Unlike Blizzard, Epic Games Says It Won't Ban Players For Political Speech (theverge.com) 105
Fortnite developer Epic Games said in a statement that it will not ban players or content creators for political speech. From a report: The message comes after Blizzard caught fire this week for banning a professional Hearthstone player for shouting a statement associated with Hong Kong protesters. "Epic supports everyone's right to express their views on politics and human rights. We wouldn't ban or punish a Fortnite player or content creator for speaking on these topics," an Epic Games spokesperson told The Verge. Over the weekend, Blizzard banned Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung from participating in tournaments after he voiced support for the protesters in Hong Kong. In a post-game interview on Sunday, Blitzchung said, "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!" Now, he cannot participate in any tournaments for an entire year (effective October 5th), and Blizzard is withholding any prize money he would have received in the Grandmasters tournament over the weekend. Those forfeited winnings have been reported to total around $10,000. Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, added, "Epic is a US company and I'm the controlling shareholder. Tencent is an approximately 40% shareholder, and there are many other shareholders including employees and investors. [Bowing to China] will never happen on my watch as the founder, CEO, and controlling shareholder."
fortnite china will be shutting down soon! (Score:4, Funny)
fortnite china will be shutting down soon!
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Ah! Just kidding. I'm in Québec and the first time I saw Canadian Bacon I went "WTF is that?!".
Don't you just call it ham up there? Or whatever that would be in frog ;)
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Fun part: Quebecois agricultural sector is ridiculously inefficient and maintained mainly by massive subsidies, which effectively prevented it from modernising alongside the similar agrarian business in US and various European territories in last few decades.
If it were exposed to direct competition from US or Europe, it would crash. But it's still workable, unlike the Chinese sector in its current state of being sqeezed between the ridiculous inefficiencies due to reliance on state subsidies and cheap workf
Re: fortnite china will be shutting down soon! (Score:2)
Speaking negatively about China and positively about the United States at the same time historically results in being downmodded on slashdot. There once was a saying: "Only on slashdot can an article about Chinese censorship remind you of how evil America is", because such articles have historically been flooded with comments about how bad America is. That hasn't been quite as pronounced lately though.
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Maybe some Slashdotters are waking up.
Sigh, I should go to bed. I'm clearly not thinking straight.
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No results found for "Only on slashdot can an article about Chinese censorship remind you of how evil America is".
A brand new sentence.
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The possibilities are endless!
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I would absolutely spend v-bucks on a face stomp emote!
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I would play this.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] Tencent (CHINA) OWNS 40% of Epic Games.
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And? The worst thing that happens is Tencent sells their shares. I'm sure there's a huge shortage of people who would buy shares in a company that makes a billion dollars selling pixels.
Hero For The Day (Score:2)
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He's been a hero ever since the Epic Game Store launched. Valve fanbois may not like him, and may prefer the stagnant, awful, rent-seeking monopoly that is Steam, but EGS is absolutely good for the industry.
Valve demands a 30% cut for digital distribution. That's on par with what physical retail was. It's absurd.
EGS asks for 12%, and will waive engine fees (5%) if you use EGS.
If you're using their engine, then you keep 88% of sales vs. 65% of sales. That is, you get 35.4% more money for the same raw sal
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> He's been a hero ever since the Epic Game Store launched.
To whom? A few developers that they bribed to pull their games from other platforms to force more traffic onto the crap EGS platform?
Valve hasn't been an ideal company either, but they never forced exclusivity on any 3rd party selling through Steam.
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Epic Shill detected.
You know that Tencent owns an even larger share of Epic than they do Blizzard, right?
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Why does this matter? If Tencent doesn't like it, they can sell their shares. If they dump that many it would be quite the bargain. I'll buy some. Epic makes bank, I'd like to own some of that.
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Valve fanbois may not like him, and may prefer the stagnant, awful, rent-seeking monopoly that is Steam
The dislike for EGS is not (strictly) a "Valve fanboy" thing, and portraying it as such as incredibly reductive.
