Blizzard / Hong Kong controversy

pixelburp

Given recent events, I'd be very surprised if any controversy or discomfort for ActiBlizzard occurs. They'll surely have everything twice as scripted and planned as usual.

PostWoke

There's already controversy with prez's completely hollow apology where he doesn't even mention Blitzchung's name.

But I more expect the hilarity to come from civilians attending the con, or those not being let in for reasons haha.

Diablo IV looked nice and grimdark until gameplay, not impressive at all visually IMO. Very janky animation and flat lighting.

Retr0gamer

Blizzard can apologise all they want but if they aren't going to address what they should be apologising for or admit how wrong they were then they are effectively apologising for nothing and being slimy business scum.

**** off blizzard

Arcadeheroes

This was the perfect time for Blizzard to address the situation using their platform in highlighting what will they do going forward but unfortunately whatever apology they tried to express felt very PR and leaves the whole Blizzcon tainted .

Of course this whole situation goes beyond videogames and Blizzard as many of us around the world already live in a censored world because of China without realising it .

If we look at how many countries including ours disregard Taiwan as an actual Country , is actually quite disgusting .

But in the end Blizzard really needs to think about how they handle business in the future and cop on.

Sonics2k

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Blizzard can apologise all they want but if they aren't going to address what they should be apologising for or admit how wrong they were then they are effectively apologising for nothing and being slimy business scum.

**** off blizzard

When he started speaking I was really hoping he'd say something worth while. Instead it was really just more lip service that sounded good, but meant nothing at all.

pixelburp

Buuuuut, when the dust settles, we've seen time and again that the gaming community is disinterested and demotivated as a consumer base, the concerned either lacking critical mass and / or follow through. Blizzard likely know that the groundswell will talk a good game of outrage, but that they'll still buy the Overwatch or Diablo seauels. Now that's not being holier than thou mind, I'm posting with a Huawei phone so mea culpa, but this particular hobby struggles to maintain a strong sense of consumer pushback.

EoinHef

Seems they went with the big hitter sequel announcements,my guess is to try distract people.

The fact those games are nowhere near release is ridiculous though.

Gunmonkey

EoinHef wrote: »

Seems they went with the big hitter sequel announcements,my guess is to try distract people.

The fact those games are nowhere near release is ridiculous though.

Well they needed to put Diablo 4 front a center after the cluster**** last year with "Is this an out of season Aprils Fool joke?" and "Do you guys not have phones?"

EoinHef

Gunmonkey wrote: »

Well they needed to put Diablo 4 front a center after the cluster**** last year with "Is this an out of season Aprils Fool joke?" and "Do you guys not have phones?"

Yeah had a good chuckle at that last year.

The fact its release platforms are PC,PS4 and Xbox One means we should see it before the end of next year.

Varik

They've a few people streaming it now, only a slice of the game but don't think it's too far off.

EoinHef

Yeah its kinda conflicting info,below from PCGamer:

During the panel, Blizzard also said that Diablo 4's release is a long ways off. "We are not coming out soon. Not even 'Blizzard soon'," said director Luis Barriga.

But it has to be before end of year next year other wise it would be PC,PS5 and Xbox Scarlett.

Id say they will make a next gen version but likely launch on current consoles first. Or maybe it will launch only on current consoles after PS5 Xbox Scarlett have released and only be on those systems down the road.

Clear as mud:P

Robert ninja

pixelburp wrote: »

Buuuuut, when the dust settles, we've seen time and again that the gaming community is disinterested and demotivated as a consumer base, the concerned either lacking critical mass and / or follow through.

Mainstream media like to paint that picture however things like the Epic Game Store exclusivity and Blizzard's unethical and unfair treatment of players has been downplayed or defended by them before and people seem to have had enough. Players in mass unsubscribed/stopped playing Blizzard titles, others refrain from buying from EGS if the game got snatched by an exclusivity deal. Single player games are still massively popular. Ubisoft is tanking in profits and being forced to make a change. The EA brand is as good as dead and Kotaku and similar outlets have lost credibility, profitability and readership.

Seems to me people are sticking to their guns about a lot of issues.

Kiith

People (or the vast majority) haven't stopped playing Blizzard games because of their treatment of employees or their politics. It's the games themselves. BFA has been a bit of a disaster for Blizzard, and with Starcraft and Diablo 3 at the end of the life, Overwatch is the only other thing people have been interested in.

Classic shows that people are quite happy to ignore all the scandals in the world, as long as they get the game they want.

pixelburp

Robert ninja wrote: »

Mainstream media like to paint that picture however things like the Epic Game Store exclusivity and Blizzard's unethical and unfair treatment of players has been downplayed or defended by them before and people seem to have had enough. Players in mass unsubscribed/stopped playing Blizzard titles, others refrain from buying from EGS if the game got snatched by an exclusivity deal. Single player games are still massively popular. Ubisoft is tanking in profits and being forced to make a change. The EA brand is as good as dead and Kotaku and similar outlets have lost credibility, profitability and readership.

Seems to me people are sticking to their guns about a lot of issues.

