Blizzard Says 'We Failed in Our Purpose' After Hearthstone Hong Kong Controversy (theverge.com) 86
Blizzard Entertainment kicked off its annual BlizzCon fan expo today with a direct apology from president J. Allen Brack regarding the explosive Hong Kong controversy that's engulfed the company for the past month. From a report: "Blizzard had the opportunity to bring the world together in a tough Hearthstone e-sports moment about a month ago. We did not. We moved too quickly in our decision-making and then to make matters worse, we were too slow to talk to all of you," Brack said onstage during the beginning of the BlizzCon opening ceremony. "When I think about how most unhappy I am, I think about two things. We didn't live up to the higher standards we set for ourselves. Second, we failed in our purpose. For that, I am sorry, and I accept accountability."
Guess that depends on your purpose. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Yeah, did you witness all his "courage"? (Score:2)
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Maybe if he visited Beijing and publicly declared himself to be a Muslim, his "hosts" could quietly introduce him to one of those concentration camps millions of Chinese muslims are being tortured in?
He could write it off as a "learning experience", since they're "reeducation camps".
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Their purpose was to create inception levels of advertising. They sell that game, the competition is to sell that game. On top of that, they sell advertising space in the game, on the competitors and in the venues so that gullible idiots being sold the game are also being sold all the other advertised rubbish, like junk food for a start and on top of that they insert actual advertisements in the game play commercials, ads on top of ads on top of an ad buy more cars sheeple, bahhh, bahhh, bahhh.
They lost pur
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Re:Guess that depends on your purpose. (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: "we didn't expect a PR disaster of this magnitude -- we regret nothing, and would do it again in a heartbeat. We just need to act apologetic until this blows over. the CPC has a much longer memory than you rubes"
no, it's that their purpose was not fulfilled (Score:1)
their purpose of it being more profitable to side with the Chinese government.
Sorry, we made the wrong bet, we'd like to move our bet please.
Good Luck (Score:2)
What does it mean to be apolitical? If you bench a player for kneeling during the national anthem, are you striving to remain apolitical? Or taking a political stand?
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Failed in WHAT purpose? (Score:3)
Giving pooh bear a blowjob? Yeah, you gave him and yourself a black eye instead. Way to call attention to the protests, while somehow making yourselves look like huge douches in the process.
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So, nothing then (Score:2)
Mai Mai Mai.
Looks like Winnie the Pooh is upset.
Too bad.
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Mai Mai Mai.
Looks like Winnie the Pooh is upset.
Too bad.
Signature checks out.
Did not solve the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
1) They still are punishing him with a 6 month sentence.
2) As well as others.
3) They have not yet realized the problem was not the severity of the punishment, but instead the POLICY in the first place.
4) Companies should not attempt to censor their customers, nor should competitive organizations attempt to censor their competitors.
When you do that, you are MAKING a political statement against the cause that was censored. And it is almost always supporting Authority of some kind over the Oppressed because the Authority has the power and money to make laws and pay for advertisements, while the Oppressed can only protest via free speech.
Just stay out of the politics, unless you want to support one side.
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4) Companies should not attempt to censor their customers, nor should competitive organizations attempt to censor their competitors.
Just out of curiosity, would you be equally fine with someone at the next tournament standing up and declaring that they believe homosexuals should be stoned to death if they don't repent their sinful lifestyle? What about a resounding chant of "Build the Wall" or whatever political position you personally find to be the most abhorrent.
Extreme examples, but that's just the point. Those are all as much a political message or position as any other and I have to wonder how many people who were against the c
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Just out of curiosity, would you be equally fine with someone at the next tournament standing up and declaring that they believe homosexuals should be stoned to death if they don't repent their sinful lifestyle? What about a resounding chant of "Build the Wall" or whatever political position you personally find to be the most abhorrent.
Why not? Professional wresting has forever had villains as part of the show, why not let some e-sports players choose to be "villains" to certain groups if they choose?