It has been my experience that most of those people who don't like EGS see nothing inherently wrong with other storefronts (e.g. GOG). It's not so much that they love Steam as they dislike EGS's practices (particularly paid exclusivity) more.
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Linux development - Valve finances it too (Score:2)
On the other hand, due to them wanting to show to Microsoft that making a Walled Garden out of Windows isn't a menace for them (thanks to having non-Windows strategies too), Valve is investing quite a bit on the Linux plartform:
- they are paying developers working on core technologies such as the Mesa driver stack
- they are paying developers working on application compatibility layers (their proton is based on Wine and a bunch or DirectX-whatever-to-Vulkan wrappers).
Linux is progressively becoming a slightl
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Seeing as Tencent owns 40% of Epic, I imagine his handlers in China haven't woken up for the day yet. Let's see if there's a retraction in the next day or two before we hand out any awards to Tim.
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Oh going to be fun to see that put to the test (Score:2)
I can think of a few topics that will have them running like cats with their tails on fire.
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So true. China doesn't waffle on these things they are happy to impose outright bans at the drop of a hat.
They just canceled an NBA event because a coach (unaffiliated w/ the event) made a pro-HK statement. Amusingly NBA doesn't know what to do. The initially censored the coach, then flopped and said they supported them.
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That's such a 4013 thing to do.
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YES!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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The cynic would suspect that someone will rub him out after making a statement like that. Hope not.
With the lovefest the GP showed for Tim Sweeney, its more like rub one out.
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The cynic would suspect that someone will rub him out after making a statement like that. Hope not.
The default card to play for these type of situations would seem to be "insider trading".
But virtue signaling is cheap, so Sweeney can afford it. Actions, as always, speak louder than words.
Re:YES!! (Score:4, Insightful)
It helps if:
a) You're so flush with cash, you really don't care who you piss off, and
b) This gives you the opportunity to kick a major competitor while waving the freedom flag
Don't get me wrong, it's definitely the right thing to do, and I'm glad it paints those hypocritical cowards at Blizzard as the kowtowing bootlickers they are. But I don't think Sweeney had to spend much time agonizing over this one.
Good! But I'd wait until the end of the week (Score:3)
Good! But I'd wait until the end of the week before celebrating. That is, after his Chinese shareholders put hist balls into a vise and turn the handle a little. If this statement is not retracted by EOW, kudos to Tim.
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Congratulations of grouping a nuclear superpower with American citizens who just want to be treated like human beings. It's quite a stretch, but you really doubled down and crammed that nonsense into what would have otherwise been a coherent sentence.
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Considering how the emotionally fragile and thin-skinned demand censorship because their delicate feelings were bruised by some slight (real or imagined), I would say I'm not far off the mark. Freedom of speech, especially in the political realm, should be unfettered. Freedom of speech, if it is to have any real meaning, is freedom to say what polite society deems unpopular, repugnant, heretical, inappropriate, and tasteless (within obvious bounds, such as libel, incitement, threats, etc.). Freedom of speec
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Its the Hypocrisy that is the Most Galling (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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The NBA slammed North Carolina over bathrooms. Bathrooms!
Good, that bathroom law was unnecessary and completely fucking stupid.
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Neither men nor women was crazy people of the opposite sex wandering in to the bathroom with them.
Making people stick to the bathroom that matches their body is the safest, most rational, and most widely accepted position.
Pee (Score:1)
Neither men nor women was{want ?} crazy people of the opposite sex wandering in to the bathroom with them.
I don't know about you, but when I go in a bathroom, the only thing I want is to pee. The only single fuck I could give as who else in wandering there is only whev there are so many of them in front of me that I just sigh: "Pfff... the queue is too long..." - Which by the way is a good enough reason for somebody of the "wrong" sex to skip their queue and come lining to mine.
