J. Allen Brack: Regarding Last Weekend’s Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament

[Milfshaked]

I'm not at all, I'm just reiterating my original point. There's nothing wrong at all about what I've said - you just disagree because I agree with Blizzard.

I disagree with you because you are wrong and you have no idea what you are talking about. You are sidestepping the original discussion and desperately trying to change the topic by bringing up irrelevant stuff because you realised that you were wrong. Just admit when you are wrong rather than act like a sore loser.

[sam86]

What's wrong with it is Blizzard choosing to defend a brutal dictatorship that is oppressing its citizens and violating human rights on a daily basis.

If you can't see what's wrong with that, then I can only assume you're a paid shill.

hey chineese market give sh8tload of usd, and Bobby Kodick would sell his own kids for money, he isn't the greediest human alive without reason
not to mention chineese overlord asses taste really good for kissing, since they aren't only one kissing them

so the same the us goverment does which you dont protest...

ps: blizzard didnt defended china, they punished someone who broke blizzards rules in blizzards house.

let me guess, when they participated in pride month they weren't breaking their own rules.. because that wasn't politics, that was rainbows ?

[Moozart]

Coz there is nothing to apologize for.

Thank You. I thought I was the only one that thought this.

For you guys that feel so strongly about this show Blizz how you feel by not playing their games, delete them even. You can stop posting on wow oriented sites ect, that will really show them that you mean business and how outraged you really are. HOWEVER... When you make a post about be outraged and how wrong it is and proceed to pay your monthly service and Log in you are nothing but Colin Kaepernick wearing that Fidel Castro shirt and choosing not to vote for president after trying to make a political statement by kneeling.

[DotEleven]

I will state the same thing I've stated each time for this.

Blitzchung ABSOLUTELY should've been punished. Blizzard ABSOLUTELY went too far. And I bet a bunch of people are hypocrites who are only upset because Blizzard punished him for something they themselves believe and not because of "free speech". I'd bet at least 90% of the people wanting to "Boycott Blizzard" would probably be saying it was well deserved had we had someone shout "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" or "LOCK HER UP" on stream.

The fact is, if you think Blitzchung did nothing wrong, that's bullshit. He shouldn't be pushing any political agenda during the interview but it's true that the punishment doesn't fit the "crime" so to speak.

[sam86]

Again, there is a reason that they didn’t even attempt to punish the American team that pulled the stunt.

what stunt ?

So many spergs yelling "ThEy DiDnT EvEN ApOlOgIzE!", what exactly would they need to apologize for ? For punishing a player who broke the terms of his contract ? I can't believe how people can be this dull, are you all children - 12 btw haHaa - who don't understand what a contract is ?

they broke it in first place many times, it only when it effected china that they remembered they had that rule, either u should shoved it up ur a88 since start or u accept all political views even ones u disagree with
blizz is only comparing losing china market vs losing ppl who have conscious money, and sadly china alone is 1/5 of total world market, they will stay like that unless forced by law which can happen but in very long run

[THEORACLE64]

I disagree with you because you are wrong and you have no idea what you are talking about. You are sidestepping the original discussion and desperately trying to change the topic by bringing up irrelevant stuff because you realised that you were wrong. Just admit when you are wrong rather than act like a sore loser.

Honestly, you have no idea. Well, not exactly no idea but you clearly have your mind set that Blizzard are the bad guys in this. In terms of their rules, contractual ones at that, I'm not wrong no - as they've been acknowledged and enforced. I've brought up nothing irrelevant either, but you're clearly just someone who cannot have an open discussion and see both sides of it. That's most people with this honestly - in their eyes Blizzard are the bad guys and that guy is in the wrong for essentially protesting on a main event livestream.

It's quite obvious you have nothing further to contribute to a conversation when you're starting to call somebody a "sore loser" and "wrong". There's nothing to be right or wrong, win or lose in this situation. The facts are there; Contractual rules were broken and he was punished. Whether you think that Blizzard are catering to China is entirely subjective, as there's no proof and that's just down to a matter of opinion (which is neither something that's right or wrong - it's an opinion). Blizzard should have handled it differently though, I agree with that part of their statement. They did jump the gun so to speak.

