Blizzard go full Neville Chamberlain

twitter.com/Slasher/status/1181442535962632193

Appeasing totalitarian regimes to maintain esports market dominance.

I'm not sure Chamberlain ever took away any prize money, but that is a shocking decision from Blizzard. Appalling.

' Brings you into Public Disrepute'

strawberry floatin' HELL.

strawberry floatin' cowards.

Oh wow.

The gaming industry screws up all the time but this is spectacularly awful.

Yeah that's just strawberry floating shameful.

Skarjo wrote:' Brings you into Public Disrepute'

strawberry floatin' HELL.

strawberry floatin' cowards.

I'd love to know who at blizzard decided that supporting the active suppression of democracy in Hong Kong doesn't bring you in to public disrepute.

Who am I kidding, it'll be the "VP for Asian Markets".

Knoyleo wrote:
Skarjo wrote:' Brings you into Public Disrepute'

strawberry floatin' HELL.

strawberry floatin' cowards.

I'd love to know who at blizzard decided that supporting the active suppression of democracy in Hong Kong doesn't bring you in to public disrepute.

Who am I kidding, it'll be the "VP for Asian Markets".

They don’t give a gooseberry fool either way. But they looked at the money they make/might make from China and thought “strawberry float Hong Kong, look at that cash!”.

Bunch of dicks.

Although in some ways the most shocking thing about this is how little it shocks me. These companies just care about money now and the potential for more money in the future, everything is geared around chasing that one thing.

They've also sacked both of the commentators on the event as well.

Corazon de Leon

What happened here? Is it to do with the protests?

EDIT: missed the last tweet link, ignore me.

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I'm a bit out of the loop on this one. Is Blizzard part Chinese owned or does it derive some major business from China?

Venom wrote:I'm a bit out of the loop on this one. Is Blizzard part Chinese owned or does it derive some major business from China?

Esports and freemium games like Hearthstone are massive in China, from what I remember, and I think they're expected to grow much faster as a market than the States and Europe

Venom wrote:I'm a bit out of the loop on this one. Is Blizzard part Chinese owned or does it derive some major business from China?

Blizzard is part of the Activision group and their income from the "Asia Pacific" area was just over $1Bn in 2018. A significant amount, albeit a relatively small chunk of their overall income of $7Bn+ during 2018. But, yeah, I suspect they decided to make the move they did to safeguard the billion dollars.

They're also looking to move into the Asian market even more in the coming generations, hence the rather...awkward reveal of the Diablo mobile game primarily designed for that market

What actually happened in the interview? I don't see it linked anywhere

OrangeRKN wrote:What actually happened in the interview? I don't see it linked anywhere

If you click through the tweet in the first post, it's in there, but reposting below.

twitter.com/InvenGlobal/status/1180954142396710912

twitter.com/Slasher/status/1181065339230130181

Got it, thanks

This is absolutely awful

The GM of the Houston Rockets tweeted support for HK and kicked up a massive fuss in the process too this week:

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/10/6 ... ontroversy

It is a little scary how quickly China shut down any criticism on a global scale.

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Cheers Knoyleo/ Jawa/ Taf. So China is a source of significant income and the government would very probably have given them an ultimatum to revoke the prize else loose their business.

Tomous wrote:It is a little scary how quickly China shut down any criticism on a global scale.

This is the worry. With this incident it might not cause waves in the West because the guy is Asian/from Hong Kong so this concession by Blizzard is, kind of, acceptable. But what if in the future that market dominance in China grows and a Westerner criticises them? The value of free speech will be affected because of Western companies wanting to protect their profits. Chinese cinema profits are also making millions for the movie industry so you will certainly be getting more self censorship rather than having a movie banned. But what other choice could Blizzard execs have made? The US government might only step in if it was one of its citizens affected.

That's pathetic. What a bunch of cowardly losers. Eat shite Blizzard.

Blizzard go full Neville Chamberlain

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