This shit with Blizzard is getting real serious. How serious you ask?
I just uninstalled Hearthstone.
Me. The guy who never misses a daily quest, who literally plays the game every day. Hell, the guy who maintains the HS thread. I’m out.
I’ve been playing since launch and the game has gotten old. Obviously this will happen after 5 years, but this whole mess was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even uninstalled HotS and Battle.net.
Looks like I’ll have time to work on my Steam and Switch backlogs now.
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
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it's one of those things where yeah of course it takes time to decide on a course of action and construct a message to the public
but as time goes on and more and more players and personalities make statements they lose complete control of the conversation, of the narrative
if they had moved quicker they could really have blunted this even with a so-so statement, but instead...
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited October 2019
Blizzard employees staged a bit of a sit out today. Numbers ranged throughtout the day from a dozen to thrity-ish. The location is very visible from the executives offices.
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
Blizzard probably overreached more than needed to placate China, but bending now to public pressure would piss China off even more. I'm sure they would rather face a sporadic boycott in most of the world than a total one enforced by the PRC. In that case there's no way that saying anything will help them.
I wonder if there's a PR person in Blizzard HQ who's just been awake for the last 72 hours, chain smoking in a meeting room littered with discarded, crumpled notes, trying to figure out how they can possibly salvage this.
I wonder if there's a PR person in Blizzard HQ who's just been awake for the last 72 hours, chain smoking in a meeting room littered with discarded, crumpled notes, trying to figure out how they can possibly salvage this.
Probably more than one, but yeah, I imagine that's where they are at.
I wonder if there's a PR person in Blizzard HQ who's just been awake for the last 72 hours, chain smoking in a meeting room littered with discarded, crumpled notes, trying to figure out how they can possibly salvage this.
Worst part: “salvage this” just means “get it to stop without losing any revenue”.
Blizz's silence is super weird, but given how many people are not only uninstalling their games, but dusting their collections, deleting their accounts, etc.....these are pretty permanent decisions people are making. Blizz is seriously unlikely to earn any of them back. That's what 6 hours of silence gets you. It's been, what, 3 days now?
Blizz has made their decision. There's no other shoe dropping. Prepare for the next statement from them to be about "protecting casters and staff" and "protecting fans at Blizzcon" with a bunch of weasel-speak.
This shit with Blizzard is getting real serious. How serious you ask?
I just uninstalled Hearthstone.
Me. The guy who never misses a daily quest, who literally plays the game every day. Hell, the guy who maintains the HS thread. I’m out.
I’ve been playing since launch and the game has gotten old. Obviously this will happen after 5 years, but this whole mess was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even uninstalled HotS and Battle.net.
Looks like I’ll have time to work on my Steam and Switch backlogs now.
Ah shit Dover, did I do that?
Hey. So. Long time PA forumer here who left the forums many months ago. I'm also a Honger. Popped in to see how the people here were responding after all the kerfuffle, and I saw some of you agonizing about what to do and whether you can continue playing, so I wanted to post something about it, but it's been a real struggle to figure out what to say. I wrote a post, then deleted it, but a couple forumers said it was a good post, so... here I go again. I just want to provide y'all some clarity and peace of mind, but it's hard because there's not much but agony to go around. Still, I'll try to provide some background for you all to make up your minds.
So me, I was born in Hong Kong. My parents and I emigrated decades ago and most of my aunts and uncles followed. Played WoW and Hearthstone at launch, quit both for a few years, came back to both in the last couple years.I logged into WoW the other night night, but it just hurt my soul too much to play. I liquidated all my stuff, sent it off to my guildmates, dropped them a message in Discord, uninstalled, uninstalled, uninstalled.
My brother continues to play WoW classic with his best friend. I don't begrudge him that. I'm probably sending him the rest of my Blizzard balance actually. So this particular Honger at least would not begrudge any of you if you kept playing either.
