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

[Corroc]

Keep going strong, Hong Kong! Eagerly awaiting the next Tweet showing some cyberpunk shit you guys come up with to fight that autoritanian regime that a selected few on this forum seem to love!

This is like the epitome of the reddit hype. People sitting at their computers waiting for something exciting to happen. Forgetting that there is real people in Hong Kong, but the show must go on, because people need their entertainment.

[Kreo]

I hear China wants Hong Kong to force Chinese criminals to be extradited to face the punishment for their crimes.

Hong Kong is leading the world in human sex trafficking and child pornography.

Standing with Hong Kong sounds like the bad thing to do. Yet the Internet rains hell on anyone who supports China.

What the hell is going on anymore

Do you honestly think too many people even know that? For them it's simple thing: China is totalitarian regime who bent on human rights violations, so anyone fighting evil Empire is a good rebel and their cause is just. It's just black and white world for them.

[Miross]

See what you said is what blizzard have actually said in their official reponse, that political talks and views have no place on broadcasts and that those are against the rules and will be punished, regardless of the stance or view you take, simply put, politics = no.


The other response comes from Blizzard Taiwan(China), which if it did not condemn the protest would be in direct violation of chinese law, law which they operate under. Which is why it talks about defending the pride of it's own country, because it comes from their chinese branch. You seem to be under impression J. Allen Brack or what me and you know as Blizzard posted that reply, that's not what happened.

Now if you were a company in china, operating under chinese law, what would you have done ?

if i were a company under china laws hmmm...how about say nothing and wait a little, not screwing over the whole company/brand pretty much everywhere outside china? because guess what? with that little stunt , blizzard will now be known in the public eyes as "that company who is against freedom of speech" congratufuckinglations clap clap clap

"political talks and views have no place on broadcasts and that those are against the rules and will be punished"

that is bullshit and you know that, the college team that held a sign saying "free HK boycott blizzard" received no punishment whatsoever,
and blizz will gladly exploit political issues if it means giving them some good guy points + money (overwatch i'm looking at you)

the harshness and swiftness of those punishments sounded more like sending a message(do not piss of china) than enforcing the rules

not to metion this drama went outside our little communty bubble ,we have US democrats/republican senators talking about this shit ,mainstream media taking shoots at blizz, and even some international headlines.

And after all that, blizzard still did not recovered from the whole diablo immortal/trying to appeal to the chinese smarthphone market fiasco

[glowpipe]

Wait you're not allowed to use reason and logic, you're cheating, gotta follow the outroararararararar

Atleast here i can try to use logic and reason. On reddit, where they are actively fighting censorship. They are rather quick on the downvote button on EVERYTHING they don't agree on. And you know what happens when posts get downvoted. It becomes less visible and eventualy hidden. They are fighting censorship by censoring posts they don't believe in

[Clozer]

if i were a company under china laws hmmm...how about say nothing and wait a little, not screwing over the whole company/brand pretty much everywhere outside china? because guess what? with that little stunt , blizzard will now be known in the public eyes as "that company who is against free speech" congratufuckinglations clap clap clap

"political talks and views have no place on broadcasts and that those are against the rules and will be punished"

that is bullshit and you know that, the college team that hold a sign "free HK boycott blizzard" receive no punishment whatsoever,
and blizz will gladly exploit political issues if it means giving them some good guy points + money (overwatch i'm looking at you)

harsh and swiftness of the punishment that went upon the HS pro player sounded more like sending a message(do not piss of china) than enforcing the rules

not to metion this drama went outside our little communty bubble ,we have US democrats/republican senators talking about this shit ,mainstream media taking at shoots at blizz, and even some international headlines.

And after all that, blizzard still did not recovered from the whole diablo immortal/trying to appeal to the chinese smarthphone market fiasco

If i wasnt on this forum, i would have never heard of this drama. There are always people who like a political standpoint and those who don't. If you ask chinese about their government they give you the same answer as if you were asking americans.

Games are about games. If i watch an esport-event i want esports and NOT politics. Blizzard is enforcing that. Imagine the dude said something about weapons after another mass shooting in america. The position he represents doesn't even matter. He would be banned for the same reason, but blitzchung was all of a sudden banned because of china and not because of abusing an esport event? Just be real. People want drama and nothing else.

[stormgust]

The other response comes from Blizzard Taiwan(China), which if it did not condemn the protest would be in direct violation of chinese law, law which they operate under. Which is why it talks about defending the pride of it's own country, because it comes from their chinese branch. You seem to be under impression J. Allen Brack or what me and you know as Blizzard posted that reply, that's not what happened.

Taiwan does not operate under chinese law though - and it hasn't ever since Chiang fled there from Mainland some decades ago.

Also - unless one is bound by chinese law himself - one would not refer to Taiwan as Taiwan(China), but simply Taiwan.

[Rhaide]

If six months and no removal of winnings was the initial penalty people wouldn't be as much up in arms as they are.

They corrected that mistake, time to move on. Whether you like it or not or choose not to believe them that's your choice.

I agree with you, but that isn't the point.

The point is that it shouldn't have taken the collective wrath of half the western internet to get them to do what they should have done in the first place.

