Hello all, I’ve had fun with this game and many other blizzard games, but this will be the last day I post here unless a formal apology is given by blizzard to Blitzchung. For those of you unaware of what happened.
A grandmaster in the tournament who fought his way to victory, has been banned for a year, his winnings stripped, and two casters fired because he respectfully supported the Hong Kong Protests.
UNACCEPTABLE
He didn’t make a long daunting dialogue, he did not use any vocabulary to offend anyone, he didn’t frame it in any negative light, he didn’t use hate speech. He just claimed his support for a movement that wishes to bring democracy to Hong Kong. I can never support a company that won’t even support the American Ideals that allow it to flourish in the first place.
The casters did it during work times
If a soldier says fck the president under work hours especially talking to a mic. its concidered heavyer then he is walking in his civilian
I find it justified. You dont talk politics under worktime. Its called being a proffessional
The soldier is not talking as himself but he represents an army
If an caster does the same. It speaks trough blizzard. And do you know chinese laws?
Maybe its even illigal and they can get a lawsuit
So you wanted Blizz to man up against China, so China bans them, cutting a ton of income from them which leads to hundreds if not more ppl being fired… for what? Being “right” about politics against a Country as a Company? That’d be too selfish imo… Kicking ppl out from their jobs, because they lost the biggest country from their customers so they can act “morally pure”…
Also, since these are in the news, every company which doesn’t man up but stays silent is as “bad” as Blizz. They have the chance to show it to Blizz, to us and to world “how it supposed to be done”. But the sad reality, that every company is forced to deal with China and the likes. Because it’s not a big company’s job to try to force international politics on anyone.
I don’t care if you support Blizz (or any other company) or not, but not supporting them because of this incident is just stupid imho.
Blizzard is not a soapbox for people to present controversial political soapboxing, regardless of what the intent or ‘side’ would be, into the public eye.
If the player had said the reverse and not received the ban, then that would be a cause for concern.
The medium is the message, and this is not the medium for that message.
Social and political advocacy have a place where the outcry can be effective and blindsided partisanship doesn’t justify ignorance or neglect of the consequences of particular actions. Stuff like this is part of why sayings like "the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ tends to ring truer than people will realize when they’re too busy getting offended by lazy advocacy.
This might be a controversial idea but keep political agendas or sjw crap away from video games, thx.
Maybe send some crayons so he can write something on the sidewalk, it worked for France Ive heard.
I am sorry but that is just offensive. You’re completely disrespecting such a sensitive matter and downplaying it as something done by a child. That is just absolutely disgusting. Some sensitivity would be welcome. I understand your view but really that is inconsiderate. You could have stuck with the first sentence and left it at that. You don’t need to disrespect such a view where we as a people are going through a very important matter. And I as a protester do not appreciate this sort of tone, given the efforts we go through every day for the past months. I am from Hong Kong, I am a dual citizen but I am involved right now.
Frankly you don’t grasp the level of difficulty we’d have to go through just trying to make these sort of statements and posts online given where we live, so he took the opportunity where it presented itself plain and simple. Its not something done on a childish or naive whim.
If peaceful protests were a thing with China we wouldn’t have to frickin live with the triads beating people up, or tear gas being thrown at us or being hosed down. So pardon me but I am pissed by this statement.
China forces every company to either bend to their will or be banned from their big and rich country.
If you think it’s realistic and a “good” choice to ignore China for “morality” (which probably leads to innocent ppl being fired), and Blizz should’ve been doing that, and since they didn’t, you can no longer support them, support only those companies, who wouldn’t do the same (which are probably the ppl who would man up after the news like these, to prove a point). Good luck finding them.
I’m not saying Blizz listens to China because they care for their employees that much, a multi company can’t be that sentimental sadly, but being angry for Blizz for doing this is like being angry for a father who did something not good for their kids’ safety.
Plus as others said, they might done the same if the opposite side would be voiced out like that. After all, this is a video game and should stay to videogame topics.
I don’t think its stupid for you to protest this but remember all the other bad things company’s have done to make money. Google literally has programs so that in s arabia men can track their wives movements, chickfila supported gay conversion, and any company you buy gas has probably supported an autocratic regime somewhere or damaged the environment through oil spills. This doesn’t justify blizzards actions but if you’re distancing yourself maybe dont just do it to the one company who got media coverage
Blizz is not the badguy here, and blaming them for bending to China’s pressure or just forcing ppl to keep politics away from their games and official tournaments is dumb imo, that’s all.
Sure it is, to all the people that actually try to deal with the issue in realistic way rather that writing <3 France with crayons on the sidewalk.
What next, make him a hero because he said something on a stream that <0.00001% of world population cares about?
That’s not what I said.
I didn’t say that Blizz supports China.
So I’m not the one who missed the point.
I just said, that those [big companies] who do nothing are similar, as Blizz, who btw tried to act neutral (even if you don’t consider that as a neutral approach, it’s pretty neutral company-wise).
I don’t believe we’re calling him a hero but he saluted for actually having the guts to take the plunge in a platform where he can? Even with the potential consequences. I don’t believe that is anything childish. It was more effective than you’re giving credit for, so like it or not the decision has stirred controversy and in turn attention to the action much more than simple tweets or posts.
Whether or not less than a % of the world cares the fact is I as a fellow Hong Kong care and frankly given how its blowing up I wouldn’t say it didn’t reach his intended audience, it is on our news here in Hong Kong so the audience has grown more than just his streamers or Hearthstone fans. And I don’t appreciate seeing it disrespected like that.
How is this lazy when the guy knew he would be in for consequences but did so nonetheless? Moreover, how is it lazy when if anything it turned out to be more effective because of the controversy? If anything I salute him for such a well timed approach that literally just brought his message across to a much broader audience. He took the fall, which is why he’s not actually complaining about the choice, because it at least did something for our ongoing protest. And I would say that is much more calculated than you’re giving credit, especially given the situation of censorship going around.
That said, I will say this I think you misunderstand where that statement really applies. Because from where I stand multi-national businesses empowering China the way it does over the years leading to situations like this is where good intentions lead to hell.
On a personal level I probably will get in trouble for voicing these things out, although I have refrained from doing so in the past. But to me this matter hits home literally and I’m not going to stand by and have people just malign his actions when in reality its produced a better effect than you think and has only highlighted the issues of multinationals and China.