Why not? Two reasons. The first is that most of us are already reconciled to the fact that Hong Kong is doomed. Whether it occurs now in 2019 or when the transition agreement expires in 2047, Beijing is going to control Hong Kong and then Hong Kong is going to cease existing as a separate cultural entity. We Hongers, whether we are in Hong Kong now or away from it, are the last of our kind. It took me years to reconcile with the fact that people are probably going to talk about us like they talk about Tibetans now. There is an emotional acceptance of the situation: those of us who wanted to leave and could leave did, and those of us who stayed... well, some couldn't leave, but most chose to. I know more than a few people who left and then went back after 1997 when things seemed kinda okay. We've all lived with this for 22 years now, if not 30 years, so there's not really any more outrage to expend.
The other reason is that we all know that the situation is pretty hopeless. There is no real victory possible for the protesters. They're fighting to preserve their rights and freedoms under an agreement that's due to expire anyways in 2047, they're a city of 7 million resisting a country of 1.4 billion, they are entirely dependent on the mainland for agriculture and water, and the PRC has been pouring money (to bribe off the business elites) and people (via one-way visas) into Hong Kong for years now. Even before the extradition bill, Hongers who opposed the government were mysteriously disappearing (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/magazine/the-case-of-hong-kongs-missing-booksellers.html) as well as others who just... didn't pay enough bribes or whatever to regional government officials (source: a childhood friend of mine whose father was "summoned" to Shenzhen by his company's VP and then didn't return to Hong Kong for 2 years). How all this ends, nobody really knows - we debate amongst ourselves whether the CCP has misread the situation and misplayed its hand, whether they're just willing to let Hong Kong burn as long as they have Shanghai and a media lockdown in place, whether they're playing a long game with instigation and false flags and attrition to erode public support before sending in the military police, or what - but nobody's under any illusions that Hong Kong will gain its independence forever. There's nothing anybody can really do to save Hong Kong, so it's impossible to get mad at people for not coming to save Hong Kong.
So what should you do? This will sound trite but you should do whatever you feel like you need to do. You don't need to sacrifice on our behalves. The moral support is nice - I've been tearing up a lot reading r/hearthstone and Twitter - but that's really all it is. Even if you could get Blizzard to completely change their minds or take Blizzard down entirely, and the NBA and Apple and whoever else too, that's not going to change a lick for the situation on the ground in Hong Kong. Blizzard's not going to change CCP policy. There's no feedback mechanism there for you to use.
You should think about Chinese influence over the wider world. You should think about how (y)our corporations interact with China and the rest of the world more broadly. You should think about how you want your country to be and how you want the world to be. You should think about what democracy means and what freedom means and what human rights mean and what needs to be done to safeguard those for yourselves. You should spend some time learning about what's going on in Hong Kong - I made a post in the East Asia thread with some links - because it's pretty damn rare for liberty and freedom to die in such a manner, in a prosperous, connected, tech-savvy, English-speaking environment. You probably owe it to yourselves and your neighbours and your country to see what it looks like liberty dies and when people are forced to fight for it. We've had arguments for years on these forums about the virtues of non-violent vs violent approaches to political change, and... I don't know if you're ever going to get a better education on that question unless you have to do it for yourselves. You gotta hear what these kids say, these kids who were born into a Hong Kong in its twilight, who never had the choice to leave and can't comfort themselves that they'll be dead by the time 2047 rolls around. I don't know that it can be any more pure, no religion nor race nor tribalism nor political leaders nor whatever involved; just liberty or death.
And then you should go enjoy the liberties that you do have, and if that means playing Hearthstone, then play Hearthstone, hopefully with a lot less guilt than I feel. Just choose for yourself, and with knowledge. Don't be one of those, I'm just here to get paid, or who cares I don't wanna know, or none of it matters anyways, sorta people. At least people still talk about Tibet; it'd be nice if people would keep talking about Hong Kong.
Sorry if that was entirely unhelpful! Hard to talk about. Not that safe to talk about either. If you have any questions, PM me and I'll check it eventually one day, or Dover has my Facebook I guess. I know I left these forums, but it was definitely not because y'all aren't good peeps. Just keep being good peeps, especially to each other.
It's not like this is just one oopsie for ActiBlizz either.
