Not Jaina’s cleavage?!! Egad!
Could also just be heresay ;/ Any disgruntled employee will make a mark on a company if they don’t like em lol
[warning: this is gonna be a long one! will try to bring relief with paragraphs]
Aye,disagree in the latest topic you’re either a troll,Blizz-bot,white knight and every other derogatory buzzword for people who don’t join the echo chamber of the week. As I see it given a few employees are protesting too,it’s given the company as a whole aren’t these malicious mustache twirling villains kneeling before a Chinese warlord on a throne with his face shadowed out smirking [what a lot of the more outraged group seem to perceive them to be]. They were thinking from a business perspective and given shareholders are a priority with ANY business,they cooperate with the rules going on with those they do business with. Does it suck the player got a year ban? As I’ve said before yes,but when you sign a contract,violate a rule in that contract,the people you sign an agreement for no matter the company or country,they’re not going to let that violation fly and in this case,a rule against political statements were in that signed agreement. To reiterate,I don’t agree with the rules but it unfortunately was one and he knew this.
Hells,it’s not too different here in the US where you can still get fired for Facebook and Twitter posts that can be perceived as a liability to the place of work, Developers from any game company or commissioned voice actor can be fired or kicked off a project if the violate a signed N.D.A [Non Disclosure Agreement] or in some states fired for any given reason which sucks,but not much can really be done given corporations are considered people under the Citizens United Act from the 1970’s. If Blizz knew this was going to be more trouble than what it’s worth rather than be a profit turning tournament,they would have most likely not had the tournament happen but it did happen and given companies are obligated to their shareholders first and foremost,they’re hands were tied so to speak. It’s not bowing to an evil regime,it was more making a business decision with no idea it would spark outrage amongst people including politicians and shudder game journalists [I shudder since most game articles are them crapping on the industry as a whole rather than uplifting the positive points of it,Looking at you Polygon…]
Do I condone the decision? Not really but on the other hand I kinda understand Blizzard were in a no win situation,no matter what path they chose it would spark anger and collective gnashing of teeth. “They should have chosen team 'Murica not team commie,patriotism 4 life!!!111 !!!” Some may say but in the business world especially where economies ranged from steady to volatile, it isn’t as easy as it looks/an easy thing to do. You have to make decisions on what’s best for business rather than business based on feelings as feelings don’t keep the lights on,pay your workers,or put food in your pantry. It sucks but logic always takes precedence over feelings in the figurative dog eat dog corporate world.
On one hand,I can see some points of view and would like to see Blizzard make it right,on the other I’d also not like to see the company die due to an angry mob’s feelings robbing many talented artists and developers from a job due to what ended up being a bad and at most out of touch decision from higher ups. Again,I don’t think Blizzard as these “evil commie bastards” at most,just out of touch suits when it comes to the non game developing end.
I know this too well. I’ve known over the six years at my job of at least five people fired over posting something on FB that either damaged the company image or provided the company with an image of unsafe behavior, to leave it vague.
Social media has no filter and everyone is posting instantaneously. I remember when sending emails in the mid 90s required some thought and even then I felt as if I needed to rethink what I wrote like in the days of snail mail.
All I am saying is that, there are so many places to have a voice, and the audience is larger; i.e, it can take on a “life” of its own and become viral. Free speech is in a difficult place in a global environment.
Blizzard made a hard decision and one with consequences we may never know, internal or not.
This topic probably will get 404ed soon. I’ll just add it to my list of deleted topics because revisionist history is the new norm.
Hence for context sake,I was agreeing with you. 
What freedom of speech? he was there to play a game, then talk about the game. He political views should have NEVER been spoken in there venue. Time and place for anything. You free speech morons need to stop following blindly. I wish blizz would start banning you clowns.
Looks like Blizzard will be hiring soon. Also rip their social score.
I’m going to have to be cynical because I know exactly how media does this. You have 5 people out of the thousands that work at Blizz “walk out” …during their lunch break. They post about it online somewhere to get good boy/girl points online and a media outlet picks it up and writes about it in broad terms that would lead the reader to believe that practically all of Blizz’ employees are striking right now. Meanwhile, most people at Blizz and Blizz management never even noticed and only know about it from some online media story.
Overwatch put a filter in so you couldnt say “Xi” “pooh” in the same post back when a winnie the pooh meme was going around in China.
Imagine bowing down to a government that is literally ethnic and religious cleansing its population and then harvesting their organs.
You are stupid if you think anti chinese totalitarianism is talking “politics”.
Political discussion is within the realm of western democracy. Get real.
Be as cynical as you want. It got the attention they planned on. It got covered by major news sites and was trending.
You’re just another one of those “lol not like it’s going to do anything” type of people. When the reality is, people like you have been completely wrong. This ‘faux outrage’ as some white knights have been calling it, has caused A LOT of bad press worldwide, has had an announcer drop out of Blizzcon, and some employees had a walk out.
If people were as cynical as you, this wouldn’t have even been known
No. I know how these things go. A lot of the outlandish media stories that get people riled up are just manufactured by the writers. They could make a few tweets themselves about a response to some event and then write a story for one of these trash sites like Buzzfeed and say “People outraged by such and such.” Technically the truth, because 2 people are “people” but it’s not at all a stance to have. Whenever I read these kinds of headlines, if not accompanied by photos and video showing an actual happening, I dismiss it. It looks childish otherwise because I know how they “manufacture consensus” by using media to paint things as much larger than they are. Just like online vocal minorities can pack an outsized punch. But when the rubber meets the road, it tends to be an extremely small group.
Also, it doesn’t matter what small tokens of protest will happen. Blizz is posed to benefit from this in China. We don’t matter as much as China does because our market is not growing as fast as theirs. You don’t have to like it, but that’s reality.
So you are saying it has helped the prosters in Hong Kong? The whole point of this should be to shine a light on what is happening in Hong Kong. Looks to me that the focus is more about getting Blizzard to apologize and make restitution. Less about getting correct information out about the Hong Kong protest and ways to get aid or show support for Hong Kong residents.
There’s a sticky at the top of the forum (think it might actually be at the top of all the forums, tbh) that explains the various forum trust levels and how to achieve them.
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You’re obviously twisting words. Most people understand the two go hand-in-hand in this situation. For Blizz specifically it’s that a lot of people want to hear them admit it.
Once again the ‘faux outrage’ as some on these forums call it, has brought tons of attention to the situation in HK. It’s nit just Blizz, but the NBA and now thanks to all the attention its getting, more and more companies are getting called out for their censorship even though they are western based companies.
Less censorship and more attention for HK. Seems like pretty much common sense to me.
Tbh if you don’t see that it’s wrong, you don’t want to.
It is not about being right or wrong. It just seems like more people care about getting Blizzard to admit wrong doing than focusing on Hong Kong. As for censorship this issue cuts both ways. If Blizzard allows for people to voice their political support for Hong Kong then by right they should allow for people to voice their political support for China in this matter as well.
Now in order to remain “neutral” you don’t allow for anyone to voice their support. If someone does you have to punish them accordingly as to be seen as remaining neutral on the issue. What people want is for Blizzard to take a stance and that stance would be in support of Hong Kong by apologizing. China would take Blizzard apologizing as siding with Hong Kong.
Treating a complex situation like this as less censorship/ more attention for Hong Kong is unfair and simple minded.
I’m thinking about unsubbing over it.
They call that a walk out? Looks like a smoke break at a call center.
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Plenty of companies make money and do so ethically.