Fight against puritan totalitarianism!!!
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Coincidences:
China announces they’ll be more strict with their policies. These include: Blood, lewd women/clothing, visible bones, innuendos of sexual practices among other things.
A few days later, Blizzard changes cards as follows:
Remove Blood, remove lewd women/clothing, rename “Mistress” to Queen.
Blizzard doesn’t change:
Violent cards/card names, half naked male Characters, cards related to casinos and gambling.
So why did they only change those specific cards, and in the specific way they did? And why do they fit exactly inside the chinese ruleset?
Why aren’t other non-kid-friendly cards changed? Why are the cards that ARE changed, not changed in a way that would truly make them kid friendly?
Why are they changed mere days after chinas announcement?
If the motivation was as Activision Blizzard said, they are absolutely ignorant on what is deemed kid friendly today, and incompetent in changing their game accordingly.
If however the motivation was to mingle with china, all the changes fit perfectly into that, and it’d make sense that there weren’t more changes.
Now it’s up to you to decide if you think Activision Blizzard is incompetent, or a liar. ![:slight_smile:](https://dacy5cilkxabf.cloudfront.net/en/hearthstone/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")
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Have you ever worked in software engineering? Have you ever worked in a company that contracts artists for making (and in this case changing) artwork?
“A few days” is not enough to read and understand China’s new rules, go over the complete existing collection to identify where changes are needed, commission artists to create new versions of the artwork, code it into the program, test the changes, and release them to the world. If any change happens as a result of an announcement from a country (any country), then it takes at least a month, probably two, before it is reality.
And you, like all others, also constantly sidestep the big question of why Blizzard in your theory felt compelled to change artwork on the non-Chinese servers, instead of changing the already separate artwork on the Chinese servers? Changing it for China only is LESS work and LESS risk than changing it for both versions.
Over the past years, public opinion on nudity and violence has shifted in many western countries. This is a gradual process. I think that the explanation “at one point we realized that some of our older art no longer meets the standards we apply today” is far more likely to be closer to the truth than all the speculation about budging to assumed Chinese demands.
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@Wyattbw09 If they feel they should change their standards after I’ve purchased cards, I feel I can change my standards for the games I play.
Again, the only reason I created this thread was because I couldn’t e-mail Blizzard privately. Not complaining, just letting them know why I uninstalled.
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Actually I work in software engineering right now, and have for the past ten years.
That’s why I know it’s always better to not break your software up into specific versions, because each patch, each change, each switch of hardware will always require testing of both versions, and it’s prone to slip-ups where parts of both versions are accidentally mixed.
And Activision Blizzard doesn’t contract artists for making artwork, they have the artists in-house as employees.
What standard does the “new” eviscerate meet, that the old one doesn’t? It’s more bland now without the blood. So the new standard is “No blood whatsoever”? Hmm, where have I read that before? Oh right, in Chinas Censorship Rules.
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Who said its a coincident? You are making assumptions left and right, on what you think my position is… Aka, called a strawman. A logical fallacy (Mr “im more logical than thou”
And I have no problem with China having stricter censorship rules. Blizzard might just have thought about some of the artwork previously, or perhaps Chinas announcement made them think about these cards (do they fit into the theme of the game, or are they to dark) and saw an opportunity to roll out changes they want on the EU and NA servers in the wake of China`s announcement. As someone allready have pointed out, they could have changed the chinese cardset, and left the EU and NA alone… But they actively choose not to… So you are making a false assumption that Blizzard had to change the cards, due to Chinese ruleset… Thats a huge error on your part. Wich is why i pointed out that you are assuming the motive here.
Coincidents are no matter of opinion. They ARE at least coincidents. If they aren’t, that means they are correlated.
Read my last comment about splitting up your programs. I’m done here, you’re just discussing in circles again and again.
Your whole premise is wrong. You claim its a coincident, suggesting it cant be by chance, therefore Blizzard plays to Chinese rules…
I pointed out that it might just not be by coincident that Blizzard made the changes… But still not playing to Chinese rules…
Ergo your false dichotomy is rediculous. By claiming its either coincident(making Blizzard liars in your mind) or making Blizzard Incompetent in your mind…
Iv tried explaining other reasonable scenarios, where Blizzard might have a different motive than you try so desperatelly burden them with… Where China might have been a catalyst in Blizzard making changes they allready have thought of prior… To move the game in a direction they allready have discussed… You know., Basic game developing stuff…
Coincidents ARE random. Sheesh, exactly that shows me that you aren’t even thinking straight anymore, so you just argue for the sake of arguing.