Would love to see some stats on the "Players in mass unsubscribed/stopped playing Blizzard titles". Or indeed how you construe this as some gamer mobilisation. Perhaps in recent weeks - if the stats back it up - but then the protests at Blizzcon are thin on the ground AFAIK. As Kiith says, many games are end of life by all accounts.

The EA brand is as good as dead? According to who, the think pieces on the net that you then also take a pop at? Random internet surveys around the "worst company in America"? Unless FIFA sales have dipped, there's no sign the yearly sports iterations are dropping support (isn't 2Ks NBA title doing gangbusters?), while CoD continues to dominate in the non sports iterations.

I'll say one thing: public pressure and gamer backlash is responsible for EA et al being under pressure from governments and regulators over their gambling-not-gambling. But part of that pressure came from ... ... mainstream media. Cos, you know, it's mainstream. That thing you're saying folks are ignoring.

Ubisoft, assuming what you say is true, of course would be faltering because they decided that they could effectively shovel out the same game N times over, ever year, and see constant success. What a shock that yearly assassin's creed or far cry games weren't a constant appeal.

What you're describing IMO is the market kicking back against this inane idea that profits and growth are infinite, an affliction that tech companies in general suffer from if you extend the criticism towards the likes of Uber, WeWork and other corps gone wild. At the ground level though, I don't believe gamers' online angst tracks at the point it counts.

But then something something kotaku?

Robert ninja

I just see players actually making a pushback and I think it's to be celebrated. Quite sick of the doom and gloom when this is the most action consumers have made in gaming in a long time about things like this.

pixelburp wrote: »

Would love to see some stats on the "Players in mass unsubscribed/stopped playing Blizzard titles".

Maybe them disabling the ability to cancel subscriptions wasn't a big enough sign? Other companies did that exact same thing when a controversy happened and they wanted a to keep a death grip on fleeing customers. Pretty obvious what's happening. Forums, social media, reddit, image boards were full of players saying they won't play X game anymore or showing screenshots of unsubscribing. It won't kill the company but it shows enough players reacted: That's a good thing. But sure just downplay it because gamers bad m'kay.

As for Kotaku: It's their parent company overall
https://www.gamerevolution.com/news/611360-kotaku-deadspin-gawker-fight-back-go-media
https://www.thedailybeast.com/farmers-insurance-pulls-million-dollar-ad-campaign-with-go-media-after-editorial-staff-raises-hell
https://ftw.usatoday.com/2019/10/deadspin-rip

PostWoke

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Blizzard can apologise all they want but if they aren't going to address what they should be apologising for or admit how wrong they were then they are effectively apologising for nothing and being slimy business scum.

**** off blizzard

1000%

pixelburp wrote: »

Buuuuut, when the dust settles, we've seen time and again that the gaming community is disinterested and demotivated as a consumer base, the concerned either lacking critical mass and / or follow through. Blizzard likely know that the groundswell will talk a good game of outrage, but that they'll still buy the Overwatch or Diablo seauels. Now that's not being holier than thou mind, I'm posting with a Huawei phone so mea culpa, but this particular hobby struggles to maintain a strong sense of consumer pushback.

"So let's not bother at all" is your argument here?

Robert ninja wrote: »

Mainstream media

lol can you give me even one example of the evil MaInStReAm MeDiA painting this picture? It's users themselves that do this, dropping all objections and salivating as soon as they release a CG trailer for a game 3-4 years away. Mainstream media boogeyman lmfao.

K.O.Kiki

pixelburp wrote: »

Buuuuut, when the dust settles, we've seen time and again that the gaming community is disinterested and demotivated as a consumer base, the concerned either lacking critical mass and / or follow through. Blizzard likely know that the groundswell will talk a good game of outrage, but that they'll still buy the Overwatch or Diablo seauels. Now that's not being holier than thou mind, I'm posting with a Huawei phone so mea culpa, but this particular hobby struggles to maintain a strong sense of consumer pushback.

Overwatch has lifetime sales of 50 million.
Diablo has lifetime sales of over 30 million.

Would you feck off with this "all gamers" malarkey.
Fact is, all consumer bases do not have to agree with each other's views.
If people still want to use games for fun / reward the artists & programmers who have nothing to do with upper management, let them.

PostWoke

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

reward the artists & programmers

This is a very weak and disingenuous excuse to buy a product because you want to, not caring that the studio cowtows to a government that is pulling organs out of people and locking them up in camps. They get paid quite well, they don't need you throwing a doggy bone at them.

Dohnjoe

Seems to me that while a vocal minority of gamers might create a big storm online about something, the majority of gamers ultimately don't seem to care much. Boycotts almost never materialise.

The key bottom line seems to be: if we like a game we buy it. Politics and drama might dent PR and sales somewhat, but apparently not too much.

PostWoke

Dohnjoe wrote: »

vocal minority

This is the weakest argument on the entire internet.

"I disagree, so it must only be a few people being much louder than everyone else!"

Dohnjoe

PostWoke wrote: »

This is the weakest argument on the entire internet.

