Ex-World of Warcraft developer's thread about China and the gaming industry

What if someone would say: "god hate gays"? Would the same Blizzard actions be justified?

I would imagine not, but do you think those two statements stand on the same footing? At some point you have to examine what is actually being said. I understand that can get murky, which is really the entire problem with censorship, but "don't murder people for being gay" and "God hate[s] gays"? C'mon.

The larger issue at hand here is the motivation behind Blizzard's actions.

I think: "People everywhere should have the basic human rights" is far less controversial than "God hates the gays". I imagine that the latter also would get punished the same way to be honest, and then we wouldn't have this discussion at all. At least in the west, as in the east they do not appreciate the acceptance of anything LGBTQ+ related.

Blizzard went all-in with the pride stuff in the west, but did not have that event at all in the east. Not even a toned-down version of it.

I expect them to not kick someone for supporting gay rights, but I do expect them to kick someone for doing a nazi salute on stage. So there's clearly a line drawn somewhere; it's not their job to act as a platform for every opinion.

"God hates gays" in particular, yes, I think they would be justified in dropping the banhammer on that. Blizzard has gone out of their way to promote inclusivity and diversity with Overwatch (which has two canonically gay main characters), even though it pissed off some of their more conservative fanbase. Having people on stream coming out against that runs pretty directly counter to the politics that Blizzard has already been promoting.

What it comes down to is that I expect Blizzard to have a system of values guiding their decision on this, and I want those values to line up with mine - everyone gets human rights, democracy is preferable to authoritarianism, freedom to protest a corrupt government is an essential right, etc.

Some people would probably call it a double standard to let players support pro-democracy protests, but not support anti-gay ones. I'd just call that having standards. It's 2019 and we're talking about a game studio based in southern California.

Maybe that's a self-centered view of mine, expecting a corporation to support western values just because they're based in the US and composed almost entirely of American employees. But that's where I'm coming from.

> So there's clearly a line drawn somewhere

The fundamental problem is that the line is a personal opinion that differs, significantly in some cases, from person to person. Many believe their lines are objectively correct.

This particular kerfuffle is being caused because companies are being pressured to adhere to the government of China's specific line to the exclusion of all others.

Going to the logical absurd conclusion is a good thought experiment and part of why I too hadn’t formulated an opinion yet. However, it’s Blizzard’s follow-up actions such as this:

https://ps.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/dfauww/american...

That makes this a moot point. Players have voiced opinions before. Nothing extreme, but within Blizzard’s rights to invoke that rule. However, deciding to start filtering content because of multiple players talking about the same topic?

That’s when Blizzard lost their neutrality stance. As bystanders, it’s not possible to swap in other topics for thought experiments because it’s become clear that it’s a specific topic that is being targeted. And thus, we now have to look at the content of what is being said to draw conclusions about Blizzard’s motivations.

You expect them not to kick someone for supporting gay rights but even that might be a bridge too far for Blizzard. They made a big fuss about having the character Tracer be gay, but that only happened in a comic book and in Russia Tracer is definitely not gay. I believe the same is true in China, but don't quote me on that. Having characters with different sexual orientations is just some catnip for us Westerners to show that Blizz is totes woke guys!, not some sort of stance Blizz is taking because they believe in equality. I wouldn't be suprised if someone calling for gay rights at an esports tournament in Russia was subject to the same thing.

Blizz is just a faceless corp now, and any move they make that seems on the surface to be ethical is just window dressing for a calculated marketing move that will be undone the moment it looks like it might cost them some cash.

That's just the tolerance paradox all over again. I'm pretty sure the obvious solution to it is to just come out and say it.

"We are tolerant of everything, except intolerance. No, we dont care if you call that out as being inconsistent or unfair. Deal with it."

Let's imagine that this issue did not exist, if you can. And let's further posit an acceptance of companies advocating for some set of values, as you have. Now whose values do you think it would make most sense for companies to advocate for? Employees, management, chief executive, the board, customers, somebody else? Perhaps this is a bad assumption but I would assume the vast majority of people would say they should stand for their customers, if for no other reason than the fact that a company cannot exist without its customers - and so pleasing them (and keeping them) is always priority #1.

