opinion blizzard boycott

[tsmspace]

well, just in brief ( I don't know the whole story but heard it twice) , 

 

Basically, you can't blame blizzard for really wanting to be non-partisan. They are heavily entrenched in a region that is officially potentially volatile, there could really be war that kills a LOT of their players. Sure, we like our stability, and we like to think that war happens slowly and not suddenly, but China is a HUGE COUNTRY, and when that many people have needs to be met, some little couple of battles or aggression will be a small loss compared to most of china suffering economically. This means that yes, China will execute people, in fact, they're doing it a lot, and it could seriously mean that people go on public broadcast for starcraft games, and then are executed so we all hear about it.,,,, Fine, execution is a little extreme, but prison for months, or financial ruin from never being hired again,,, everywhere in between,, they won't want any of it. They want you to go, be excited about the gameplay, contribute to the gameplay, have no political opinion about anyone there, and then go home to prepare for more gameplay. They don't want to become a political arena, where players are questioned about their politics, and then harassed publicly or harmed later because of their statements. There are a lot of things between foul comments in chatrooms and public execution that nobody wants to hear about.,,,, but with HongKong protestors, the WHOLE PROBLEM is that people might find themselves imprisoned or executed, or killed by extremists, and although videos show people who look actually very humble and tame,,, humbly fired bullets still put holes in people, and humble-tame people still pull the trigger just the same. that's exactly what people are doing there, is looking like they wouldn't hurt a fly, then going full gangster and quietly giving the problem. 

[dizmo]

I'm not entirely sure what I'm (trying) to read.

[kirashi]

25 minutes ago, tsmspace said:

--SNIP--

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

I'm not entirely sure what I'm (trying) to read.

It appears to be a wall of text. Hold on, I've got just the thing.

 

In all seriousness, I really don't care about politics, nor what a company or politician has to say, as they're all bad.

[minibois]

TL;DR: yea.. China bad.. but MONEY!! So Hong Kong citizens will get killed.. BUT THINK OF THE $$$$!!!

 

OP, your opinion is bad in my opinion.

 

Kind of a shame for your argument though that ActiBlizz just activated the UNO reverse card and gave the player his earned money, reinstated him into the competitive play.. etc.

[Arika]

35 minutes ago, dizmo said:

I'm not entirely sure what I'm (trying) to read.

 

---

 

i'm going to answer purely based on the titled alone.

 

I see it was people jumping on the bandwagon. after a few weeks they will go back to playing their games. those that are actually deleting their accounts will still continue to use products made in China, support companies that are also partly owned by China, i understand the sentiment, but unless they stop doing anything to "support" China then it's nothing more than temporary virtue signalling if they do actually care about the situation between HK and China.

 

That's the problem with, for lack of a better description, "Outrage Culture", people have developed short term memory due to the overwhelming amount of controversies that popup over and over that it's just not sustainable. There is so much going on that needs to be addressed so people will linger on something for a week or two, maybe a month until the next thing comes along to be upset about. well that scandal is over because we have this next one right in front of us to direct all our attention to.

 

It's part of human nature these days that people want to be angry about something, they want to look at other peoples failures because they want some sort of escape and feel like they need to be part of something, and i absolutely blame that on social media and the entire policital climate in America that has now filtered across the rest of the world. You basically have 2 groups of people constantly at each other's throats and it's just been building up over the last few years, or how ever long you want to attribute it to, and it's hit a ceiling that if it breaks through will spell the end of common society. So any situation that can relieve that pressure, even if it is for a few weeks, people will jump on it.

 

 

 

[Guest]

I think you should take a look at the news, rather than relying on misinformation and rumours.

[lewdicrous]

A lot of the people who boycott a company end up buying their things or forgetting about what happened when the dust settles, Blizzard is no exception.

Large corporations don't care about how you feel, you're not going to affect their bottom line.

[dizmo]

18 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

A lot of the people who boycott a company end up buying their things or forgetting about what happened when the dust settles, Blizzard is no exception.

Large corporations don't care about how you feel, you're not going to affect their bottom line.

The only problem with Blizzard is they make so few products that it's easy for people to remember, or to hold a grudge.