Thes
proof (Score:1)
they chanted both.
typical free speech warrior must have modded down my factually accurate claim that they also chanted "jews will not replace us" at the tiki march, and that's what "you will not replace us" refers to anyway...the jews are dur, uhhhh, using immigrants to replace you..... dur
supporting link (Score:1)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I think it's also fine for an esport to have a simple "no politics" rule, extended so far as "no discussion of RL current events or ideologies at all". As long as that's clear up front as the policy.
Entertainment as escapism and only as escapism is fine, too. It would be interesting to see which approach proved more popular.
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They could just take a position. Some stuff is okay, some isn't.
They will upset some people, mostly in China. Or they can upset people in the West and Hong Kong. There is no middle ground.
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Hmm, pro-China trolls on Slashdot now?
I've seen darknet adverts for Slashdot trolling services but I'm surprised that the CCP cares enough. Maybe they have their own troll farms working on this.
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When you've got large portions of your people living in shit, it's easy to find people to do your dirty work for slave wages. Trolling is cheap in nations where life is cheap. That's why China and Russia are homes of troll farms. It costs only a few dollars a day to troll a site like slashdot, and keeps a bunch of technically literate and often highly trained people either far away from it, or arguing amongst themselves. This site has always had trolling and meaningless bullshit arguments, but it also used
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Thing is Slashdot has been hit by DDOS attacks lately too. Could be collateral damage when attacking someone else but if they are going after Slashdot it makes you wonder about who is upset enough to put that much resource into temporarily slowing the site down, and what they are upset about.
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who is upset enough to put that much resource
If you have a low orbit ion cannon on call it's only fun if you point it at someone. And while /. has nowhere near the volume of traffic nowadays that it used to have, it's a safe bet to assume that this site can handle loads better than the average. So if you can slow this place down or crash it, then you know your cannon is working... It might not be anything personal at all. /. might just be a sort of "speed test" for DDOS :)
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Corporations with political views or influence is purely bad. Like a chainsaw with a remote control, nothing good can come of that.
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Well your example is about a political view that is also advocating severe violence. That's completely different from a political view that is supporting a repressed population.
Re: Did not solve the problem (Score:1)
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True, the Chinese authorities and the police have definitely engaged in violence against the protesters.
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Standing upan saying homosexuals should be stoned is more akin to dictatorship forcing censorship than freedom.
That you are equating that horrible statement with saying the opposite in a different context -- that people should be free -- is bizarre.
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be equally fine with someone at the next tournament standing up and declaring that they believe homosexuals should be stoned to death if they don't repent their sinful lifestyle? What about ...
Standing upan saying homosexuals should be stoned is more akin to dictatorship forcing censorship than freedom. That you are equating that horrible statement with saying the opposite in a different context -- that people should be free -- is bizarre.
You perhaps don't get out very much, do you? Or at least English might not be your first language? Just observing here.
Decades ago in the workplace, if I wanted to make a dramatic point, I'd come up with an absolute extreme, worst example I could think of. Yeah, kinda of a straw-man to argue against, but I could also logically reach far-away there from here.
Needless to say I was not always the life of the meeting, or suffered SJWs (whatever they were call then -- oh they were there) lightly. [True e
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Depends where you are. For instance in Brunei stoning gays to death is the law.
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Demanding that gays be stoned to death is a call for violence, which is not considered free speech.
Wrong, and wrong. Unless it is a call for immediate violence, it's fine. Demanding that the law be changed to punish gays with execution by stoning is the very center of protected political speech. Contrast that with "are there any queers in the theater tonight? Get them up against the wall!".
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Just out of curiosity, would you be equally fine with someone at the next tournament standing up and declaring that they believe homosexuals should be stoned to death if they don't repent their sinful lifestyle?
No, but I would also not expect them to be fined and banned for it. I would expect the camera feed to be cut and a studio announcer to immediately apologise for the hateful idiocy that had just been shared.
