blizzard is using the "we know what's best
for others". This is not a framework, intrinsically.

> a lot of other factions seem to seized the opportunity to use the existing
> framework to their own gain

Blizzard is not one of those factions and I'll leave it at that.

~~~
ReptileMan
I was talking about CCP in the original post as the faction. I thought it was
obvious.

Blizzard are just an errand boy send by grocery clerks to colletthe bills.

------
ahbyb
I value WoW more than I value human rights.

~~~
Shivetya
I do not agree with the down vote for an honest statement, even if made in
jest, conveys the major problem with human rights.

people are more than willing to support human rights so long as it does not
change their own behavior or alter their lifestyle.

it is not just the corporations here we need to hold accountable, we need to
hold our elected officials to the task. the corporations are going to be bend
to whom cost them the most money. if the US Congress suddenly slapped legal
restrictions upon these companies they would have to make a choice or make one
differently.

the other reason to go the route of government to change behavior is that
people in general are more comfortable having changes in their lifestyle and
behavior handed down to them. Sad but that is how many operate and more so if
they see other people also being required to change.

~~~
gpm
I downvoted and flagged GP.

It has nothing to do with the idea behind the comment, and everything to do
with how it was delivered. As delivered, it's flame bait, and unlikely to lead
to a high quality discussion.

