Blizzard bans pro hearthstone player for supporting Hong Kong protests

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, Trik'Stari said:

There is no legitimate defense of this action that blizzard has taken. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves for this.

I think the arguments I have presented are pretty legitimate.

My stance is that I don't believe Blizzard has picked a side on this, other than the side that "you can't use a hearthstone tournament to spread your political agendas".

I think it's pretty reasonable to have rules which puts the focus on the card game tournament rather than political messages.

 

Likewise, if I call in to some live radio quiz show and starts randomly talking about how bad Palestine is, or how much horrible things Israel has done, I fully expect to be cut off and my call disconnected. Does that mean the radio station has "picked a side" too when they cut me off? No of course not. It just means they felt like it was irrelevant to the program and lowered the quality, so they removed it.

[SaviorSix]

19 minutes ago, LeSheen said:

This was met with a huge amount of backlash forcing them to close the "marketplace" and rework how drops work...

The always online became a necessary evil with the introduction of season, leader-boards and rewards. I would also prefer the option to play offline... but this would make most of these features impossible. And lets be honest not many people play diablo for the story. They (me included) play with friends or for the leaderboards.

It was met with backlash, sure, but it took them years to get rid of the auction house. Everyone who "Boycott" the game, bought it anyway. I was probably one of the only people to actually not buy it until after the auction house closed. I feel bad it wasn't sooner, because the only other person I know who refused to buy it because of it was the late Totalbiscuit.

People can be vocal about their displeasure with something, but still put up with it because their love of the game is greater than their moral compass or self control. Sure, people who complain that Blizzard banned this player are vocal, but most of the people complaining don't play a Blizzard product in the first place, and those who do probably will still play them. 

[LeSheen]

3 minutes ago, SaviorSix said:

It was met with backlash, sure, but it took them years to get rid of the auction house. Everyone who "Boycott" the game, bought it anyway. I was probably one of the only people to actually not buy it until after the auction house closed. I feel bad it wasn't sooner, because the only other person I know who refused to buy it because of it was the late Totalbiscuit.

People can be vocal about their displeasure with something, but still put up with it because their love of the game is greater than their moral compass or self control. Sure, people who complain that Blizzard banned this player are vocal, but most of the people complaining don't play a Blizzard product in the first place, and those who do probably will still play them. 

That's where you are assuming (wrong). I remember I bought it years later for 5 euro on a holiday. I did buy the dlc, because in my opinion blizzard was delivering after all these years the game that we initially wanted. I waited just as long for the same reason as you.

[Ezzy-525]

Whilst I agree @OP's KKK comparison was a little hamfisted.

 

Let's take this issue out of 2019 and put it into a little quasi-historical context.

 

The year is 1939, and Blizzard (a US Company) has a tabletop card game called Hearthstone which many people from around the world play and compete for. During one competition, a Polish player makes a statement about the Nazi oppression of his homeland and voices anti-Nazi sentiment and a wish for his homeland to be free from them.

 

Blizzard subsequently bans the Polish player and withholds his winnings.

 

All of you who say that Blizzard has the right to ban (which I agree they do), do you also consider it "right"?

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Ezzy-525 said:

Whilst I agree @OP's KKK comparison was a little hamfisted.

 

Let's take this issue out of 2019 and put it into a little quasi-historical context.

 

The year is 1943, and Blizzard (a US Company) has a tabletop card game called Hearthstone which many people from around the world play and compete for. During one competition, a Polish player makes a statement about the Nazi oppression of his homeland and voices anti-Nazi sentiment and a wish for his homeland to be free from them.

 

Blizzard subsequently bans the Polish player and withholds his winnings.

 

All of you who say that Blizzard has the right to ban (which I agree they do), do you also consider it "right"?

Some more info from the BBC here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49985747

[Thordude]

35 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think the arguments I have presented are pretty legitimate.

My stance is that I don't believe Blizzard has picked a side on this, other than the side that "you can't use a hearthstone tournament to spread your political agendas".

I think it's pretty reasonable to have rules which puts the focus on the card game tournament rather than political messages.

 

Likewise, if I call in to some live radio quiz show and starts randomly talking about how bad Palestine is, or how much horrible things Israel has done, I fully expect to be cut off and my call disconnected. Does that mean the radio station has "picked a side" too when they cut me off? No of course not. It just means they felt like it was irrelevant to the program and lowered the quality, so they removed it.

No matter how you bring it, It doesn't sound right!! 

[RejZoR]

@Lathlaer

After BS I had with Overwatch I was already on negative side and now it's pretty much unlikely I'll ever buy anything from Blizzard ever again. And I see bunch of people going as far as deleting their accounts. I'm not gonna do that coz I paid for existing games, but I sure as hell won't be buying any.

[Lathlaer]

1 minute ago, RejZoR said:

After BS I had with Overwatch I was already on negative side and now it's pretty much unlikely I'll ever buy anything from Blizzard ever again. And I see bunch of people going as far as deleting their accounts. I'm not gonna do that coz I paid for existing games, but I sure as hell won't be buying any.

And I applaud you for that, for voting with your wallet but again - in Blizzards minds, they will take a somewhat mild hit from the West customers vs. a sure 100% ban from the East esp. since East is possibly giving them more revenue. The Chinese party doesn't play around whereas we, in the west, like to cultivate the freedom of speech and therefore will not ban a company just because someone said something.

