Blizzard Employees Walk Out, Fans Rebel After Company Bows to China

Krenum said:
Heres the cold hard truth to the matter, Im sure the guy had sponsors and had to sign on a dotted line. Once he did that, Blizzard owned him. At that point they can do whatever they see fit to do. Same with any other sports athlete. Don't play the game if you don't want to play by the rules.
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This seems to be the main point everyone is missing. All these esports kids are owned by the companies who's league they are competing in and they usually sign contracts that forbid anything that can hurt the sponsors image. If making a political statement hurt blizzards image with the Chinese, then it's a violation of the contract and they were within their right to do what they did.

If people are truly upset about China, then boycott Chinese products.
 
this is not an issue of discussing how your actions directly or indirectly benefit china.

This is about discussing how you're supporting (or not) local companies that are voluntarily adhering to the wishes of fascist countries.

They're not the same argument, not mutually exclusive and not even hypocritical to take a stance against the latter but still do things that benefit the former in some way.

People trying to equate them are missing the entire point. Changing china and resisting chinese influences outside of china are two very different things that only overlap some of the time. You're not a hypocrit for buying chinese goods from chinese companies while simultaneously not wanting non-chinese companies outside of china operating under chinese wishes and whims and laws.
 
5150Joker said:
This seems to be the main point everyone is missing. All these esports kids are owned by the companies who's league they are competing in and they usually sign contracts that forbid anything that can hurt the sponsors image. If making a political statement hurt blizzards image with the Chinese, then it's a violation of the contract and they were within their right to do what they did.

If people are truly upset about China, then boycott Chinese products.
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Ok... let me reiterate.

I get what you are saying. Blizzard did NOTHING illeagle in terminating that kids contract. I got it. I even presume to say that the collective WE get it.

While the action taken was not LEGALLY wrong it is MORALLY wrong to do.

everyone here understands that we don't want the medium to be a channel for anti x country messages. Heck... he could say his victories were for HK and as long as he demolished other Chinese players he's doing just fine. Blizzard could have even channeled this into that.

But what they did instead is MORALLY wrong. They protected their pocket book LEGALLY by coming down on the kid through LEGAL action.

Lets say you are a muilti Billion dollar a year company. (Blizzard Activision are.) Now lets say that you have a kid that is a part of your companies brand because they do competitions for you and are making some untold sum of money... but altogether FAR LESS than say 150 thousand a year. For your expenses to income this kid barely shows up as a blip on your financial radar. Now this same kid is being repressed... lets say he's in a city recently put under control of a communist government. Now bare with me here... this kid spouts off something and this communist government says.. "Get this kid gone or you can't do business with our 2 billion citizens that could equate to... lets say... doubling your financial worth." Now you're in a tuff spot because the kid said something you might or might not disagree with about this government but you still want access to the governments citizens. You could go back to your founding companies values and say. "I'm sorry China but we can not take any action against this employee other than to request they not make such statements on our broadcasts again. But we are not going to suspend or fire them." Or... you could say. "We are firing everyone involved period. Interviewers and kid included."

One of these actions could see the company cheered and one will see them derided.

BOTH ACTIONS ARE LEGAL.

One has a potential of financial growth throttling. ONE could accelerate financial growth through good will.

Where is the moral choice between TWO legal options.

This is what people are upset with. Those of us upset with Blizzard over this believe that they chose the lesser of two paths and it shows that the Chinese customer is worth more than the civil liberties of Blizzard's employees to Blizzard.
 
This feels slightly similar to the whole Colin Kaepernick situation the NFL dealt with.

I think Blizzard just did a terrible job managing this.

The kid probably did violate his contract and should face punishment. But it was a little severe.

I might be wrong. Still screw China.
 
Grimlaking said:
Ok... let me reiterate.

I get what you are saying. Blizzard did NOTHING illeagle in terminating that kids contract. I got it. I even presume to say that the collective WE get it.

While the action taken was not LEGALLY wrong it is MORALLY wrong to do.

everyone here understands that we don't want the medium to be a channel for anti x country messages. Heck... he could say his victories were for HK and as long as he demolished other Chinese players he's doing just fine. Blizzard could have even channeled this into that.

But what they did instead is MORALLY wrong. They protected their pocket book LEGALLY by coming down on the kid through LEGAL action.