What about a resounding chant of "Build the Wall" or whatever political position you personally find to be the most abhorrent.
Welcome to free speech. You don't have to support the speech in question, you don't have to broadcast it but it's important to accept that someone has the right to hold and share views with which you disagree.
Certainly if you want to host a sporting event (esports or otherwise) and want to ban politics fr
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4) Companies should not attempt to censor their customers, nor should competitive organizations attempt to censor their competitors.
When you do that, you are MAKING a political statement against the cause that was censored. And it is almost always supporting Authority of some kind over the Oppressed because the Authority has the power and money to make laws and pay for advertisements, while the Oppressed can only protest via free speech.
Just stay out of the politics, unless you want to support one side.
That depends on whether it's done consistently. For example, did they also issue the same kind of punishment against somebody who was promoting a politician or some political cause like gay rights and under the same circumstances? If so, then this isn't an issue: They have a policy of being apolitical and they're sticking to it.
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What I was saying that being consistent is not enough. If you consistently prevent your 'athletes' from making political statements you are NOT being apolitical, you are expressly supporting authority and the status quo.
Oppressed people only have political speech, and it doesn't work if a 'nobody' says it. They can't pay for political advertisements, they are oppressed. It has to be someone famous to talk for them, cause they get ignored.
If you and your company wants to be apoltiical, the only way to do
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What I was saying that being consistent is not enough. If you consistently prevent your 'athletes' from making political statements you are NOT being apolitical, you are expressly supporting authority and the status quo.
Oh fuck off are you. You're stating that this is not the appropriate venue or occasion for political statements, which is very fucking different from supporting anything.
If you and your company wants to be apoltiical, the only way to do it is to let your employees, atheletes etc. say what they want.
In that case I'll support companies being anti-political.
If you attempt to prevent them from speaking, you are not being apolitical, you are supporting the status quo.
No, you are not. Stop trolling.
This is meaningless unless they make it right. (Score:5, Insightful)
They need to unsuspend everyone who was suspended over this, and pay out the award money that wasn't paid out.
How can they apologize if they haven't even bothered to make things right?
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Just FYI, they've already re-instated the award money, and the suspension was reduced from 12 to 6 months.
that sounds like... (Score:2)
... we're sorry we falsely imprisoned you and fined you, here's half your money back and also you only have to spend half as long in jail.
you're welcome
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I have no idea (Score:1)
I'm saying what it sounds like to reduce the sentence for something that shouldn't have been punished in the first place... gee thanks.
Re:This is meaningless unless they make it right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Just FYI, they've already re-instated the award money, and the suspension was reduced from 12 to 6 months.
Their lawyers decided they had to give back the money, but they're still punishing the player for speech. Therefore they're pragmatic enemies of freedom. Whoop de fuck.
I accept accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
"I accept accountability". What does that mean? Did he resign, or at least return his yearly bonus or stock grant? Were the decisions reversed? Did he come out in support of human rights?
Re:I accept accountability (Score:5, Insightful)
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"I accept accountability" doesn't actually mean anything, though. Normally I would assume he meant to say "accept responsibility", but he was almost certainly reading the statement - so the meaningless verbiage was almost certainly intentional.
I suppose, though, it's also possible it's just a bad translation from the Chinese original he was given...
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His statement was vetted by a large law firm, and every word was carefully chosen. If you really want to study it, get a good dictionary out and compare the definitions of "responsibility" and "accountability" VERY CAREFULLY.
For a start.
Then get an odd number of la
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"I accept accountability".
... for the 15 minutes of fame it takes to forget about this. Soon you'll be worrying about some other critical thing, I've just got to keep you mollified until then.
OOOOoooh: look over there -- shiny!
oh, their capitulation didn't make them money (Score:1)
so sad.
assholes.
"We Moved Too Quickly" (Score:3)
We are very sorry that people outside the event found out about this and cared about it.