I wish you all the best in your world, where things can neither be coincidents nor correlated, though they happened close together.
I won’t comment any further. Maybe you understand my points above when you now know what coincidents are instead of what you thought they were. If not, I can’t help you.
Have a nice day.
Correct.
But there already IS a separate branch for the Chinese market. They made that choice a long time ago (I think at release already?). Allegedly because the skeletons depicted on some cards could pose a problem for being allowed on the Chinese market.
Once you have that separate version, if you need a further change in that version only you would not backport it to the main branch “just because you can”, because that might potentially break other things in the main branch. Develop and test it in the special branch, release it there. Only copy it to the main branch if you really must.
That does not change the fact that it takes more than a few days to draw new versions of the cards.
If that were the standard, they would have changed many more cards. Whirlwind, for example, shows more blood than Eviscerate ever has. So whatever they use as a standard right now, it definitely is NOT “no blood whatsoever”.
The Blizzard statement talks about “meeting current standards” without really going into the details of what those standards are. That could be interpreted as not wanting to release it, and if you’re into conspiracy theories you could build a skyscraper of ideas on that.
But you can also interpret it as artistic license. We want to do what feels good to us. And we want to reserve the freedom to update the are if our feelings about it change. Please allow us that freedom. Please don’t tell us what we can and cannot do with out art.
To me, all the current attempts from palyers to force Blizzard to undo this change reek far more of attempted censorship than the original change did.
No wonder you are having a hard time understanding basic logic… What i wrote was, that you are suggesting it cannot be random, or by chance that Blizzard made the changes as you claim " a few days " after China did their thing… Because you claim Blizzards motive, was NOT random in accordance with China… Is it a coincident then??
When i wrote “suggesting it cant be by chance” - Me saying you are suggesting it cant be by chance that Blizzard changed the cards a few days after the China thing…
And my point has allways been… Who said it was a coincident??
My best guess is Blizzard just doesn’t like violence or attractive women.
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Or perhaps they just like gnomes, and every card thats not a gnome they change into non violent or non attractive women to make you mad… Everyone can assume stupid motives left and right…
I don’t understand why an art team would completely compromise their community over censorship. That’s my first question. Follow the echoes to the source of the noise, don’t shift the blame on anyone.
Censorship is when the producer of a creative work is not allowed to make it the way he or she wants.
Like, for instance, when a game company wants to change the artwork of a game, and a vocal minority starts posting threats, insults, and weird accusations in an attempt to force the company to not implement or reverse the change.
OP, you appear to be the one desiring to “censor” Blizzard by forcing your views of what you prefer on their artists with your boycott threat.
Of course that’s your prerogative. Just learn what censorship means and understand how that word does not apply to Blizzard making its own decisions for what it wants its art to look like.
@Briala Are you serious? You think me asking Blizzard to retain designs they originally created is censorship? And it’s not a threat. I’ve already done it. It’s a “Please change it back so that my faith in your company can be restored.” I don’t expect the new Blizzard to care what I think though. The old Blizzard would have.
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No it is certainly not literal censorship, but the fact is between you and Blizzard you are the one who is trying to bully their freedom of expression, and not the other way around.
You have my 100% support as far as you choosing what you enjoy and acting accordingly. I just want you to properly be able to differentiate between freedom and censorship. In this case:
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Blizzard changed their artwork as they desired, and were allowed to.
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You had an opinion to express about it, and were allowed to.
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You at all times had complete choice as to what games to play and/or pay for, for any reason you chose, including over trivial artwork concerns.
All of that is what freedom looks like. There is no censorship here. It worries me when I see people who don’t understand true threats to freedom vs. actual expressions of freedom.
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@Briala It is you who is trying to bully my freedom of expression. I am expressing that I am disappointed in Blizzard’s choice to change their artwork.
Censorship is defined as follows: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
There is censorship here. It worries me when you are defending a company that clearly would do no such thing for you.
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Your definition is missing the most important part, that it is one party with power prohibiting expression by another party.
As long as this is Blizzard’s own choice for Blizzard’s own art in Blizzard’s own game, there is no censorship here. As a citizen, you retain your right to find the artwork you enjoy from other artists. This would not be the case if the government was literally censoring, as it would apply to all artists and your choices would be removed.
btw I fully support your freedom of expression. You could write a long essay on why you felt the new art was awful and I’d have nothing to disagree with you on. And while I wish to point out how your use of the word “censorship” is incorrect in this circumstance, I would not wish to prevent you from being able to say it. There’s a big difference.
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