Remember the layoffs earlier this year? The (Blizzard half) company ethic hasn't been what it was for some time now, and it's only getting worse. I think it's just taking so long for people because they had built up such incredible good will long ago.
This shit with Blizzard is getting real serious. How serious you ask?
I just uninstalled Hearthstone.
Me. The guy who never misses a daily quest, who literally plays the game every day. Hell, the guy who maintains the HS thread. I’m out.
I’ve been playing since launch and the game has gotten old. Obviously this will happen after 5 years, but this whole mess was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even uninstalled HotS and Battle.net.
Looks like I’ll have time to work on my Steam and Switch backlogs now.
I posted this earlier in one of the WoW threads, but personally choosing to not give my business to Blizzard is not a huge sacrifice on my part. There are oodles of other games and forms of entertainment vying for my attention and dollars; I am sure I will find something to do.
My interest in Blizzard output these days is mostly based on the inertia from their decade-old or older games and their past few releases have shown a decline in the qualities that attracted me to their games in the past. Recent offerings have shown an increase in psychologically manipulative mechanisms that are all the rage in the gaming industry these days.
In the end, it is no great sacrifice on my part and no matter the hype for whatever gets unveiled at Blizzcon, recent releases have taught me to wait to see the post-release response before getting even slightly interested. They've lost the trust they used to have in the quality and fun of their games. Their actions and support of the CCP's politics in Hong Kong piled on top of everything else makes it really easy for me to decide I am done with Blizzard as a company.
Blizz's silence is super weird, but given how many people are not only uninstalling their games, but dusting their collections, deleting their accounts, etc.....these are pretty permanent decisions people are making. Blizz is seriously unlikely to earn any of them back. That's what 6 hours of silence gets you. It's been, what, 3 days now?
Blizz has made their decision. There's no other shoe dropping. Prepare for the next statement from them to be about "protecting casters and staff" and "protecting fans at Blizzcon" with a bunch of weasel-speak.
it's not that weird; there's nothing they can really say, so they're just gonna be quiet until some other news item comes along and gets everyone's attention
it's unfortunate for them because yanno, blizzcon
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
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The JudgeThe Terwilliger CurvesRegistered Userregular
This game is all I play from Blizzard. Bare minimum, I don't intend to give them another dime. Definitely don't feel like playing right now. Don't imagine that would change untill they finally say something and it had better start with a goddamn truckload of backpedaling.
The Judge on
Last pint: Turmoil CDA / Barley Brown's - Untappd: TheJudge_PDX
I was super hype to grind up some 1k win heroes and do some more legends now that the semester has cooled off a bit but my desire to play is totally dead now.
This game is all I play from Blizzard. Bare minimum, I don't intend to give them another dime. Definitely don't feel like playing right now. Don't imagine that would change untill they finally say something and iit had better start with a goddamn truckload of backpedaling.
I wonder what road they will decide to take. Dig up 'similar' cases where they did the same thing because they don't want any kind of real world politics present in their games or cut of their investment in China as a growing new game area because their government wants to much of a say in how they conduct business and have them by the balls financially and opt for the moral road.
Wanna try my Mario Maker levels?
Shoot m to BITS (hold Y) [hard] C109-0000-014D-4E09 P-POWER Switch Palace 3838-0000-0122-9359 Raiding the Serpents Tomb 1A04-0000-0098-C11E I like to move it, move it FCE2-0000-00D7-9048
Checked into the playHS stream just now (6 am EST).
11k viewers and tons of pro-HK spam in chat.
MMMig on
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
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lwt1973King of ThievesSyndicationRegistered Userregular
Personally, I still enjoy playing but I'm not going to spend any money on the game unless things change. I don't feel that they will so when the next expansion drops, I'm thinking I'm out.
"He's sulking in his tent like Achilles! It's the Iliad?...from Homer?! READ A BOOK!!" -Handy
I was super hype to grind up some 1k win heroes and do some more legends now that the semester has cooled off a bit but my desire to play is totally dead now.