It's not like another studio that can put out a game and people might not know it's made by them without a little digging. Blizzard has a very set market.

[lewdicrous]

Just now, dizmo said:

The only problem with Blizzard is they make so few products that it's easy for people to remember, or to hold a grudge.

Here's the thing, the most avid Blizzard fans will eventually go back to playing their games.

I've been reading what some people have been saying about this whole thing, and a number of people already went back to playing games like WoW, at least that's the few that I saw/read.

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

It's not like another studio that can put out a game and people might not know it's made by them without a little digging. Blizzard has a very set market.

As long as Activision owns them, I don't think they'll be affected all that much, if at all.

 

The only way I see them getting negatively affected is if they get hit with a class action lawsuit or if it impacts Activision, the papa company.

[tsmspace]

26 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

A lot of the people who boycott a company end up buying their things or forgetting about what happened when the dust settles, Blizzard is no exception.

Large corporations don't care about how you feel, you're not going to affect their bottom line.

well, blizzard is also running a huge server that hosts competitive e-sports,, so their ban is like the nfl kicking someone out, not like someone deciding not to buy things at walmart. 

this isn't about large corporations caring how people feel either,, what's happening is that the player made politically charged statements during a tournament that blizzard was hosting, and because blizzard is a big deal in south-east asian countries with heavy economic ties to china, but deep political divisions, blizzard wanted to show that it did not support political activism during blizzard events. 

The reason blizzard re-instated the prize and reduced the term of the ban, was because so many people DID have their followup actions, that now it was clear that blizzard was safe to relax the ban in order to maintain their audience. but if it weren't for everyone's "backlash", the sentence would have stayed as it was. 

[tsmspace]

3 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

The only way I see them getting negatively affected is if they get hit with a class action lawsuit or if it impacts Activision, the papa company.

well,,, they could face action from China directly. They could see restrictions on their tournaments that prevent chinese players from playing, or otherwise see negative repercussions from china, like fines or just their reputation when other social actions take place. 

[Pixel5]

2 hours ago, tsmspace said:

Basically, you can't blame blizzard for really wanting to be non-partisan. 

the thing is blizzard is not trying to be non-partisan, they are literally telling us that every voice matters and they care while also tweeting in chinese that they will do everything to protect main land chinas pride which are two things that dont go together you are either one or the other or you keep your mouth shut entirely and just let things happen 

[lewdicrous]

Just now, tsmspace said:

well,,, they could face action from China directly. They could see restrictions on their tournaments that prevent chinese players from playing, or otherwise see negative repercussions from china, like fines or just their reputation when other social actions take place. 

Maybe, but I was thinking about this in terms of every country outside of China.

[tsmspace]

15 minutes ago, dizmo said:

The only problem with Blizzard is they make so few products that it's easy for people to remember, or to hold a grudge.

It's not like another studio that can put out a game and people might not know it's made by them without a little digging. Blizzard has a very set market.

blizzard doesn't have THAT MANY titles, but they cover a pretty good range of game types, and they DO have a very well-made tournament hosting situation. They are definately holding some of the major e-sports titles under their banner. NFL players only play one game the whole time. Starcraft2 players are often the same way,,, they don't play every game there is (except like, sometimes a little bit, they buy all the different games,, but they don't compete at any notable level),,,, but starcraft2 is a great example, there are a LOT of people that have played it, and a lot of people that ONLY play starcraft2 for that game-type. (like me)

[Bramimond]

58 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

A lot of the people who boycott a company end up buying their things or forgetting about what happened when the dust settles, Blizzard is no exception.

Large corporations don't care about how you feel, you're not going to affect their bottom line.

Both true, but it won't stop me from being principled about my Nintendo boycott I started some 20 years ago.

[lewdicrous]

1 minute ago, Bramimond said:

Both true, but it won't stop me from being principled about my Nintendo boycott I started some 20 years ago.

I'm not trying to stop anyone from boycotting a company, I just want some people to realize that it might not necessarily work the way they think it will.

However, doing so for personal reasons is fine. For example, I personally boycott EGS because I don't agree with what they do, but I know that me not playing/buying their stuff will never harm them or their bottom line.