"I disagree, so it must only be a few people being much louder than everyone else!"

In my experience, it's true. So many times I've witnessed a huge wave of anger/outrage on social media, gaming sites, etc, but sales barely affected; we vote with our wallets

K.O.Kiki

PostWoke wrote: »

This is the weakest argument on the entire internet.

"I disagree, so it must only be a few people being much louder than everyone else!"

You have a few thousand people on Twitter or w/e shouting their views, yet the games (or other media) sell millions - data is on our side.

J. Marston

The only thing that matters is if a game is shìt or not. Nothing else will affect sales.

Blizzard and China buddying up won't affect Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2.

That pregnancy hooha from AC Odyssey's DLC won't affect sales of the next AC.

Crunch at Rockstar will not affect GTA6 sales.

There is 0.1% of the gaming community who want to be militant about gaming and organise boycotts and protests but the rest just don't give a fùck and I'm part of that 99.9% now.

Microtransactions and lootbox gambling used to boil my piss, so much so that I even emailed TDs about it. I just don't care anymore, I wanna play good games and not be focused on drama or whatever crusade Kotaku are charging into this week.

Dohnjoe

Exactly. When I log into battle net, it's not like the majority of my friends are gone (or any of them are gone) And even if one of them did quit due to the China thing, they'd be back within a month.

Jerichoholic

I'll tell you what, I'll play Diablo 4 when it comes out, because Diablo is ****ing great.

You would almost have to stop breathing if you wanted to dig deep into every product you use and the company that makes it as you'll find something dodgy in everything.

Are you going to stop watching Star Wars because those toys you played with as a child were made in China?

pixelburp

Jerichoholic wrote: »

I'll tell you what, I'll play Diablo 4 when it comes out, because Diablo is ****ing great.

You would almost have to stop breathing if you wanted to dig deep into every product you use and the company that makes it as you'll find something dodgy in everything.

Are you going to stop watching Star Wars because those toys you played with as a child were made in China?

No, I'll stop watching Star Wars because they're owned by Disney now

In fairness, outside of living in a cabin off the grid, purity of principle is impossible these days, but it is up to the individual consumer where they decide to draw the line; I reject facebook, but then I use WhatsApp and Instagram; the former because it's the only way to contact some friends & family, the latter because I enjoy photography. I'll boycott the core product but obvious from a puritanical point of view, I'm a hypocrite.

As to media, well, Chinese investment these days is everywhere, so short of investigating every game studio or Film production for its finances, there has to be a value judgement called somewhere. Again, the only response is to put a halt to a hobby, retreat to a cabin in the woods (and even if I kept to 100% in-country funded productions, some would argue the US is worse than China so you're back to square 1 on the moral purity ladder)

With Blizzard, welp, same again when it comes to the above; where the differences comes this time perhaps, is that Blizzard's own actions have been pretty craven, and publicly obsequious in bowing to what is fairly demonstrable antagonism by China towards internal demonstration. There's a point where the hypocrisy becomes harder to ignore and drives people to action, or at least, displeasure.

If we're living in the modern world, we're all hypocrites to some degree or another, be in on issues of data privacy, pro-democracy feelings, environmentalism, fast fashion and so on; the trick is finding a happy balance between fighting the good fight, and not completely abandoning the realities of just trying to get by in this world.

It's actually something the brilliant TV show "The Good Place" addresses in its own goofy, hilarious way. Being good in such an overlapping, interconnected world is impossible, all you can do is your best. And I say all this, posting from my Huawei phone 🤷

PostWoke

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

You have a few thousand people on Twitter or w/e shouting their views, yet the games (or other media) sell millions - data is on our side.

And a few thousand on reddit, and then a few thousand on forums... sure there's millions of spineless people who just want their jollies and think they exist in a vacuum. But making it out to be just a few loudmouths is disingenuous, they were able to have the Blizzard subreddit set to private for a few days there. Plenty of people have the spine out there to say 'no thanks'.

dreamers75

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pixelburp

So at what point are we not allowed ... you know, discuss the news on a discussion thread? Blizzard-China-Hearthstone is news, and opens up larger topic cos that's the nature of the headline item. If you think it should be branched off, then report the posts and let the mods decide. Otherwise we just rename the thread as "headlines only" and save this cycle of "stop talking about the news!!" at whatever arbitrary point selective users get tired of a subject. Or just ubsub from the thread.

dreamers75

I would hope when it turns into "Heated Gaming discussion" it goes in there, never to be seen by people who dont give a fcuk about it.

Then those that read the gaming news thread for news can do just that.

pixelburp

dreamers75 wrote: »

I would hope when it turns into "Heated Gaming discussion" it goes in there, never to be seen by people who dont give a fcuk about it.

Then those that read the gaming news thread for news can do just that.

So like I said, report the posts that offend and let the mods decide (and because I'm nice, already did just that). Fair enough when a subject gets longwinded but obviously some folk DO give a fcuk, and want to discuss the news; it's pertinent and not particularly heated either TBH. Your mileage may vary, but why not ignore it - or post some new-news to talk about. That's how news discussion works