After reading that (incredible) post from Hippofant and looking at the situation, I just feel somewhat depressed and even a little physically sick. I didn't yesterday, even, but their silence plus .... everything....
Fuck.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
Assuming their strategy is to stay silent until BlizzCon and hope this blows over (which doesn't ring true for me, this is too big a deal at this point), I wonder if investors dumping stock in a hurry would force their hand to - at the least - make a statement.
Assuming their strategy is to stay silent until BlizzCon and hope this blows over (which doesn't ring true for me, this is too big a deal at this point), I wonder if investors dumping stock in a hurry would force their hand to - at the least - make a statement.
To be fair, I don't think they will wait that long to address it.
The situation brought them between a rock and a hard place, and that means acknowledgement, meetings and rewrites of their statement.
Wanna try my Mario Maker levels?
Shoot m to BITS (hold Y) [hard] C109-0000-014D-4E09 P-POWER Switch Palace 3838-0000-0122-9359 Raiding the Serpents Tomb 1A04-0000-0098-C11E I like to move it, move it FCE2-0000-00D7-9048
Here's the thing, the bleeding is, for a lot of people, irreversible. Every hour that they continue to not say anything, more people are coming to grips with their feelings and abandoning Blizzard. Some will come back, sure, but not all of them.
And saying something now, no matter how good a statement it could possibly be (this is Blizzard so the bar is real low), is going to be met head-on with: Why did it take you so long to say whatever it is you said?
Like, I get that you need to make 100 calculations to determine what you want to do about all of this, but really:
A. That calculation should have been made when you decided to deal with a Hong Kong protest statement so strongly - (and I think it was)
B. That calculation is aggressively apparent when it takes this long to say something
C. That calculation should be calculating how many customers you're losing by deliberating over the calculation. Blizzard is king of the announcement of an announcement, and they didn't even pull that off, here.
Going 3 days in the face of something like this with dead silence is just unheard of these days. I will be shocked, and I mean shocked, if they say anything that anyone wants them to say in the coming weeks, and I anticipate, if anything, a doubling-down of their position in the interest of "fan safety" at Blizzcon, with stark reminders of their policy and an urge to not come to Blizzcon with HK protester gear or else your ticket will be revoked and you'll be removed from the con.
Going 3 days in the face of something like this with dead silence is just unheard of these days. I will be shocked, and I mean shocked, if they say anything that anyone wants them to say in the coming weeks, and I anticipate, if anything, a doubling-down of their position in the interest of "fan safety" at Blizzcon, with stark reminders of their policy and an urge to not come to Blizzcon with HK protester gear or else your ticket will be revoked and you'll be removed from the con.
But if I got kicked out, do I still get the Yeti transmog.
XBL: Bizazedo
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
If politicians really wanted to stick it to blizzard and other software companies sucking chinas dick they could pass the loot box law.
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Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
edited October 2019
You know, I was just thinking this morning. A lot of times people will make statements supporting some cause like this, nothing really happens and then everyone ignores it or just kind of forgets (if they are even aware of it in the first place). Blizzard actually being asshats in this case has amplified the shit out of Blitzchung's message and given the whole thing national attention. Now you've got just about everyone united in solidaty in support of Hong Kong, you've got senators from both sides speaking out on it... It's ironic but Blizzard in an attempt to silence the message to appease China has only made it exponentially louder
You know, I was just thinking this morning. A lot of times people will make statements like this, nothing really happens and then everyone ignores it or just kind of forgets (if they are even aware of it in the first place). Blizzard actually being asshats in this case has amplified the shit out of Blitzchung's message and given the whole thing national attention. Now you've got just about everyone united in solidaty on this cause, you've got senators from both sides speaking out on it... It's ironic but Blizzard in an attempt to silence the message to appease China has only made it exponentially louder
Blizzard playing 4D chess to get out their real message? :P
You know, I was just thinking this morning. A lot of times people will make statements like this, nothing really happens and then everyone ignores it or just kind of forgets (if they are even aware of it in the first place). Blizzard actually being asshats in this case has amplified the shit out of Blitzchung's message and given the whole thing national attention. Now you've got just about everyone united in solidaty on this cause, you've got senators from both sides speaking out on it... It's ironic but Blizzard in an attempt to silence the message to appease China has only made it exponentially louder
Blizzard playing 4D chess to get out their real message? :P
Nah, I give them zero credit for this :P I just find it amusing how spectacularly the whole thing is backfiring on them.
