Blizzard Suspends Hearthstone Player For Hong Kong Support, Pulls Prize Money

[rrayy]

Well, you're not wrong about that last part; the US Supreme Court has established that the First Amendment does not apply to obscenity (though what is considered obscene has changed considerably over time). I can't comment on the exact circumstances you're referencing without knowing more, but it's possible there was concern over it veering too close to child pornography.

The US Supreme Court did rule that animated child porn was legal because it was considered art, however.

[Tech614]

Fair cop, I thought there had been a thread here ages back about some Japanese Loli- game being banned in America; but it may simply have been the publisher didn't want to/bother to release it in America or chose not to after negative backlash. Thought maybe there was an "obscenity" workaround to the first amendment.

Mostly its just late and I'm dense

There is no legal grounds to ban any game in the US. Certain platform holders will refuse to allow you to release a game on their platform if you don't have an ESRB rating or if it's AO rated, but that's not the law it's the platform holders own rules for releasing on their platform.

Steam is pretty much the wild west and will allow anything but even if you have a game steam says no to, there is no US laws stopping you from releasing it for sale and download on your own website.

[tmamass]

Yeah, that was you. China is in no way required to make a profit or money. Blizzard can very easily be a profitable company without doing business with China. It won't be as lucrative, but it can be done. Blizzard makes and develops it's game here. It is no way reliant on anyone in China to make the game. So, they don't have to rely on China to be profitable either. A lot different obviously if your goods are made there, but Blizzard's good aren't made there.

so thanks for admitting that you FAILED economics, you dont just ignore a huge market like china...

So? Sucks to be them then. If they have a problem with it, then maybe they should rise up and take care of what cost them the chance. That is the only way it will stop. The whole world is complicit in this.

Its not Blizzards job to topple governments...grow up kid its YOUR job to do so. best u start cleaning that shit house of of your government?

America does not come close to what China has done.

what?????
are you always lying this much to yourself???
america does torture people, puts KIDS(!) in cages!, spies on everyone (see Snowden and similar whistleblowers), shits on human rights, kills people with drones, has more racism then anywhere else on the world, etc etc

You don't see the US bullying other countries into silencing their anti-US protestors do you?

oh sheep: the US is the BIGGEST bully there is:

On the 01.07.2013, the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, left another airport in Moscow, Vnukovo, in his Bolivian state plane after attending the annual Gas Exporting Countries Forum. The US government, suspecting that I [Edward Snowden] was onboard due to President Morales’s expressions of solidarity, pressured the governments of Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal to deny the plane access to their airspace, and succeeded in diverting it to Vienna, Austria. There it was grounded, searched, and only allowed to continue on its journey once no traces of me were found.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...f30_story.html

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Because being abused and killed by your own governemt is so much better, right?

so you are a hypocrit?
cause when China shits on human rights its bad but the fact that the USA is doing it is okay for you?

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Honestly the one thing I encourage people to do is to avoid as much "made in China" products. It's not the easiest thing and will be pretty restrictive.

that wouldnt allow you to ever use a smartphone again....

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But I guess it is OK by you for their people to be slaughtered and abused by their government as long as you can make money off of them.

sounds like the american business model. "there is oil in country xyz!" "lets liberate them!"...

[rrayy]

so thanks for admitting that you FAILED economics, you dont just ignore a huge market like china...

Nothing of what you say makes any sense, other than your continued insistance that you need to do business with China to be profitable show me you are completely clueless about economics. YOu need to quit while you are behind.

Its not Blizzards job to topple governments...grow up kid its YOUR job to do so. best u start cleaning that shit house of of your government?