Stop Talking Now (Score:5, Insightful)
> Blizzard had the opportunity to bring the world together
No. That's not your job. Stop thinking this is your job. Nobody is paying you to be in politics and nobody wants you to be in politics. That you think you made the *wrong* politicial move means this shitshow is just going to get worse.
I can't believe the owners haven't collared this get-woke-go-broke dude who is running the company into the ground.
P.S. Free Hong Kong. $searchengine Uyghurs.
everything is political (Score:1)
mofo
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I can't believe the owners haven't collared this get-woke-go-broke dude who is running the company into the ground.
I'm guessing it's a safe bet that the majority of the "owners"/stockholders are not primarily Blizzard fans and gamers but some rather boring people who are too busy poring over financial statements and quarterly reports to play games. Anyway, he wouldn't be the first CEO to drive a company into a brick wall. He has a golden parachute - what does he care?
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They're trying to come up with what the world wants to hear.
Whatever they're doing is failing though.
>> I can't believe the owners haven't collared this get-woke-go-broke dude who is running the company into the ground.
Nailed it!
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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That job is too big even for large corporations. For better or worse, western leaders have a policy of economic engagement. But if that pushes back witb demands to censor speech outside China, or get cut off, our leaders should respond with harsh arm twisting of their own on China.
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Is it written in the TOS (Score:2)
If the rules for the competition state that political speech is not permitted on stage, and they apply this evenly across the board, then they did nothing wrong.
This is my understanding of the issue. Was this rule created on the spot to shut down a winner and take-backsies the winnings, or was this a policy that the "athlete" agreed to and then willingly violated?
Seems the root of the issue is in the participation agreement.
Re:Is it written in the TOS (Score:4, Insightful)
If the rules for the competition state that political speech is not permitted on stage, and they apply this evenly across the board, then they did nothing wrong.
Horseshit.
Stating that political speech is not permitted is something wrong.
If they don't want to give someone a soapbox, fucking don't. But don't complain when they take a stand, especially against oppression. That's unAmerican. If they don't like it, they can fuck off to China.
And you can go with them.
Seems the root of the issue is in the participation agreement.
No, the root of the issue is whether it's reasonable to prohibit political speech, and it isn't. Not in this country.
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However having said that, they way they handled it just looks bad.
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Stating that political speech is not permitted is something wrong.
Stating that political speech leads to revenue damaging shitstorms and is thus unwelcome at your events is not wrong.
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Stating that political speech leads to revenue damaging shitstorms and is thus unwelcome at your events is not wrong.
It's not factually wrong, it's morally wrong.
It's also only a tiny part of the story, because accepting money from China while also banning political speech is itself a political action. Any time two or more people with differing views are involved, politics exist. There's no escaping it, you can only choose sides.
What we really need (Score:2)
Someone needs to put together a Hearthstone mod which transforms all the baddies into various incarnations of Winnie the Pooh.
In other words.... (Score:2)
"...our heads up our asses turned out to cost us customers and sponsors (aka revenue) and I'm sorry that happened." We wouldn't have heard a word if Blizzard didn't suffer any financial consequences.
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Did they repair the damage, remove bans and so on?
If not, it's pointless hot air.
No more monthly $$ WoW nor fox race for me.
We're sorry to be sorry (Score:2)
Have Cake (Score:2)
and eat it.
Not a Blizzard anymore (Score:3)
It's all about money (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation: Blizzard panicked about losing over $100 million in Chinese revenue and punished the guy to placate the Chinese. Then they realized the Chinese revenue paled in comparison to US and western revenue, and when the media backlash potentially threatening the greater source of revenue, they backtracked in an attempt to save the bulk of their revenue. I.e., Blizzard doesn't care either way about this issue either way. They just want their money to keep on rolling in.
Translation (Score:2)
We feard pissing off the Chinese and didn't realize that we piss off the much more relevant market in the rest of south east asia. Could we be friends again? Preferably without having to change anything that could piss off the Chinese?