You know, I was just thinking this morning. A lot of times people will make statements supporting some cause like this, nothing really happens and then everyone ignores it or just kind of forgets (if they are even aware of it in the first place). Blizzard actually being asshats in this case has amplified the shit out of Blitzchung's message and given the whole thing national attention. Now you've got just about everyone united in solidaty in support of Hong Kong, you've got senators from both sides speaking out on it... It's ironic but Blizzard in an attempt to silence the message to appease China has only made it exponentially louder
The lack of banning the AU team this week made it real clear that it wasn't even just about the message, it was the messenger.
I mean, you could just as easily surmise they were trying not to amplify their PR nightmare, but that's not better!
I think you can pretty safely take away from this that Blizzard has decided their long term started is to shift to the Chinese market and reprioritize Western Democracy markets. They were showing signs of doing that already, they haven't really been building new stuff, and their lootbox centric models for awhile fit in well with Asian gameplay expectations.
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I just uninstalled Hearthstone.
Me. The guy who never misses a daily quest, who literally plays the game every day. Hell, the guy who maintains the HS thread. I’m out.
I’ve been playing since launch and the game has gotten old. Obviously this will happen after 5 years, but this whole mess was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Even uninstalled HotS and Battle.net.
Looks like I’ll have time to work on my Steam and Switch backlogs now.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Well that's not very fair to blitzchung.
but as time goes on and more and more players and personalities make statements they lose complete control of the conversation, of the narrative
if they had moved quicker they could really have blunted this even with a so-so statement, but instead...
Blizzard employees staged a bit of a sit out today. Numbers ranged throughtout the day from a dozen to thrity-ish. The location is very visible from the executives offices.
Probably more than one, but yeah, I imagine that's where they are at.
Blizz has made their decision. There's no other shoe dropping. Prepare for the next statement from them to be about "protecting casters and staff" and "protecting fans at Blizzcon" with a bunch of weasel-speak.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4295993-sell-activision-blizzard-hong-kong-misstep-will-cost-fortune
Wewlad
Ah shit Dover, did I do that?
Hey. So. Long time PA forumer here who left the forums many months ago. I'm also a Honger. Popped in to see how the people here were responding after all the kerfuffle, and I saw some of you agonizing about what to do and whether you can continue playing, so I wanted to post something about it, but it's been a real struggle to figure out what to say. I wrote a post, then deleted it, but a couple forumers said it was a good post, so... here I go again. I just want to provide y'all some clarity and peace of mind, but it's hard because there's not much but agony to go around. Still, I'll try to provide some background for you all to make up your minds.
So me, I was born in Hong Kong. My parents and I emigrated decades ago and most of my aunts and uncles followed. Played WoW and Hearthstone at launch, quit both for a few years, came back to both in the last couple years.I logged into WoW the other night night, but it just hurt my soul too much to play. I liquidated all my stuff, sent it off to my guildmates, dropped them a message in Discord, uninstalled, uninstalled, uninstalled.
My brother continues to play WoW classic with his best friend. I don't begrudge him that. I'm probably sending him the rest of my Blizzard balance actually. So this particular Honger at least would not begrudge any of you if you kept playing either.
Why not? Two reasons. The first is that most of us are already reconciled to the fact that Hong Kong is doomed. Whether it occurs now in 2019 or when the transition agreement expires in 2047, Beijing is going to control Hong Kong and then Hong Kong is going to cease existing as a separate cultural entity. We Hongers, whether we are in Hong Kong now or away from it, are the last of our kind. It took me years to reconcile with the fact that people are probably going to talk about us like they talk about Tibetans now. There is an emotional acceptance of the situation: those of us who wanted to leave and could leave did, and those of us who stayed... well, some couldn't leave, but most chose to. I know more than a few people who left and then went back after 1997 when things seemed kinda okay. We've all lived with this for 22 years now, if not 30 years, so there's not really any more outrage to expend.
