Update: Blizzard finally speaks!

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23185888/regarding-last-weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament

"I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision."

lol pure bullshit. We can even see this article was put up from China as it's still the 11th here in the US yet the date says it was posted on the 12th, which it is in China.

"If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same."

You heard it hear first folks, freedom from oppression is a divisive subject!

Incase anyone is still fooling themselves into thinking this is about upholding rules:

If that's true, then it looks even worse for them. At least in the case of trying to please the Chinese government, I could see that maybe they felt like they had to do it for the good of company.  But, if that didn't factor into their decision, then they just must be sympathetic to the brutal, communist, scumbag regime.  

Of course, there's no way it's true.  The statement is just further evidence of the pressure they're feeling from China, and that they're not interesting in pushing back.  It's also evidence that their PR team sucks.  

honestly I would have more respect for them if they just straight up said something along the lines of
"we hear your concerns, however at the end of the day we're a company who need to prioritise financial status to remain functional in as many markets as we are trying to provide gamers with our titles, that means pleasing shareholders and stakeholders in our company, we apologise that this might not always please all of our players in every country, but we'll strive to do what we can to keep both sides of this delicate balance as happy as possible"

But instead they've gone the route of...

"ban the guy? yeah... we can't talk about our policies but... we have policies which told us to do that so ... we did it based on those, stop talking about this please"

Which I think everything they've done to try to lower the damage has just fanned the flames rather than doing damage control, honesty can go a long way over PR bullshit when you're in a bad place as a company, I think gamers would be slightly more forgiving if they just layed out the fact that policies exist there to keep the spice flowing, and that if the money dries up then Blizz goes away, simple as that.

As for the poll here, yeah I was considering OW on the Switch but, naw, this shit has killed what little interest I had in buying it now, they can do one for all I care, very little of Act/Blizz library would be what I consider "must play"

Considered starting to play wow classic last week but yeah i will just play FF14 when i get a decent PC,blizzard does not apeal to the market i want to be in.

It is understandable from a standpoint without morals yes but we as consumers can deem free speech/peoples freedom much more important than rules from a dumb game.

Gamers boycotting Blizzard due to a political stance (which China has everything to do about it) are not Gamers at all.
Honestly Blizzard has a massive Chinese market in China so its obvious why they are sucking up to the new laws.

I’m sorry but this is a non-issue. There are plenty of outlets for free speech, and Blizzard isn’t one of them, like pretty much any big company out there because they don’t like to be involved in picking sides. Whether or not what was said is universally agreed upon is irrelevant; no politics is no politics. Blizzard has the right to choose what they attach their name to.

So I agree with what theprof00 says.

Oh, I won’t debate this, because a back and forth yes/no discussion isn’t going to be worth it.

Poll should be changed from "Will you Boycott Blizzard?" to "Do you want people to think you'll Boycott Blizzard? Even though you either never would have bought their games anyway or will cave because you're still addicted to WoW/Overwatch?"

You want me to watch the whole video instead of giving me a time stamp?

Admittetly, i didn't check thoroughly what the rules say. However, i didn't because it isn't necessary. It is commonly known that "conditions of participation" are in effect and certainly known to participants. Events sponsored organized by companies can't let this kind of behavior fly, letting people use the media coverage for their own personal agenda on their expense. No damage done? The player damn well knew how it will end, he damn well knew that Blizzard doesn't want a part of it, but he did it anyway. Two options: Either he gets maximum penalty or they let him get off easy. Either way Blizzard is backed into a corner and forced to suffer consequences, either by possible sanctions by the chinese goverment or, the scenario they have opted for, deal with gamer outrage and boycott.

No damage done!?! Not to Blitzchung, who won't be playing some generic card game for some time and will be basking in the glory of his deeds. Does he look like an idiot to you? A professional gamer who didn't know what would happen to his "career and winnings" when he blatantly breaks the rules? Actually, when looking at the situation, they did let him get off easy. It may seem harsh, but this a way to send a clear message, to prevent would-be perpetrators to do the same and cause more trouble for future events and their organizers.

How would feel if i come to your house, to your party and make political ruckus, even though you clearly told everybody not to? And then everybody is booing you for kicking me out...

You just don't do it, we saw the same with eurovision last year and the iceland team holidng a palestine banner.

International events should be politics free.


USA teams can't compete anymore without black lives matter/Pictures of the 5.000 children killed in Afghanistan in 2018 by USA soldiers/Stop ICE Locking up children/Stop destroying the climate/Stop killing children with abortus... protestors

allowing politics and you end up getting hate and in the worst case events like the Nazi Olympics.

Anyway I don't really buy blizzard games anyway, and if I did care about politics I would have not bought an Xbox or games made by USA or half the world anyway.