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

[Yarathir]

Hello sheep, my name is logic and reason! Nice to meet you!

"Sheep."

Now that's comical.

[therealbowser]

The player who was suspended, Blitz something has released a statement and thanked Blizzard. He was being humble. Clearly he isn't outraged like you guys are, thus there's no reason for you to be.

If he acts outraged, he will get himself into deeper shit. He is trying to prevent a bad situation from being worse. It's not rocket science. If he acted "outraged" it would gain him nothing; if he isn't pissed off/upset about this to some degree, I would be surprised.

[Yarathir]

I wonder what the boots of a bootlicker taste like.. some here might be able to tell.

[GUZ]

Some people really are this cynical? Humanity disgusts me.

yeah you right trash people tell me about it glad to see someone else agrees

- - - Updated - - -

And yet you wasted your extremely valuable time clicking into the article, then posting this worthless comment. Clearly you actually have nothing better to do, so what does it matter?

i did not read it

[Mardux]

Most people don't even know WHY Hong Kong is having protests, even if they know about the "extradition bill" they don't know why it even started.

Or that the extradition bill was squashed a while back.

[Clbull]

Apparently, based on the way the statement is worded and the time it came out, it's very likely that J Allen Brack's "statement" didn't come from him but rather a Chinese person.

[Tarx]

Blizzard did the right thing. Games are games not political party.

[Clbull]

Or that the extradition bill was squashed a while back.

First of all, Hong Kong's extradition bill was not quashed. Carrie Lam put it on hold in the hopes of sneaking it in later.

Secondly, the Hong Kong protesters have five demands, and here is why these demands are being made:

1. The complete withdrawal of the extradition bill - As mentioned before, Carrie Lam did not withdraw the bill. The bill is controversial because it allows Taiwan, Macau and China to request the extradition of any Hong Kong citizen to face trial in the mainland. It was originally introduced because someone last year murdered their pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan, flew back to Hong Kong, admitted to his crime but was unable to be extradited to face trial in Taiwan because they didn't have a formal extradition treaty with Hong Kong. This bill has many dangers, like China being able to request the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to face trial in China. Given China's free speech and human rights record, that's very scary indeed.

2. The government to withdraw the use of the word “riot” in relation to protests - The protesters are being labelled as rioters by the government and authorities and this is being used to justify suppression by force.

3. The unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them dropped - A lot of protesters have been arrested and charged by the Hong Kong police for rioting related offences.

4. An independent inquiry into police behaviour - This should go without saying. There have been documented cases of police brutality which has ignited the anger of the Hong Kong public.

5. Implementation of genuine universal suffrage - Not only do the public want Carrie Lam to resign, but they want completely free elections. Several years ago, China interfered with their last election and disqualified candidates they did not like from running.

[FelPlague]

Look it up again. It was a DIRECT quote FROM Blizzard, from their office in China. It wasn't another company, it wasn't some PR firm, it was BLIZZARD.

Yes, yes it is, look it up yourself. That is netease. They are required to run blizzard china media team. As china doesn't like foreginers sending direct messages to their people... That's why they even have their own version of twitter

- - - Updated - - -

But their office in China is Netease, Netease is the company that runs Blizzards games in China.

They also make their own games. Tournaments. And partner with MANY other companies like Bungie when they gave them 100 million. They are also the ones making Diablo immortal

[ringpriest]

Or that the extradition bill was squashed a while back.

Much like Blizzard, Lam's government consistently did too little, too late - the 'extradition bill' was introduced in February, with the first protest at the end of March; protests hit a peak in the first half of June, with protesters listing demands that included, but were not limited, to the withdrawal of the extradition bill. (Full demands are: the total withdrawal of the extradition bill, the retraction of all references to the 12 June protest being a riot, the release of all arrested protesters; and accountability for police officers who used excessive force.) In July Lam declared the bill "dead" but still refused to withdraw it, and in September, she announced that the bill would be withdrawn in October and dismissed the protesters other demands. It has since emerged that Lam had to get Winne the Pooh's okay before withdrawing the extradition bill, which rather proves the protesters ultimate point: the PRC is not honoring its commitment to a half-century of non-interference with Hong Kong's internal government (and sets a bad precedent for the China - what other formal commitments will President Pooh be violating in years to come?)

[ThatsOurEric]

You've failed me yet again Starscream.

[Onikaroshi]

First of all, Hong Kong's extradition bill was not quashed. Carrie Lam put it on hold in the hopes of sneaking it in later.

Secondly, the Hong Kong protesters have five demands, and here is why these demands are being made:

1. The complete withdrawal of the extradition bill - As mentioned before, Carrie Lam did not withdraw the bill. The bill is controversial because it allows Taiwan, Macau and China to request the extradition of any Hong Kong citizen to face trial in the mainland. It was originally introduced because someone last year murdered their pregnant girlfriend in Taiwan, flew back to Hong Kong, admitted to his crime but was unable to be extradited to face trial in Taiwan because they didn't have a formal extradition treaty with Hong Kong. This bill has many dangers, like China being able to request the extradition of Hong Kong citizens to face trial in China. Given China's free speech and human rights record, that's very scary indeed.