The other reason is that we all know that the situation is pretty hopeless. There is no real victory possible for the protesters. They're fighting to preserve their rights and freedoms under an agreement that's due to expire anyways in 2047, they're a city of 7 million resisting a country of 1.4 billion, they are entirely dependent on the mainland for agriculture and water, and the PRC has been pouring money (to bribe off the business elites) and people (via one-way visas) into Hong Kong for years now. Even before the extradition bill, Hongers who opposed the government were mysteriously disappearing (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/03/magazine/the-case-of-hong-kongs-missing-booksellers.html) as well as others who just... didn't pay enough bribes or whatever to regional government officials (source: a childhood friend of mine whose father was "summoned" to Shenzhen by his company's VP and then didn't return to Hong Kong for 2 years). How all this ends, nobody really knows - we debate amongst ourselves whether the CCP has misread the situation and misplayed its hand, whether they're just willing to let Hong Kong burn as long as they have Shanghai and a media lockdown in place, whether they're playing a long game with instigation and false flags and attrition to erode public support before sending in the military police, or what - but nobody's under any illusions that Hong Kong will gain its independence forever. There's nothing anybody can really do to save Hong Kong, so it's impossible to get mad at people for not coming to save Hong Kong.
So what should you do? This will sound trite but you should do whatever you feel like you need to do. You don't need to sacrifice on our behalves. The moral support is nice - I've been tearing up a lot reading r/hearthstone and Twitter - but that's really all it is. Even if you could get Blizzard to completely change their minds or take Blizzard down entirely, and the NBA and Apple and whoever else too, that's not going to change a lick for the situation on the ground in Hong Kong. Blizzard's not going to change CCP policy. There's no feedback mechanism there for you to use.
You should think about Chinese influence over the wider world. You should think about how (y)our corporations interact with China and the rest of the world more broadly. You should think about how you want your country to be and how you want the world to be. You should think about what democracy means and what freedom means and what human rights mean and what needs to be done to safeguard those for yourselves. You should spend some time learning about what's going on in Hong Kong - I made a post in the East Asia thread with some links - because it's pretty damn rare for liberty and freedom to die in such a manner, in a prosperous, connected, tech-savvy, English-speaking environment. You probably owe it to yourselves and your neighbours and your country to see what it looks like liberty dies and when people are forced to fight for it. We've had arguments for years on these forums about the virtues of non-violent vs violent approaches to political change, and... I don't know if you're ever going to get a better education on that question unless you have to do it for yourselves. You gotta hear what these kids say, these kids who were born into a Hong Kong in its twilight, who never had the choice to leave and can't comfort themselves that they'll be dead by the time 2047 rolls around. I don't know that it can be any more pure, no religion nor race nor tribalism nor political leaders nor whatever involved; just liberty or death.
And then you should go enjoy the liberties that you do have, and if that means playing Hearthstone, then play Hearthstone, hopefully with a lot less guilt than I feel. Just choose for yourself, and with knowledge. Don't be one of those, I'm just here to get paid, or who cares I don't wanna know, or none of it matters anyways, sorta people. At least people still talk about Tibet; it'd be nice if people would keep talking about Hong Kong.
Sorry if that was entirely unhelpful! Hard to talk about. Not that safe to talk about either. If you have any questions, PM me and I'll check it eventually one day, or Dover has my Facebook I guess. I know I left these forums, but it was definitely not because y'all aren't good peeps. Just keep being good peeps, especially to each other.
Remember the layoffs earlier this year? The (Blizzard half) company ethic hasn't been what it was for some time now, and it's only getting worse. I think it's just taking so long for people because they had built up such incredible good will long ago.
I actually set short selling up on my account with the intention of shorting it (though the account change hasn't processed yet)
I posted this earlier in one of the WoW threads, but personally choosing to not give my business to Blizzard is not a huge sacrifice on my part. There are oodles of other games and forms of entertainment vying for my attention and dollars; I am sure I will find something to do.