 

If I recall correctly, China's market for games and movies is so big that it can basically make or break a production. The Warcraft movie is a good example, the Chinese premiere saved it from being a huge flop. 

[LogicalDrm]

*** Thread cleaned ***

 

This can continue, if you can come up with new arguments and keep it on topic. Going around with same arguments leads nowhere.

 

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Since this thread isn't locked yet and it is by your own admission "all political", does that mean political discussion is now allowed on the forum?

You know very well that moderating and drawing line in these isn't easy. The Adobe thread is more about tech than this. Mainly as there's actually tech issue behind it. This is more general with OP having very pushy opinion about it.

 

It can stay open, for now.

[Dissitesuxba11s]

Update: Looks like Blizzard is giving back the winner's prize money and reducing his suspension.

 

Source:

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23185888/regarding-last-weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

[Sky Spark]

May I remind you that Blizzard did nothing to an American player when he held up a sign that said "support HK, boycott blizzard". They cut the stream but did nothing else. If blizzard didn't take sides why didn't they ban him as well? Also, even if he was in violation, a year or 6 months is overkill, and they could have just pulled him aside gave him a warning instead of dropping the ban hammer so quickly.

[spartaman64]

can my post be moved back to tech news now that its been covered on the wan show  @SansVarnic

[Taf the Ghost]

1 hour ago, Celli said:

May I remind you that Blizzard did nothing to an American player when he held up a sign that said "support HK, boycott blizzard". They cut the stream but did nothing else. If blizzard didn't take sides why didn't they ban him as well? Also, even if he was in violation, a year or 6 months is overkill, and they could have just pulled him aside gave him a warning instead of dropping the ban hammer so quickly.

Because China clearly has no influence on Blizzard.

 

Also, 6 month suspensions for the shoutcasters that had the terrible luck of being there.

[SolarNova]

I love the irony of Blizzard bending the knee to a communist government in order for them to continue making capitalist gains.

 

I'm very much looking forward to the inevitable sh*t storm that will happen at Blizzcon. We thought last year was bad with that terrible 'Diablo like' game, that shall not be named, being announced, this year is likely to be even worse with all this crap goign on.

 

Blizz needs to change it names and logo. Its really not Blizzard anymore ...duh obviously, its just dragging the name and legacy through the mud.

[LogicalDrm]

On 10/12/2019 at 8:03 AM, spartaman64 said:

can my post be moved back to tech news now that its been covered on the wan show  @SansVarnic

No. And lock might be coming soon. Depends how people here decide to act.

[Weedflu]

Kinda ironic that blizzard care about people's feelings now, and they been feeding us bullshit content since The lich king even Cata i would say. And year after year they see us not happy with the outcome, yet they keep feeding us with these fucking cosmetics in their shop n shit, i don't want a fucking flapping mini bird following me around during war and I clearly don't wanna run around with LGBT colored mounts.

[TheDankKoosh]

Those that take the blizzard side in this must love the state of modern corporation political disinformation campaigns, in their decision they have proven themselves to be against those people that have risen to challenge the current regime since companies like this only serve to make profits (not to mention that China only constitutes 12% of their profits). Large companies such as blizzard are always willing to bend the rules to the obedient, but as soon as someone steps into any territory that could even make a slight scratch to their profits, they are immediately silenced. I'm just glad blizzard has decided to oust themselves in this, and with that I can almost guarantee that their profits will be down a significant margin just from seeing the well deserved backlash that they are receiving.

[Ed Edd and Eddy]

I heard they reversed some of the punishment but there’s shouldn’t have been any in the first place.

[Master Delta Chief]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What I do know however, is that I do not want eSport livestreams to be targeted by a bunch of political campaigns. I say ban anyone who tries to push any political message during tournaments. No matter if it's pro China, pro HK, pro Israel, pro Palestine, pro feminism, whatever.

I kind of think the same that people shouldn't mix politics with gaming, especially in tournements. However, on occasions I believe a statement/message can be sent on that platform as long as it isn't something extreme. But banning for this kind of message seems rather excessive. 

[LAwLz]

Quote

Are we doing this again? Are we doing the whole thing where people don't understand the difference between "free speech" and the ability to say anything you want anywhere you want?

At the Hearthstone grand tournament you are not entitled to free speech.

 

If you make a political statement there and then just go "I am allowed to say this", then you will be removed and banned. You have no rights. Because Blizzard is trying to keep their platform on-topic. Speaking of things Blizzard wants to keep away form their tournaments, politics. If a player, even if they start out discussing the game, if your speech devolves into political mudslinging, they remove you.

Why? Because as a business, Blizzard is about games. If people want to discuss Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton, or whatever, there are a thousand other places, probably tens of thousands of places online where they can go do that.

 

 

Quote from the latest WAN show but I replaced "Forum" with "Blizzard" or similar.

I agree with Linus. If you want to discuss politics there are a thousand of places to do so.

 

Blizzard are doing the right thing when they decided to ban politics (not just anti-China politics) at their tournaments. I am fairly sure that if a player had started saying a bunch of anti-Taiwan things then they would have been banned too.

[Spotty]

- Thread Locked -
While the majority of discussion has been on-topic and constructive, there have been a growing number of posts going too far off track in to political debates, and the latest few [now deleted] posts have been heading in that direction.

There have been some good points brought up in the thread from both sides and I think everyone has said what needed to be said here. I don't think there's any benefit going around in circles bringing up the same points again.

To all those who stayed on topic; you're breathtaking!