Making people stick to the bathroom that matches their body is the safest,
I fail to understand the link between "safety" and forcing people to stand in different lines depending on what type of sex organ the
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The NBA slammed North Carolina over bathrooms. Bathrooms!
North Carolina wanted to fore large bearded guys into women's bathrooms, women into men's bathroms and subject the lot to serious risks of violence. Essentially saying all that is fine by saying "bathrooms" in a silly voice.
I mean if you want to force large bearded guys into womens bathrooms, just be honest with yourself and the world and admit it. Perv.
Then they ignore all of the atrocities in China because they love money more than ideals.
Two wrong
Bathroom violence (Score:2)
North Carolina wanted to fore large bearded guys into women's bathrooms, women into men's bathroms and subject the lot to serious risks of violence.
How has "violence" something to do with that ?
How is enforcing people who only have a set of genitals that match the picture on the door suddenly going to magically stop them from being violent?
Or conversely, if a person just want to do violent shit, how is a gendered picture on a door going to stop them ?
Have you never had a problem with a drunken-as-shit dude wanting to punch your face, because he thought that his girlfriend was allegedly looking at you with too much interest a few moments earlier on the
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Putting violence in scare quotes makes it look like you have an agenda. But ok...
Transgender people are statistically much likelier than average to be victims of violence. If you force a person who looks entirely like a man too use women's bathrooms, he's going to run the risk of being beaten up for being a perv or simply because someone ergo hates transgender people now has a clearly identifiable target.
Likewise for a trans woman.
The rest of your post is a long winded way of saying this wrong entirely prev
doubt.jpg (Score:2)
Just saw a picture of from another site with someone creating the username 'freetibet' for an Epic account, only a filter blocking it.
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Disregard. It might have been another gaming service, as I just tried it now with no mention of the filter.
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That's true.
China's Tencent's Epic Games... (Score:5, Interesting)
China's Tencent, which has a large stake in Epic Games, will not ban players for political speech... Currently, what, 40 or 50% ownership in Epic?
Oh... google found it for me: Owners Tim Sweeney (>50%) Tencent (40%)
So... they won't care too much. Their Chinese players already tow the line. They have so much money behind Epic that "banning" won't do... it'd be too much attention. They're gonna get clever with the people that dissent. With Activision/Blizzard they don't own as much of the company's stock, so they thought it could go relatively unnoticed.
I wouldn't expect sinister actions due to free speech being a thing, but if did, i might expect some sort of shadow banning process, where certain matches can't be found, or the player suddenly can't find matches equal to their rank in order to keep progressing up the ladders... or intentional ladder rank slips. Sudden deals with advertisers evaporating, twitch streams suddenly getting demonetized, youtube channels getting copyright strikes for strange reasons... but outright bans... nope. They done tried that and messed it up.
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So... they won't care too much. Their Chinese players already tow the line.
sigh [wikipedia.org]
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Arguing it is kind of a moo point though.
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It's strange pandering to idiots when you don't issue corrections on stupidity. Is this news for nerds, or news for dumbfucks who can't be arsed to look things up to make sure they're using them correctly? Maybe these dildos who can't get this right should read a book without pictures in it.
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Ok, we were trawling, but that's basically towing a line......
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> So... they won't care too much.
Tencent owns 40% of Epic
Tencent own 5% of Blizzard
Hm.... call me skeptical. I'm betting either Tencent hasn't heard Tim's remarks yet, or they're letting the playerbase think they can go ahead and do that, but when it actually happens down the road they'll yank the leash hard.
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Activision Blizzard on the other hand is owned by a lot of different entities, none of which seem to hold more than 7-8%, and all of which are purely profit-seeking. The decision to not offend a large market (or the government of a large market) is profit-seeking and consistent with the ownership structur
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"CEO stands ground and loses $xxx millions of dollars for company" is not a headline shareholders and board members are likely to appreciate.
It does however sound like the sort of thing to make him too toxic to ever hold a CEO position again. Money before ethics.