My interest in Blizzard output these days is mostly based on the inertia from their decade-old or older games and their past few releases have shown a decline in the qualities that attracted me to their games in the past. Recent offerings have shown an increase in psychologically manipulative mechanisms that are all the rage in the gaming industry these days.
In the end, it is no great sacrifice on my part and no matter the hype for whatever gets unveiled at Blizzcon, recent releases have taught me to wait to see the post-release response before getting even slightly interested. They've lost the trust they used to have in the quality and fun of their games. Their actions and support of the CCP's politics in Hong Kong piled on top of everything else makes it really easy for me to decide I am done with Blizzard as a company.
I am likely not the only one in this situation.
it's not that weird; there's nothing they can really say, so they're just gonna be quiet until some other news item comes along and gets everyone's attention
it's unfortunate for them because yanno, blizzcon
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
This game is all I play from Blizzard. Bare minimum, I don't intend to give them another dime. Definitely don't feel like playing right now. Don't imagine that would change untill they finally say something and it had better start with a goddamn truckload of backpedaling.
I wonder what road they will decide to take. Dig up 'similar' cases where they did the same thing because they don't want any kind of real world politics present in their games or cut of their investment in China as a growing new game area because their government wants to much of a say in how they conduct business and have them by the balls financially and opt for the moral road.
Shoot m to BITS (hold Y) [hard] C109-0000-014D-4E09
P-POWER Switch Palace 3838-0000-0122-9359
Raiding the Serpents Tomb 1A04-0000-0098-C11E
I like to move it, move it FCE2-0000-00D7-9048
See my profile here!
11k viewers and tons of pro-HK spam in chat.
Witty signature comment goes here...
wra
I just watched it going down without notice. Wonder if it's coming back up.
Makes sense. Better to sell now, instead of after the guarateed shitshow at Blizzcon.
After reading that (incredible) post from Hippofant and looking at the situation, I just feel somewhat depressed and even a little physically sick. I didn't yesterday, even, but their silence plus .... everything....
Fuck.
PSN: Bizazedo
CFN: Bizazedo (I don't think I suck, add me).
To be fair, I don't think they will wait that long to address it.
The situation brought them between a rock and a hard place, and that means acknowledgement, meetings and rewrites of their statement.
Shoot m to BITS (hold Y) [hard] C109-0000-014D-4E09
P-POWER Switch Palace 3838-0000-0122-9359
Raiding the Serpents Tomb 1A04-0000-0098-C11E
I like to move it, move it FCE2-0000-00D7-9048
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And saying something now, no matter how good a statement it could possibly be (this is Blizzard so the bar is real low), is going to be met head-on with: Why did it take you so long to say whatever it is you said?
Like, I get that you need to make 100 calculations to determine what you want to do about all of this, but really:
A. That calculation should have been made when you decided to deal with a Hong Kong protest statement so strongly - (and I think it was)
B. That calculation is aggressively apparent when it takes this long to say something
C. That calculation should be calculating how many customers you're losing by deliberating over the calculation. Blizzard is king of the announcement of an announcement, and they didn't even pull that off, here.
Going 3 days in the face of something like this with dead silence is just unheard of these days. I will be shocked, and I mean shocked, if they say anything that anyone wants them to say in the coming weeks, and I anticipate, if anything, a doubling-down of their position in the interest of "fan safety" at Blizzcon, with stark reminders of their policy and an urge to not come to Blizzcon with HK protester gear or else your ticket will be revoked and you'll be removed from the con.
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It was up but sorta crashed and never came back up, dunno if eu is supposed to have started by now?
Blizzard playing 4D chess to get out their real message? :P
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Nah, I give them zero credit for this :P I just find it amusing how spectacularly the whole thing is backfiring on them.
The lack of banning the AU team this week made it real clear that it wasn't even just about the message, it was the messenger.
I mean, you could just as easily surmise they were trying not to amplify their PR nightmare, but that's not better!
I love that this has actually caught on and is a real thing now for the protestors
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