What if this story hadn't caught on? Why is it OK for a company to only do the right thing if there are consequences otherwise.

I see where you're coming from, but the fact that they didn't do the right thing the first time around means they deserve some continuing skepticism.

- - - Updated - - -

If i wasnt on this forum, i would have never heard of this drama. There are always people who like a political standpoint and those who don't. If you ask chinese about their government they give you the same answer as if you were asking americans.

Games are about games. If i watch an esport-event i want esports and NOT politics. Blizzard is enforcing that. Imagine the dude said something about weapons after another mass shooting in america. The position he represents doesn't even matter. He would be banned for the same reason, but blitzchung was all of a sudden banned because of china and not because of abusing an esport event? Just be real. People want drama and nothing else.

There's 0% chance that if he said we need to end school shootings that he would have been fined $10,000 and banned for a year. You are definitely wrong.

[Clozer]

There's 0% chance that if he said we need to end school shootings that he would have been fined $10,000 and banned for a year. You are definitely wrong.

"Imagine the dude said something about weapons after another mass shooting in America."

And you respond with nobody is banned from saying stop school shootings? What?

[ProphetFlume]

I think history's got my back on this one.

[dhru2]

So a US company is supporting a communist country with dictatorship?

[Miross]

If i wasnt on this forum, i would have never heard of this drama. There are always people who like a political standpoint and those who don't. If you ask chinese about their government they give you the same answer as if you were asking americans.

i'll play my doubt card on that ..

Games are about games. If i watch an esport-event i want esports and NOT politics. Blizzard is enforcing that. Imagine the dude said something about weapons after another mass shooting in america. The position he represents doesn't even matter. He would be banned for the same reason, but blitzchung was all of a sudden banned because of china and not because of abusing an esport event? Just be real. People want drama and nothing else.

here we go again ... did you even read my previous comment?

"that is bullshit and you know that, the college team that held a sign saying "free HK boycott blizzard" received no punishment whatsoever,
and blizz will gladly exploit political issues if it means giving them some good guy points + money (overwatch i'm looking at you)"

if he shouted , things like more lgbt pride, black lives matter, any feminist thing like the wage gap, i doubt he would receive any punishment

and even if he shouted things like hitler did nothing wrong or pro mass shootings, blizzard would not be so harsh at him and the 2 broadcasters . Like you said yourself just be real....

the enforcement of the rules will be bend accordingly with blizzard interests



"the right thing to do, would be something like a disclaimer saying "we blizzard are a company and as such we are neutral in political issues , the political views of our players are their own and they do not speak in behalf of the company" and give him a warning and then banning him on a possible second time"

[Elestia]

What rules? He failed to cite any codification or contractual clause.

Also, why would "rules" trump obvious humanitarian abuse? Sure, Blizzard wants to be neutral - they can stay that way and not get involved. The fact that they've gotten involved is the problem. It shows a voluntary bias for Chinese interests: silence, subdue and smother.


I'm sorry, but I really don't buy this explanation. Making this about equity of feelings for your China gamers is insane. Hong Kong won the tournament, why wouldn't he throw it in China's face?



Blizzard is way in the wrong. Any Chinese citizen with a conscious would tell you their country is in the wrong. Blizzard... is it really so hard to be on the right side? Get the fuck out of China.

[Kauko]

He wanted to bring attention to issue as every protester does. And he surely succeded.

Attention? Is this a joke? He was laughing, shoutcasters were laughing... This was an act of childish behaviour. If you want to bring attention you are serious about it, not laughing like a 10y old that did something funny in class...

[Tiwack]

I hear China wants Hong Kong to force Chinese criminals to be extradited to face the punishment for their crimes.

Maybe if the government in both places wasn't corrupt to boot the populations in Hong Kong and across the internet would believe that that was all that law was going to do.

[Ihazpaws]

Every streamer, youtuber and other content creators should put winnie the pooh on their stream and be like it's not even there.
As a example artists could draw their artwork so that it looks like winnie the pooh and still be like: "this is a nice drawing of a Goku in a fighting scene".
Body painter artists should do a body painting of winnie the pooh and call it Xi.
Composers could make a winnie the pooh themed music etc.

And so on.

All this should happen in 1 day/for 1 week.

[Miross]

Attention? Is this a joke? He was laughing, shoutcasters were laughing... This was an act of childish behaviour. If you want to bring attention you are serious about it, not laughing like a 10y old that did something funny in class...

you know that even tho he's laughting/joking , things there are fucked up, and he could have an "unfortunately accident" after he brought international attention even if for a moment for the Hong kong thing

[EasyE]

Man, MMO Champ forums is a echo chamber of manlets that have no knowledge of how the real world works.

[TheRagebear]

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六*天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門*屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle *躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化*革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯* 唐古* Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 *想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪*法 *法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 *紀元時報 *評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门

[Sorcath]

Man, MMO Champ forums is a echo chamber of manlets that have no knowledge of how the real world works.

Tell me more, CNN, but this time use a small child. lol who uses manlet and can look themselves in the mirror? Sad world

[Whiskyjack]

Why do both posts read the same? Blizzard shouldn't have the same level of English as a Chinese (?) Player.