[Milfshaked]

What exactly is a company meant to do, if a player misuses their platform to push a geopolitical message?
Can you honestly say that what Blizzard is "supposed" to do here, is to remain silent when their tournament platform turns political without their approval, and yes, may result in loss of future revenue measured in the billions?.

You dont think that there is a middle ground between doing nothing and what Blizzard did?

But to your question, what were they supposed to do?

1. If they dont want players saying political messages, they should have a clear rule about it with a clear punishment. The rule cant be arbitrary and apply only to certain political subjects, it would have to apply to any political message. It should not matter if the person said "free hong kong", "vote democrat", "vote republican", "yay for lgbt rights" or whatever. The application of the rule would have to be universal, non-arbitrary and non-discriminatory. Good example now is Riot that established rules for this weekends contest. The only thing uncertain there is how they will apply those rules, which is yet to be seen.

2. If they dont have such a rule in place and the only applicable thing is the general exceptions clause, the punishment has to be a lot lesser to be proportional. With no clear rule in place, the punishment should at most have been a warning and a small fine. Of course followed by the establishment of a new rule with stricter punishments.

3. Dont lie about the reason why they do stuff. Be open an honest about their allegiences. The core issue is not that Blitz said something political, it is the topic on which he was speaking about. There is a reason why hongkong is a banned word from battletags, Taiwanese players are not allowed to use the taiwanese flag and is referred to Chinese Taipei, players on the forums recieve 1000 year bans, the extreme language in Blizzards chinese statement or Diablo Immortal not containing darker skinned characters. The issue is not that someone said something political, it is a a much bigger issue than that and Blizzard pretending like it is not and not ignoring the elephant in the room is not helping anyone. Atleast be honest.

[Khaza-R]

Ah the old slaves who ran away from their masters knew the punishment would be hanging, what do we have to apologise for.

Equating an e-sports contractual obligation with literal human enslavement

Stay classy MMO-C

[Inukashi]

There is one simple blizzard rule: Keep politics out of gaming.

There is a fuckton of other platforms, why need to go up against the contract? If blizzard starts overlooking some of these politicial messages and let others slide they are taking a side. Why should a gaming company take a side?

[IKT]

I'd bet at least 90% of the people wanting to "Boycott Blizzard" would probably be saying it was well deserved had we had someone shout "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" or "LOCK HER UP" on stream.

Because those don't involve human rights.

Except slaves, unlike Blitzchung, did not willingly and enthusiastically go into contract with their masters, did they?

I'm fairly certain Hong Kong is not willingly going into contract with China. That's why he said it, not because he's havin' a laugh.

[Sulika]

The obvious problem with Blizzards stance here is that it is plain to see there would have been no actions taken against anyone had the player come out in support of China and urged the people of Hong Kong to stop protesting.

By their own standards Blizzard themselves should be banned from having anything to do with Hearthstone for a year since they brought politics into it to a far greater extent than the player did.

[Milfshaked]

Honestly, you have no idea. Well, not exactly no idea but you clearly have your mind set that Blizzard are the bad guys in this. In terms of their rules, contractual ones at that, I'm not wrong no - as they've been acknowledged and enforced. I've brought up nothing irrelevant either, but you're clearly just someone who cannot have an open discussion and see both sides of it. That's most people with this honestly - in their eyes Blizzard are the bad guys and that guy is in the wrong for essentially protesting on a main event livestream.

It's quite obvious you have nothing further to contribute to a conversation when you're starting to call somebody a "sore loser" and "wrong". There's nothing to be right or wrong, win or lose in this situation. The facts are there; Contractual rules were broken and he was punished. Whether you think that Blizzard are catering to China is entirely subjective, as there's no proof and that's just down to a matter of opinion (which is neither something that's right or wrong - it's an opinion). Blizzard should have handled it differently though, I agree with that part of their statement. They did jump the gun so to speak.

Again, you are not reading anything anyone says and you sidestep at every turn. I have never said that Blizzard are the bad guys in this. I think, as I have stated before, both parties did wrong. It is unprofessional and disloyal to a contractual partner to do what Blitz did. Blizzards response was also wrong. There is no good guy here.

