Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

I really don't like how this is made out as "China clamping down on Blizzard", just like it was framed when Ubisoft tried to get a lower age-rating for Rainbow Six Siege and claimed that was what China demanded for their market.

Blizzard has been suspending plenty of pro players in plenty of their games for all kinds of questionable, and not so questionable reasons.

And because Blizzard is a private company, offering a service they maintain, they have the house right, they have the final say about who can partake and who can't.

To that end, they don't need the Chinese government to pressure them because they will already do it themselves to make their product as uncontroversial as possible. In that context politics is just not something that Blizzard, or any of the big publishers, want to be as a part of their "e-sport scene".

What they want is the least controversy possible and the lowest ages ratings possible, so they can sell their products to as many people as possible. That's their main and only motivation here, not "pleasing the CCP!".

> And because Blizzard is a private company, offering a service they maintain, they have the house right, they have the final say about who can partake and who can't.

Except it's not a matter of some Chinese customers taking their business elsewhere. They don't have "the house right" if they are facing consequences from the Chinese government for exercising their freedom of association.

> just like it was framed when Ubisoft tried to get a lower age-rating for Rainbow Six Siege and claimed that was what China demanded for their market.

Ubisoft straight up said the changes were for compliance for their plans to expand into Asia. With not a single mention of a lower age-rating. [1]

> We are currently working towards preparing Rainbow Six Siege for expansion into Asian territories. As such, there will be some adjustments made to our maps and icons to ensure compliance.

> In addition, we can guarantee that any future changes are aligned with the global regulations we are working towards.

While I don't agree with the gamer rage it caused, the changes were made unambiguously for release in China.

1. https://rainbow6.ubisoft.com/siege/en-us/news/152-337194-16/...

"They are a private company" is quite literally always the argument for why Facebook, Twitter, Google, Cloudflare etc should be able to ban anyone, any time for any arbitrary reason.

I get why people are upset at Blizzard's behavior, but the outcry looks a bit fake. It looks more like there's a lot of anger because it hit somebody they agree with. Had the player said something supporting China, and Blizzard banned him, there would be congratulatory comments and "their game, their rules" arguments.

You accurately describe the dynamic of self-censorship, but miss the point that China gets to set the threshold of what is "uncontroversial" by choosing how strongly to react in cases like this.

Either way you end up embroiled in politics; the only difference is whether you let a foreign country dictate your behavior, or make your own decisions.

>And because Blizzard is a private company

But they are not a private company. Blizzard is a component of Activision Blizzard, Inc., a publicly-held corporation traded under ATVI on the Nasdaq.

This is actually part of the problem. If they were still privately held, we would much more likely be sitting on an imminent 2020 Diablo/Starcraft/etc PC title release, rather than mobile game rehashes, 'classic' relaunches of decades old products, etc. Privately held companies seem to be the only companies with consolidation of power and control required to stand against ridiculous "profit in every market at any cost" trends.

Just take a look at Valve Software for a comparison of the private vs public effect on a company with a large creative aspect. I realize they haven't put out anything new in ages, but at the same time, has Valve really compromised on any of the core values they've built over the last decade or so? As far as I am aware, the Steam store is about as open and censorship-free as you can get in this era of entertainment.

> Ubisoft straight up said the changes were for compliance for their plans to expand into Asia. With not a single mention of a lower age-rating.

Their very first bullet point is "A SINGLE, GLOBAL VERSION".

All the example changes they showed would very likely have lowered the game's age rating across the board, which right now is 18+, the worst possible and considered poison for sales because many parents do still care about them.

Violence removed (Germany), substance abuse removed (Australia), depictions of gambling removed (again Australia&UK). The whole package of changes had the potential to get the game rated down to something like 13 years, maybe 16 years in Germany.

You can't disregard something like that and then focus on Asian markets, while only using it as a synonym for China, as if China is the only country with these kinds of regulations.

As a German, it just irks me, when it was the norm that we would get specially censored versions of games, replacing humans with robots and making hostages in CS unkillable, there was no outrage about the authoritarian German government "forcing US companies to comply".

> "They are a private company" is quite literally always the argument for why Facebook, Twitter, Google, Cloudflare etc should be able to ban anyone, any time for any arbitrary reason.

Exactly, and usually, that's also the consensus on HN on any such issues: It's the companies infrastructure and ecosystem.

There is no "human right to service", if they don't want you there then they can just kick you out and usually wouldn't even need much of a justification, that's what hundreds of pages of ToS, EULA, and whatnot are there for.

Blizzard has been a public company for 25 years

> And because Blizzard is a private company, offering a service they maintain, they have the house right, they have the final say about who can partake and who can't.

And most people here were endorsing this right when it came to things they didn't like while I and many others were pointing out that one day this sort of stuff would be applied to things they don't like.

Now that it's being applied to things the majority don't like is there any support for some sort of universal service obligation?