2. The government to withdraw the use of the word “riot” in relation to protests - The protesters are being labelled as rioters by the government and authorities and this is being used to justify suppression by force.

3. The unconditional release of arrested protesters and charges against them dropped - A lot of protesters have been arrested and charged by the Hong Kong police for rioting related offences.

4. An independent inquiry into police behaviour - This should go without saying. There have been documented cases of police brutality which has ignited the anger of the Hong Kong public.

5. Implementation of genuine universal suffrage - Not only do the public want Carrie Lam to resign, but they want completely free elections. Several years ago, China interfered with their last election and disqualified candidates they did not like from running.

1. yes the bill was too broad, but it is a messy situation on the status of Taiwan. Apparently China can't or won't recognize Taiwan (forget which), but in the end something needs to be done on a more limited sense, you can't just let a murder roam free but you also can't leave the citizens of Hong Kong open to persecution like that from China.

2.Not all the protesters were peaceful, some of what was going on could definitely be labeled rioting, which leads into

3. Not all arrested protesters were innocent of crimes, unconditional release is just a silly thing to ask for.

4. is definitely something anyone can agree with, police everywhere should always be held to a standard and if they overstep that it should be looked into, independently. This goes for every country, especially America right now.

5. Is just a bit much to ask, I know why they want it, and support their Ideal, but it'll never happen.

[ringpriest]

Pushing their propaganda? He broke rules of their tournament on their stream. If he wanted to support HK he could do it on his own social media. You are only bashing blizzard because it suits you and your views of the world, what about the other side? People who don't support these protests in HK. Right, fuck them, they are not important I guess. Blizzard can't allow people mix in politics into their stream because not everybody agrees with them. Someone always gets offended.

If you think otherwise you are delusional.

If you claim that Blizzard saying, "We are very angered and disappointed at what happened at the event... We will always respect and defend the pride of our country" is anything but PRC propaganda, you're a sock (either de jure or de facto).

[Corroc]

Apparently, based on the way the statement is worded and the time it came out, it's very likely that J Allen Brack's "statement" didn't come from him but rather a Chinese person.

I love this, the dude in twitter isn't saying anything other than "this looks suspicous" and suddenly he is linguistics expert. People answered to that tweet "I'm also billingual and I agree with this". This is literally only real argument they have but for some reason news outlets are picking every single thing without actual checking the facts.

edit. The best part about this is that the february post that people are referring to is post about the layoff which is most likely written by someone not named Barack since its 100% corp speech aimed at employees while the new one is aimed more towards the gamers.

[Kallisto]

Perhaps take a moment to think before you post instead of racing to be one of the first few ...

People get fired on Fridays because everyone goes home for the weekend, most don't find out until Monday, and by then it has started to become old news, with the fired individual hopefully also having cooled off as well. So it flies under the radar as much as possible.

This situation is the opposite. They released the news on a Friday when it'll sit on MMO champ's front page all weekend with no other Blizz news of consequence to compete with it. As well, most gamers are home and playing and reading and chilling out, so it's quite literally the opposite of trying to fly under the radar since it'll garner the maximum sized number of eyes at the maximum busiest time of the week.

Also, for bonus points. Perhaps you don't spend much time in publicly listed corporate America ... but yes, that equates to as much of an apology as any corporation will ever issue publicly for something like this.

Cheers.

Never got the under the radar now thing.

For a company whose playerbase would be at their peak during the weekends this is the worst time to put it under the rader. When there's no 8.3 update, no gaming news in general to come out. It's like the last thing that will be posted on MMOchampion frontpage for 2-3 days, stuck there for everyone to see front and centre when they log in.

If it is some "Trying to avoid media." well I don't think anyone in america thinks media runs 9-5 mon to friday. It's a 24/7 brigade that in reality needs to cut down in hours because of all the useless shit the 24/7 news media runs because they need to fill in the dead hours so sensationalise.

If they wanted under the rader it would be midweek when they're about to flood about 5 pages of new information.

[Selinde]

Apparently, based on the way the statement is worded and the time it came out, it's very likely that J Allen Brack's "statement" didn't come from him but rather a Chinese person.

That's some tinfoil hat level bs if I've ever seen one myself

[Absintheminded]

They didn't even acknowledge the Weibo post. That's some next level under the rug shit. Fuck them.

[Maquegyver]

Why are people so upset over King Kong... He is an angry gorilla?

This is no different than the NFL and Kurt Kaptain or whatever his name is. Its their league, their game, etc. They can do whatever the fuck they want. Frankly I don't give a shit about politics within a sport/game/etc. Keep that shit on your twitter or blog.

[Jtbrig7390]

Blizzard: Support Pride Day by buying our rainbow colored skins and rainbow colored loot box's. By the way Tracer is gay and here is a comic about it.....

Blizzard: DON'T YOU DARE SAY ANYTHING POLITICAL AT OUR TOURNAMENTS OR IN OUR VIDEO GAMES.

Fucken Hypocrites.

[Nagawithlegs]

Gay people existing isn't political, no matter how much people try to make it.