Who is asking Blizzard to topple a government? They are being asked to not do business with a country that is full of human rights absues and silences free speech.

what?????
are you always lying this much to yourself???
america does torture people, puts KIDS(!) in cages!, spies on everyone (see Snowden and similar whistleblowers), shits on human rights, kills people with drones, has more racism then anywhere else on the world, etc etc

What drugs are you on? The US never put kids in cages. They do not torturew anyone. Edward Snowden? LOL he is a traitor of this country wqho committed treason. Why do you think he hides in countries that won't extradite him? The fact you are even trying to equate the US to China in anyway is laughable.

oh sheep: the US is the BIGGEST bully there is:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...f30_story.html

Your hero, Edward Snowden, is a traitor who committed treason. That is in no way bullying.

[tmamass]

Nobody is suggesting that totalitarian regimes will go down without a fight.

you really think people in one town will bring down china? this aint the small GDR!

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Who is asking Blizzard to topple a government? They are being asked to not do business with a country that is full of human rights absues and silences free speech.

Is that irony coming from the country with as much human rights abuse as the USA?

The US never put kids in cages. They do not torturew anyone. Edward Snowden? LOL he is a traitor of this country wqho committed treason. Why do you think he hides in countries that won't extradite him? The fact you are even trying to equate the US to China in anyway is laughable.

So you an us nazi who think his shit government cant do any wrong, gotcha.

[Infraction]

That is in no way bullying.

yes forcing a plane to land, that WAS bullying 1on1.

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The US never put kids in cages.

I know you are closing both Eyes to the SHIT YOUR county does
https://www.vox.com/2018/6/11/174431...arated-parents
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/ne...hts-defenders/

but go on, be an edgy sheep and protest for hong kong while human rights are violated right in front of your door and YOU let it happen.

PS: In case you wanna start change start reading this: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/201.../united-states

[Remilia]

that wouldnt allow you to ever use a smartphone again....

It's like you didn't read literally my next suggestions.

[Kallisto]

The whataboutism is getting kind of old...

Honestly the one thing I encourage people to do is to avoid as much "made in China" products. It's not the easiest thing and will be pretty restrictive.

Some examples.
Phone wise, you can buy from Sony, Samsung or LG. Sony mobile is Thailand. Samsung is India, South Korea and Vietnam (India one tends to be sold in India). LG is now Vietnam. Assuming I'm remembering correctly, they moved around a bunch this year.

Headphones. Sony I know comes from Malaysia for their WF/WH lines, unsure about the others. Samsung I believe comes from Vietnam.

Computer parts gets trickier though.
For the most part, DRAM comes from South Korea, US or Japan. It does tend to get assembled all over the place though.
Motherboard is absurdly hard to come by cheaply outside of China. Asus and Gigabyte (iirc) have some factories in Taiwan but they're not all of it, so it's quite hard to find out where's what.
GPU, same thing applies from above.
SSD, actually unsure, forgot which comes from where. Could just go with Crucial or Samsung iirc... (don't quote me on this :P)
CPU, it's going to be either manufactured by Intel (US or Israel) or AMD (TSMC, Taiwan's).
PSU you'll have trouble finding bar the obvious Coolermaster MIJ (made in Japan) one that's basically server quality and absurdly expensive. SeaSonic had lines in their Taiwan factories but you'll need to research to find out which are from where. Similar designs that move to China typically also get a name change.
Monitors, guaranteed ones are Eizo. They're made in Japan (love my Eizo FG2421 ) they're also expensive to boot but really well built, which imo is worth it. BenQ has facilities in Mexico, Malaysia, Taiwan and China, so it's a toss up there.
Keyboard, get a Ducky, made in Taiwan. They're also awesomely built.

Some of the problems though is that these countries are just as bad or near to China in issues. India and kashmir oppression for one.

Thailand is pushing once again towards absolute monrchism with military crackdowns every year or so.

No issues with Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. Vietnam is communist in a similar way to China, just hate on China being the difference which is why they all but slipped into US influence.

[Remilia]

Some of the problems though is that these countries are just as bad or near to China in issues. India and kashmir oppression for one.

Thailand is pushing once again towards absolute monrchism with military crackdowns every year or so.

No issues with Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. Vietnam is communist in a similar way to China, just hate on China being the difference which is why they all but slipped into US influence.