If you want to talk about namecalling, you should check your own previous replies and see who has been doing that.

But as you keep changing the subject I see no point proceeding in this conversation. Every post your bring up stuff that I never even mentioned and stuff that is completely irrelevant to the topic we were discussing. I would personally call that signs of someone being a sore loser, but perhaps I am mistaken and you have some other reason for attempting to side step the discussion.

[IKT]

Equating an e-sports contractual obligation with literal human enslavement

Stay classy MMO-C

Feel free to make it about any other protest. People in China who protest the government know they're going to be kidnapped and raped, so therefore the punishment is appropriate, nothing to apologise for.

Blizzard workers who walked out of the office as protest know they will get punished for it, it's in their contract, so they must be fired.

Hey man if you believe that a business or state is doing something extremely unethical and the state or businesses punishes you according to MMO-Champ that's cool. Snowden should be executed for treason when he exposed that the US Gov was being extremely unethical in spying on its citizens right?

They knew that by going against the rules they'd be executed by the Nazi's, that's a fair punishment - Khaza-R

[THEORACLE64]

Again, you are not reading anything anyone says and you sidestep at every turn. I have never said that Blizzard are the bad guys in this. I think, as I have stated before, both parties did wrong. It is unprofessional and disloyal to a contractual partner to do what Blitz did. Blizzards response was also wrong. There is no good guy here.

If you want to talk about namecalling, you should check your own previous replies and see who has been doing that.

But as you keep changing the subject I see no point proceeding in this conversation. Every post your bring up stuff that I never even mentioned and stuff that is completely irrelevant to the topic we were discussing. I would personally call that signs of someone being a sore loser, but perhaps I am mistaken and you have some other reason for attempting to side step the discussion.

I absolute am, hence why I'm replying to the points you're making. You can't be this dense, surely? I've been discussing things generally within this people along with responding to you, hence why i've used words in previous posts like "most people" - y'know, seeing as this discussion involves the entire post and peoples responses. Once again, I absolutely haven't kept changing the topic as everything I've said has been on topic. I'm unsure how many times I can say that before it actually sinks in, but at this point it's like having a discussion with a brick wall. You clearly have your fixed opinion, and that's fine, but anything I've said has been factual and based on actual actions. It's just going around in circles at this point, which is utterly pointless because there's only so much I can repeat facts on what Blizzard has done.

- - - Updated - - -

Feel free to make it about any other protest. People in China who protest the government know they're going to be kidnapped and raped, so therefore the punishment is appropriate, nothing to apologise for.

Blizzard workers who walked out of the office as protest know they will get punished for it, it's in their contract, so they must be fired.

Hey man if you believe that a business or state is doing something extremely unethical and the state or businesses punishes you according to MMO-Champ that's cool.

They knew that by going against the rules they'd be executed by the Nazi's, that's a fair punishment - Khaza-R

You mean people in first-world countries breaking contractual agreements that they willing entered into?! the crime! Unlike in China where you have no freedoms and no room to disagree with any kind of government rules and can likely be killed because of it. Don't compare the two, it's idiotic. There's a huge difference between living within a communist/dictatorship and entering into a contract willingly for an e-sports. Blizzard acted within the law, humanely (obviously). The entitlement and privilege by comparing work/e-sports in a first world state to Nazi's is just...

[Weatherwax]

But this isn't the press. It's Blizzard's tournament post game interview. And he is under contract to not discuss political / personal views during those events.

Blitzchung could have expressed his opinions on twitter / facebook / whatever social media they have there.
_______________

Imo the biggest problem from all this is how long did we have to wait to have a quote from Blizzard US i.e. J. Allen Brack.

The Chinese side of Blizz, the ones who first banned Blitzchung, and the one who made the chinese quote (the one that talks about "our china") Those overreacted and they made a political ban. Those should receive a punishment from Blizzard too.

So Blitzchung was in the wrong from doing a political call at the wrong place.
Blizz China were in the worng in trying to shush everything, insta banning him and talking about their own political views (the "our china" bullcrap post)
Blizz US were in the wrong in waiting 4 days before making any call and letting the whole thing blow out of proportion.