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To be fair to Tim Sweeney, Epic is a privately held company and HE is the one that owns almost all the rest of it. more than 50%. That said I would be amazed if there weren't some interesting clauses in the ownership stake that went to Tencent that could be used to pressure him on his "misspoken statement" as they'll call it.
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He wouldn't be the first owner/CEO forced out by his board. Thinking of Papa Johns or Apple. I don't know the details of those two, I don't dwell much on corporate politics as they are even weirder* than contemporary politics. So there are likely many things I don't know about how and why they were removed that may not apply here.
*well, it USED to be anyway....
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No, Tencent doesn't care right now because "freedom of speech!" isn't a big message over in China. You have to wait until a Fortnite player goes "Free Hong Kong!" or "Free Taiwan!" or the like before you see something happen. And that'
to bad that e-sports player don't have an union to (Score:2)
to bad that e-sports player don't have an union to help them.
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The summary also points out than Tim owns more than 50% of Epic. There is no way anybody can fire him.
They support "everyone's right to express? Really? (Score:3)
Are they sure they don't just mean popular speech? Or, "the right" speech?
Because I can see this stance being quickly walked back if somebody shows up to a tourney in some klan regalia.
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Are they sure they don't just mean popular speech? Or, "the right" speech?
Because I can see this stance being quickly walked back if somebody shows up to a tourney in some klan regalia.
Exactly what I thought. That's cheap PR, because I bet you the moment when someone does some white supremacist or misogynist propaganda at a competitive event and they shut that down, nobody will come after him for breaking his promise.
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Are they sure they don't just mean popular speech? Or, "the right" speech?
Because I can see this stance being quickly walked back if somebody shows up to a tourney in some klan regalia.
Yes, that's almost exactly what they mean and you know what? I don't have a problem with that. One is speaking against an brutal, autocratic regime with a history of harvesting organs, the other is speaking for and acting as a member of a violent extremist group with a history of murder.
These things are not equivalent unless
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Because I can see this stance being quickly walked back if somebody shows up to a tourney in some klan regalia.
Not quote the same thing. There are no reasonable grounds for anyone to feel threatened by a message supporting Hong Kong given in an interview. Meeting someone in Klan garb in person is justifiably quite alarming to many people, and represents a real danger to them.
Freedom of speech doesn't mean you can arrive at the debate wearing a suicide vest.
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Are there many Israeli/Zionist/Jewish game devs? (Score:1)
You might have a problem deplatforming so-called "nazis" especially now that everyone to the right of Mao is now considered one. Maybe if China had such a strong sayanim crew... oh wait, they have the ten cent army! I hope the PRC learns from the failures of Likud.
Yeah, that doesn't seem like that will last. (Score:2)
I once won an Enemy Territory game (Score:2)
by kicking the whole Axis for offensive symbolism.
I don't care about game companies politics (Score:2)
I only care that Blizzard won't add proper 21:9 support to Overwatch.
When did we start caring about offending China? (Score:1)
Isn't China still run by evil Communists and is a totalitarian regime? Did that change?
Re:When did we start caring about offending China? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Dont go full Communist and that nation stays closed.
Tencent owns less than 4.9% of Blizzard (Score:2)
For context, Tencent owns less than 4.9% shareholding of Activision Blizzard.
So Tom Sweeney isn't messing around if he's happy to piss Tencent off when they own 40% of the shares.
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Wonder what happens when it happens to Riot (League of Legends) as tencent owns 100%.
Riot runs their public events with the iron fist of traditional sports. Nobody with a gas mask is going to be allowed in front of a camera.
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Tim Sweeny owns more than 50% of the shares, so he can piss off whoever he wants.
Kudos! (Score:2)
I may take up gaming just so I can support Epic.
Won't last (Score:2)
They are not ready to support American versions of Hong Kong style federal government resisters and Kurd-style ethnic nationalists.
Repub (Score:1)