Yeah it's not perfect but it's one of the lesser evils.

[breadisfunny]

man, this has turned into a bad situation.

us free speech bros fucked up. we cracked the door, and the enemy burst through it.

instead of jumping on them about banning him, we should have been jumping on them to enforce their rules equally. want no politics? then put your money where your mouth is and stop having politics you agree with in your streams.

now it's too late though, that goddamned demon fucker soros has found an opening. now we're gonna get slammed with political shit constantly in all this shit.

wtf are you even referring to?

[derpkitteh]

wtf are you even referring to?

one of the groups planning to protest at blizzcon is one of soros' non-profit organizations.

all this outrage has told blizzard that we want politics in their events and games. this could open the door to them pushing their politics in their games and events even more than they already do.

[breadisfunny]

this is a political issue.....so what's the problem with having a political group at a protest involving a POLITICAL ISSUE?

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As someone who is not happy with blizzard shilling for China, I’m going to be pissed if protesters inconvenience me at BlizzCon.

because blizzcon is more important than human rights. got it.

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Omg people can't understand we don't want politics in games? Blizzard did the right thing.

i hear if you bury your face in the sand long enough nasty stuff goes away.

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But he kinda has a point.
You are showing outrage yet you are paying and supporting the company entirely.
What does that make us?

what about the people who just play the FREE TO PLAY titles and don't spend anything in protest? are they contributing to blizzard's profit margin?

[derpkitteh]

this is a political issue.....so what's the problem with having a political group at a protest involving a POLITICAL ISSUE?

besides the fact he's an evil piece of shit and anything he's ever involved in makes western society worse? i don't actually want politics in my games.

i don't want this to make them change their rules, i want this to make them enforce their rules equally. no politics ANYWHERE.

[Dhrizzle]

Because being abused and killed by your own governemt is so much better, right? But I guess you don;'t care because it isn't you. And don't kid yourself. Blizzard only levied the punishment because they were in fear of losing business. IF it had been said about anti-US protestors, they wouldn't have done a damn thing. The decision was only about the bottom line. Period.

Do you have any examples of this? Anyone on Blizzard streams who have put out a "Trump sucks" or "Trump rocks" or "bollocks to Brexit" or "Bollocks to the EU" message that Blizzard allowed without any punishment?

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Posting here does not = giving Blizzard money. And since I use WoW tokens for my sub, I don't give them a dime of my own money. And when my current sub runs out, I am done.

If you grinded gold for someone so they'd pay for your sub then Blizzard are still getting money including an extra little bit for playing the middle man.

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Prove it. I GUARANTEE Blizzard wouldn't have done anything to a Trump protestor because it wouldn't cost them money. That is all they care about. Blizzard has a long history of only caring about money.

I GUARANTEE they wouldn't and I used all-caps and bold text! And if you can only see things in terms of the bottom line, they'd want to keep divisive politics out of streams to avoid turning off customers. They'd keep away "fuck Trump" protestors so they won't lose Trump-supporting customers etc.

Obviously I might be wrong, but do you have any examples of Blizz allowing divisive protests?

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No they didn't. The only government involvement was the rating the game was given. No government approval needed and none had to be asked for. Unlike China.

The involvement isn't as strong, but don't you need some sort of license to manufacture or import products to sell in the USA, and won't a portion of the revenue from sales go to the government as tax?

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wtf are you even referring to?

derpkitteh is a walking advertisement for why parents need to monitor what content their kids are consuming on the internet, I think they usually just parrot whatever paranoid bullshit has been spun by the infinite monkeys of /pol/

[Matiketope]

THAT is your argument? why arent you protesting Apple? people working for apple in china have committed suicide and yet there is no change. Where is your outrage about that?

That's your question? If one not can critisize on a thing just because there are tons of other things that are worthy of judgement?

Also why do you think I haven't been criticizing other companies? You some NSA wannabe?

Llike MMO-champion is the only channel I use. Daah..

