Imagine my surprise as a queer person, who was excited to finally be able to express myself in a game I love, to find out Blizzard decided to geo-block my location from this event. To say the least, I am angry, disappointed and heartbroken. Why is it that other game companies allow all their players to celebrate pride, and Blizzard decides that a significant portion of the playerbase just simply doesn’t deserve it?
That being said, this is the last straw for me. This is Blizzard actively silencing queer voices, essentially telling us that we are not allowed to celebrate pride. I cannot support a game who treats their LGBTQ+ playerbase like this. And I am also shocked that other queer people, living in privileged countries (apparently), are being so silent about this when they too should be furious. This whole event is a joke.
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For real. I also just found out about this and I am fuming. I’m telling everyone I know.
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Yeah Blizzard should just break the law in multiple countries and risk getting the game banned/massive fines…Definitely makes sense.
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Except many of the blocked countries have no such laws and other game companies had NO ISSUES with releasing pride content, such as League of Legends.
Stop being apologetic to bigotry.
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Bro, they banned the pride event in PRO. LGBT COUNTRIES you know countries that SUPPORT lgbt by law. They’re apparently limiting the event to countries that are placed near Russia JUST BECAUSE
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Maybe you should be clearer instead of saying things that lead people to believe you’re discussing countries with laws banning it.
They made some mistakes. Stop being so dramatic.
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You DO know that’s not how that works, nor is that what matters right?
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The “priviledged” part of my comment was obvious sarcasm, as in countries that Blizzard deems as worthy to celebrate pride. I come from a European country, that is in the EU and has extensive laws protecting the rights of LGBT people. Yet the content is still blocked here. Do you see any logic in this? Because I for sure don’t.
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Even reading back now it’s not obvious.
They clearly made mistakes and/or assumed laws in some regions instead of checking. They’re not out to get your specific country.
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I dunno. I wouldn’t consider a lot of things that Blizzard has done as “just a mistake”.
A mistake is going to the store and forgetting to buy milk.
Don’t apologise for a company whos only been getting greedier and losing braincells as time goes by.
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Blizzard haven’t blocked it from countries such as Poland for a laugh. This entire event is nothing but pr so it defeats the point and is damaging to making more money.
They made mistakes and they’ll likely be fixed. Being overdramatic about it really just makes the complaints difficult to take seriously.
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Oh that comment wasn’t just about Pride.
But, yes, that is part of it.
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Blizzard is actively silencing queer voices…? I mean they usually just mistreat women but I don’t think they’re “silencing” anyone.
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Here’s a news flash. Blizzard doesn’t care about you, or me, or anyone else besides themselves. And by “themselves” I mean the executives at Blizzard. They barred this event not for “protection” but for fear of the game being banned or restricted in certain regions of the globe. They don’t care about pride, only about their potential profit loss and how they can prevent it while still looking like a progressive company to the west.
As if the game weren’t gay enough to begin with even without the addition of several little rainbow striped squares?
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Not literally, no, but actively going out of their way to sneakily not offer the queer customization to a few select eastern european countries certainly paints that idea.
“Make the wester rich gays happy so they keep giving us money, but we might lose money if the gays have a presence in eastern europe, where being queer is frowned upon, what if they ban our game??? :((”
Which really has the effect of silencing us, in the grand scheme of things.
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perhaps they just dont like actiblizzard
and i dont blame them
That would make my country blocked too, but it is not. But who knows, what they think they are doing…
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I agree with this, frankly. it puts Blizzard in the position of not really agreeing on raising awareness of the topic. I remember that in LoL pride for Turkey and Russia they were officially declared as “spring colors” to get around the problem of anti-lgbtq laws.
the fact that blizzard may fear quarrels within its community in those countries says a lot about its reporting and monitoring policy.
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I am pretty sure League does not have a pride event in China and other such countries.
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