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Blizzard Suspends Professional Hearthstone Player for Hong Kong Comments

(playhearthstone.com)
2525 points hownottowrite | 2 comments | 08 Oct 19 09:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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freeflight ◴[08 Oct 19 12:10 UTC] No.21191318[source]▶
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!".

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1. deadbunny ◴[08 Oct 19 12:25 UTC] No.21191440[source]▶
> 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/...

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2. freeflight ◴[08 Oct 19 12:56 UTC] No.21191717[source]▶
> 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".