Lets say you are a muilti Billion dollar a year company. (Blizzard Activision are.) Now lets say that you have a kid that is a part of your companies brand because they do competitions for you and are making some untold sum of money... but altogether FAR LESS than say 150 thousand a year. For your expenses to income this kid barely shows up as a blip on your financial radar. Now this same kid is being repressed... lets say he's in a city recently put under control of a communist government. Now bare with me here... this kid spouts off something and this communist government says.. "Get this kid gone or you can't do business with our 2 billion citizens that could equate to... lets say... doubling your financial worth." Now you're in a tuff spot because the kid said something you might or might not disagree with about this government but you still want access to the governments citizens. You could go back to your founding companies values and say. "I'm sorry China but we can not take any action against this employee other than to request they not make such statements on our broadcasts again. But we are not going to suspend or fire them." Or... you could say. "We are firing everyone involved period. Interviewers and kid included."

One of these actions could see the company cheered and one will see them derided.

BOTH ACTIONS ARE LEGAL.

One has a potential of financial growth throttling. ONE could accelerate financial growth through good will.

Where is the moral choice between TWO legal options.

This is what people are upset with. Those of us upset with Blizzard over this believe that they chose the lesser of two paths and it shows that the Chinese customer is worth more than the civil liberties of Blizzard's employees to Blizzard.
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Corporations are duty bound to make money, not be moral gatekeepers. That's where you and many people seem off the mark about this entire issue. If you want change, then bring it yourselves by not doing business with China. If I were the CEO of Blizzard and my company was making a huge amount of money in China but in exchange I had to agree to make sure anti-CCP messages didn't come from my venues/esports players, then I'd abide by those rules. There are a lot of things to be morally upset about, this isn't one of them.
 
Darth Ender said:
You're not a hypocrit for buying chinese goods from chinese companies while simultaneously not wanting non-chinese companies outside of china operating under chinese wishes and whims and laws.
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Why because you say so? You absolutely are a hypocrite for supporting Chinese companies (which are often state sponsored) while hypocritically chiding companies like Blizzard and acting as if you're on some moral pedestal. The fact you don't think so is pretty ironic in itself.
 
Grimlaking said:
Ok... let me reiterate.

I get what you are saying. Blizzard did NOTHING illeagle in terminating that kids contract. I got it. I even presume to say that the collective WE get it.

While the action taken was not LEGALLY wrong it is MORALLY wrong to do..
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this is all trial and judgement by society. Either chinese society or western society. either way they are screwed. absolutely screwed
 
"Breaking News".

Blizzard reduced his suspension and gave back his prize money. See, it was all just a test of wills. Next!
 
Krenum said:
"Breaking News".

Blizzard reduced his suspension and gave back his prize money. See, it was all just a test of wills. Next!
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Much like the original protests in Hong Kong this isn’t good enough.
Sorry blizzard Activision. Figure your fucking life out.
 
5150Joker said:
Why because you say so? You absolutely are a hypocrite for supporting Chinese companies (which are often state sponsored) while hypocritically chiding companies like Blizzard and acting as if you're on some moral pedestal. The fact you don't think so is pretty ironic in itself.
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Wrong. Because the point here is less about the right or wrong of China. It can be totally about not being under the influence of rules and views you did not agree to by a party you don't have representation in.

If this was blizzard cowering to some British law, we should be just as upset. It's just easier to see the problem when the foreign influence has so many aspects opposed to your own.

But if this was Britain and not China, would we say it is wrong to not also avoid buying anything British if we do not want us companies to abide by British wishes when dealing with us citizens in the US? No. Britain can be Britain and we can still not want to follow British laws as citizens of another country.

It's the same thing with China. These are two independent issues. Should you boycott China for various reasons? Sure. But do you have to agree with that if you also think China should not have power over people in other countries? No. They're separate concerns.
 

They did an absolute non apology, they don't explain what did the casters do to basically get forced to look at new ventures (6m without a job isn't something that most people can afford), they claim that it wasn't because of the specific views which we know is false from the Chinese post, they don't explain why American University team's was not even wrist slapped for their voicing of support for Hong Kong, also it took them a few hours to drop that atomic banhammer + firing but days until the end of the Friday to reverse slightly the punishment levied, nor talk about the 1000 years bans for using Hong Kong in your names, and thus this is still pretty far from ok.