I personally know people who boycotted different kinds of companies, but then went back to using and buying their stuff, boycotting something just cause other people are doing so is dumb and just shows how herd mentality is doing its thing; a lot of people are relying on others to think for them instead of thinking for themselves.

 

Basically, don't treat boycotts as a weapon cause they never work that way when targeted towards large companies/corporations.

[RejZoR]

Basically, if you're big enough, everyone have to bow down to you coz money...

[Bramimond]

@lewdicrous

I agree mostly with what you said, but you shouldn't underestimate the herd mentality here, since that's pretty much the only way to have a boycott be successful. Doesn't even matter that people forget about it soon. The risk of this spreading around in this day and age is too big to not take seriously as a company. Especially when cancelling a subscription is involved, which will be hard for the people that have cancelled because of a boycott to pick up again in the future, since people like to be consistent and commit to their decisions.

[lewdicrous]

1 minute ago, Bramimond said:

you shouldn't underestimate the herd mentality here, since that's pretty much the only way to have a boycott be successful.

Following something just cause other people are doing so (without fully understanding the reasoning behind it, just surface level info) doesn't really show competence imo, if the people who follow them understand what they're getting into, then yea, it might be successful in the short term, but when people just go along cause someone they know is doing the same, then I believe that it has a larger chance of failing or being forgotten.

5 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

Especially when cancelling a subscription is involved, which will be hard for the people that have cancelled because of a boycott to pick up again in the future

I've mentioned this in an earlier post, but from the few posts that I've read online, some people who cancelled their subscriptions went back to said games after a short amount of time. Of course, the sample size is minute compared to the bigger picture and a lot of people don't really voice their stance on matters like these, either way, there is a non zero chance that some people will stick with the boycott, but there's also a non zero chance the others will not and I understand that.

 

 

Final thoughts on boycotting in general:

Boycott a company if you don't agree with them, but don't feel bad if you end up going back to their stuff; leaving a game can be hard for some people, but leaving something that you've put a lot of time and money into can be harder for others and I 100% understand, another reason why i said "don't treat boycotts as a weapon". At least that's my 2 cents on the matter.

[spartaman64]

well im deleting my account so i cant go back even if i want to. i guess i could make a new account but it wont have the games i bought so why would i

[Nichox86]

Am I missing something? They sensibly banned a guy that was touting political views for one side of the argument on their platform which goes against their policy. I think what Blizzard did was just and I don't see them supporting either side of a political debate that they have no interest in being part of.

The Western world is fed a lot of propaganda about the east and many of the comments in the original post are speculation based on this propaganda. If Blizzard were to allow people to keep expressing extreme political views on their services then there would be no more Blizzard.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Off Topic

 

Remember to keep this clean, and it will be left open. ANY DISCUSSION ABOUT PURE POLITICS ISN'T ALLOWED AND THOSE POSTS WILL BE REMOVED! Eventually this will also get locked if you can't keep pure politics out of the thread.

 

At the moment the core of discussion is fine, for off topic. I will keep my eyes on you, remember that.

[Praesi]

I dont like Blizzard, their behaviour is (hopefully) just another nail in their coffin. 

 

@OP:

This Textwall is hard to read.

[SaviorSix]

This isn't going to affect Blizzard. Like I've said many times, it doesn't matter what a company does, juch which company does it. Blizzard introduced an auction house and made Diablo 3 always online. People "Boycott" it, but it was still one of their most popular selling titles. When EA introduced a store in Battlefront 2, they were crucified. Same thing with Simcity and always online. Although they've apologize, they've shown their true colors and I can't trust them anymore. It was such a knee-jerk reaction, it's clear whose boots they're licking.

[williamcll]

As a local in Hong Kong this very moment , I am highly annoyed how foreign media twists local news into their advantage when they themselves are knee deep in "fake news" drama . While I have rarely played Blizzard games (owned the three games chest and no more) I can see why users are outraged at their actions, however their methods of boycott (at least on reddit) has been the most stupidest thing ever since the EA boycotts which to be honest had a stronger effect. Politics won't kill game companies, bad games do.

 

I can predict a lot of people will hate me for my statements especially other HongKongers, but you know I am right. I have been silent for months while people similar to my age wreck havoc on the streets and beating up people who don't align with their viewpoints for the sake of a false democracy.