Ok, so were the Aussies that showed a poster saying Free HK in the middle of the game, not in an interview after winning.
Except they didn't get punished at all, and they pushed their political opinion DURING THE GAME.

What's the difference, please?

[spliffsmoker]

This particular incident doesn't bother me as much as Blizzard's trajectory in recent years.
The cancellation of TITAN, the existence of Overwatch and awful PC characters like Tracer... the awful writing in Starcraft II hots/lotv and the awful writing in WoW, the total neglect and cheapness of Heroes of the Storm, the invention of that abominable fro-thing called Qhira.... it goes on and on.

I'm an American. China and Hong Kong don't matter to me. I just want to Make Blizzard Great Again.

I just miss the days when Blizzard had some integrity. Only hope I have left is Warcraft III Reforged because that game has an awesome story and needed a facelift for a long time... yet we haven't heard ANYTHING about it in a year.

All the original creators of Blizzard quit and the company is a bare bones, stripped down emaciated shadow of its former self.

Wouldn't be suprised if Reforged gets cancelled because "too many white cisgender characters" or some shit and they make another frikin' Overwatch game. I was never, ever interested in Overwatch, it is not a true Blizzard game (lacks the same kind of artistry) and never should have happened...

[ExtremelyCrusty]

J. Allen Lisp everybody.

[Kagdar]

Ok, so were the Aussies that showed a poster saying Free HK in the middle of the game, not in an interview after winning.
Except they didn't get punished at all, and they pushed their political opinion DURING THE GAME.

What's the difference, please?

There should be almost none, the only difference is the duration of the ban. considering the Aussies have a way lower impact on the topic than Blitzchung.

but i'm not Blizz on this and can only tell you what my own opinion is.

EDIT : Considering the Aussies players forfeit the tournament on their own i guess Blizz decided it was enough "punishment" for them. Just my guess.

[justandulas]

what stunt ?

they broke it in first place many times, it only when it effected china that they remembered they had that rule, either u should shoved it up ur a88 since start or u accept all political views even ones u disagree with
blizz is only comparing losing china market vs losing ppl who have conscious money, and sadly china alone is 1/5 of total world market, they will stay like that unless forced by law which can happen but in very long run

the day after the HK guy (blitzchung or however u spell it) did his protest on camera, an american team did the same thing from a college campus (camera quickly cut away) but the team faced no punishment or fines.

In fact, that team waited a few days for blizz to punish them with nothing and ended up quitting themselves to make a statement against Blizzards hypocrisy

[Starla]

https://twitter.com/blitzchungHS/sta...23851917271040
"Thank you for your attention in the past one week, this is a personal statement and my view on Blizzard's latest decision. First of all, I'm grateful for Blizzard reconsidering their position about my ban. Earlier this week, I told media that I knew I might have penalty or consequence for my act, because I understand that my act could take the conversation away from the purpose of the event. In the future, I will be more careful on that and express my opinions or show my support to Hong Kong on my personal platforms.

Many people has been asking me if I accept the latest decision of Blizzard, I will discuss that on two parts. Tournament prizing and suspension. For tournament prizing, I quoted what Blizzard said on the official website, they mention that I played fair in the tournament and they believe I should receive my prizing. This is the part I really appreciate, Blizzard also said they understand for some this is not about the prize, but perhaps for others it is disrespectful to even discuss it. People
from Blizzard had explained this to me through a phone call and I really appreciate that and I accept their decision on this part.

For second part about the suspension, Blizzard had changed their suspension on me from a year to six months. Once again, I appreciate for their reconsideration on this. To be honest, I think six
months is still quite a lot to me. But I also being told that I can continue to compete in the hearthstone pro circuit which they mean the grandmaster tournament. I appreciate for this decision
they made because grandmaster is currently the highest level tournament in competitive
hearthstone. However, I wish Blizzard can reconsider about their penalty on the two casters involved.

Lastly, many people wants to know if i would be competing in hearthstone in the future. Honestly, I have no idea on that yet. Since my next tournament is very likely to be the grandmaster tournament of next season, it's probably at least a few months from now on. I will take this time to relax myself to decide if I am staying in competitive hearthstone scene or not.

Hearthstone changed my the way I live, I really love this community. Blessing to all the players out there, and blessing to Blizzard."