Also, Apple has been in my boycott-list for over a decade.

"Why are you not cross-dressing? Seems like you're against women and transgender people" /sinking logic

[Mayhem]

And I'll also argue you're wrong because they sure as hell didn't ban those guys playing while holding the HK slogan, even though I checked the 2 sets of rules for grandmaster and normal and it's almost exactly the same just worded slightly diffrently.

So not the same. You're a joke, really.

And I did have problems with their social moralites, I just have high tolerance and don't go about creating threads on mmo-champ to sperg out my displeasure. This one crossed the line however (and I've been paying attention to Hong Kong protests for a few months back when it started) and I know there's alot here that are angry as well and you spit in their face trying to convince them that their anger isn't justified and that we should all just drop whole thing, becasue who cares.

Yeah, you've been paying attention, except to Blitzchung who this is all about, because what he wrote is entirely different from what you're suggesting. Fake outrage is fake.

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As much as citizens criticizing their governments are hypocrites if they stick around instead of running to another nation.

I hope this is a joke.

[Yunru]

So....people lost a job in american company for giving a like on facebook free hong kong post:


Also lol jims video got taken down in private.

[Jshadowhunter]

So....people lost a job in american company for giving a like on facebook free hong kong post:

Also lol jims video got taken down in private.

That's cuz he realized he put up a pic of Japan by mistake so he took it down to fix it so he'll reupload it.
https://twitter.com/JimSterling/stat...615105539?s=20

[Breccia]

Okay, I've been avoiding this topic because I didn't think it was a big deal, but apparently I was wrong. It's being covered by Reuters now.

Blizzard Entertainment cuts punishment for gamer in Hong Kong protests row

U.S. games publisher Blizzard Entertainment has reduced the punishment dealt out to a Hong Kong-based Hearthstone esports gamer for his public support of pro-democracy protests after its decision sparked controversy among players and the public.

Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard which is partly backed by Chinese gaming giant Tencent Holdings, said last week that it would suspend the player Chung “blitzchung” Ng Wai from competition for a year and strip him of prize money after he called for the liberation of Hong Kong in a post-game interview.

Blizzard became the latest corporate name to get caught up in tensions relating to the Hong Kong protests, garnering it support in China but also drawing criticism from fans, players and commentators in the West, some of whom said that they would stop working with Blizzard as a result of its decision.

However on Saturday, Blizzard said it had decided to cut Chung’s punishment to a six-month suspension and would still award him his prize money, with its president J. Allen Brack saying the company had “reacted too quickly” in making its decision.

Brack said that Chung still had to be penalized as he had violated rules, but that his specific views were not a factor in the decision.

“I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision,” he said in a post on Blizzard’s website.

[Jshadowhunter]

Also lol jims video got taken down in private.

Here it is again

[SirBeef]

Some of the problems though is that these countries are just as bad or near to China in issues. India and kashmir oppression for one.

Thailand is pushing once again towards absolute monrchism with military crackdowns every year or so.

No issues with Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. Vietnam is communist in a similar way to China, just hate on China being the difference which is why they all but slipped into US influence.

Not to mention the precious minerals used in this components that make up phones not produced in China come from Chinese owned mines in China and Africa. So there really is no getting around this. Being mad at Blizzard and screaming about it or boycotting it does nothing but make the individual feel good about doing nothing. This is low hanging fruit. It's the easiest way to say your are doing something without actually doing anything.

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That's your question? If one not can critisize on a thing just because there are tons of other things that are worthy of judgement?

Also why do you think I haven't been criticizing other companies? You some NSA wannabe?

Llike MMO-champion is the only channel I use. Daah..

Also, Apple has been in my boycott-list for over a decade.

"Why are you not cross-dressing? Seems like you're against women and transgender people" /sinking logic

Nice shitty strawman at the end there. But the Apple thing is spot on. Apple has more influence, is a bigger brand, and does more to actually promote human rights violations in China than a stupid fuck up by a regional office of Blizzard.