This will not blow over by blizzcon which is what they want to.

Again they took a public dump on their core company values, that won't be forgotten going forward, specially every time they try to pander to some special interest group.
 
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Revdarian said:
Again they took a public dump on their core company values, that won't be forgotten going forward, specially every time they try to pander to some special interest group.
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Yes, it will be forgotten. Gamers are among the most spineless groups of consumers. Blizzard, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda...have been raping them for years and they still gladly take it and give them billions. Nothing will change with Blizzard once they dangle the next carrot.
 
Grimlaking said:
Ok... let me reiterate.

I get what you are saying. Blizzard did NOTHING illeagle in terminating that kids contract. I got it. I even presume to say that the collective WE get it.

While the action taken was not LEGALLY wrong it is MORALLY wrong to do.

everyone here understands that we don't want the medium to be a channel for anti x country messages. Heck... he could say his victories were for HK and as long as he demolished other Chinese players he's doing just fine. Blizzard could have even channeled this into that.

But what they did instead is MORALLY wrong. They protected their pocket book LEGALLY by coming down on the kid through LEGAL action.

Lets say you are a muilti Billion dollar a year company. (Blizzard Activision are.) Now lets say that you have a kid that is a part of your companies brand because they do competitions for you and are making some untold sum of money... but altogether FAR LESS than say 150 thousand a year. For your expenses to income this kid barely shows up as a blip on your financial radar. Now this same kid is being repressed... lets say he's in a city recently put under control of a communist government. Now bare with me here... this kid spouts off something and this communist government says.. "Get this kid gone or you can't do business with our 2 billion citizens that could equate to... lets say... doubling your financial worth." Now you're in a tuff spot because the kid said something you might or might not disagree with about this government but you still want access to the governments citizens. You could go back to your founding companies values and say. "I'm sorry China but we can not take any action against this employee other than to request they not make such statements on our broadcasts again. But we are not going to suspend or fire them." Or... you could say. "We are firing everyone involved period. Interviewers and kid included."

One of these actions could see the company cheered and one will see them derided.

BOTH ACTIONS ARE LEGAL.

One has a potential of financial growth throttling. ONE could accelerate financial growth through good will.

Where is the moral choice between TWO legal options.

This is what people are upset with. Those of us upset with Blizzard over this believe that they chose the lesser of two paths and it shows that the Chinese customer is worth more than the civil liberties of Blizzard's employees to Blizzard.
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There is also the matter of doublestandards. When the game broadcast was in Chinese countries they dealt the punishment with heaviest hand possible and added some caster collateral damage on top of it just in case. But when gamers in the west rebelled because of this and showed support for Blitzchung and the casters, showing "Free hong kong" signs and adding a call for Boycott Blizzard on top of it. NO ONE IN THE WEST GOT PUNISHED for the same offense in the streams! Why? Most likely because this time China was not involved with the streams.

And now they have balls to claim China had no meaning when they decided to punish Blitzchung and the innocent casters.
 
Meeho said:
Yes, it will be forgotten. Gamers are among the most spineless groups of consumers. Blizzard, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda...have been raping them for years and they still gladly take it and give them billions. Nothing will change with Blizzard once they dangle the next carrot.
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I would say least united is more accurate. Vocal minority group with a large majority that just doesn't care.
 
Meeho said:
Yes, it will be forgotten. Gamers are among the most spineless groups of consumers. Blizzard, Activision, EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda...have been raping them for years and they still gladly take it and give them billions. Nothing will change with Blizzard once they dangle the next carrot.
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If they want to show some spine people need to cancel/refund their BlizzCon tickets and not go next month. Since people will still go I hope it will turn into a huge shitfest and no one go to next year's.
 
Blizzard's right, Blitzchung shouldn't bring his opinions to the match. However he's within his right to use his popularity to post his opinions on youtube or whatnot. If Blizzard persecutes him for that then its time to grab your pitchforks and fire up the outrage mob.
 
Mister Metokur has been doing some good videos on this. Next stream goes up at 5pm CST. You have to catch him while he's live because he deletes the videos after.
 
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