And this is where things get tricky. For decades, the entire life of many of us, the US has been dominant over the entire world. But that dominance is ending. Gaming is just one particularly clear example. China, for instance, literally has more gamers than the US has citizens. [1](2014) And while the US market is still #1 in terms of revenue, that's ending imminently - literally perhaps next year. We're currently at $36.87bn compared to China's $36.54bn. [2] And that's with an untapped market of hundreds of millions in China. And their rapid economic growth means all players, new and old, are going to be able and willing to spend more money. Within the next two decades, the US gaming market will likely be a fraction of the Chinese market.

That creates an interesting little micro-paradox in this situation. Customers in the US claiming they will boycott Blizzard over this situation are precisely why Blizzard is motivated to act in this fashion. Because there would be a mirror situation in China with a much larger customer base. Until people (around the world) can accept individuals behaving in a way they find deplorable, we're only going to end up in a world where the biggest wins. And as the geopolitical status quo changes, that's no longer simply synonymous with USA.

[1] - https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-number-of-chinese-game...

[2] - https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-10-countries-by-gam...

> I expect them to not kick someone for supporting gay rights, but I do expect them to kick someone for doing a nazi salute on stage. So there's clearly a line drawn somewhere; it's not their job to act as a platform for every opinion.

Blizzard is an international company, and the line they draw is based on the sensibilities of all their customers worldwide. China, a country with a population 3-4x larger than the US evidently believes that support for Hong Kong protestors crosses that line. Blizzard may be a US based company, that doesn't mean it's going to draw up standards of conduct that always please the US customer base. I can guarantee you, the US and other western customers they stand to lose is they didn't cater to Chinese demands is a lot less than the Chinese customers they would lose if they were kicked out of China.

> What it comes down to is that I expect Blizzard to have a system of values guiding their decision on this, and I want those values to line up with mine - everyone gets human rights, democracy is preferable to authoritarianism, freedom to protest a corrupt government is an essential right, etc.

What this whole thing is showing is that big corporations don't give a shit about any of those things, not really. They care about money. Think about sports - in the NFL, players were protesting racial injustice; some members of the public said "shut up and play ball"; and the league and elite media mostly said "no, players have the right to speak about these things". That's because in the US, wokeness is the third rail - ultimately there is more money in being pro-inclusion, pro-diversity, etc. You can't be a big company in the US without supporting those things, so big companies support them.

Now we have some NBA people protesting injustice in Hong Kong, and the league and elite media say "shut up and play ball". And that's because Hong Kong / Taiwan independence is the third rail for China. If you don't have the "correct" opinion, you're not going to do any business there.

This is just a remarkable line of thought. What you're really saying here is that the actions of a company are justifiable solely based upon whether or not the company is acting in its own best (financial) interest. Just... wow.

>China, a country with a population 3-4x larger than the US evidently believes that support for Hong Kong protestors crosses that line

The Chinese government, you mean, which happens to fall squarely into the "oppressive authoritarian" bucket as regimes go. Let's not pretend that the CPC is an honest representation of the people.

It's not only about "pleasing the US customer base", it's about integrity. Not every situation is some abstract hypothetical; it's pretty clear what's going on here, and I don't think any reasonable person would conclude that kowtowing to the Chinese im the pursuit of profit is a good thing.

What is surprising about this line of thinking? People stated, correctly, that companies should support gay rights and other progressive causes because it is in their their self interest to do so. Companies followed that advice.

The same calculus is at play here. If militia groups in Texas started marching in the streets calling for secession would we blame companies that want to distance themselves from that sort of political instability and unrest? That's how most Chinese see Hong Kong protests: a segment of the country that want to unlawfully remain independent. And China has a large market power. The negative consequences of alienating the Chinese market is larger than the negative consequences of bad press in western media.

It's valid to point out that the people's opinions don't always match that of the CCP, but it's erroneous to asset without evidence that the average Chinese disagrees with the party line on this issue. 50% of the mainland Chinese I've talked to have a negative opinion on the HK protestors and the other 50% don't really care very much. I haven't met any that actually support the protests.

>What is surprising about this line of thinking?

I never said it was 'surprising'; I said it was remarkable.

>People stated, correctly, that companies should support gay rights and other progressive causes because it is in their their self interest to do so. Companies followed that advice.

Is that why they should support a cause though? Only because it is in their best (financial) interest to do so? I'm not insane; of course we're going to look out for ourselves, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that... until there is. At some point your profit seeking harms others.

This is exactly what I'm talking about; your argument presumes that a company should only take action when it suits their interests, i.e., increases revenue. You act as though the pursuit of profit at all costs is some immutable law of the universe. It's not.

>It's valid to point out that the people's opinions don't always match that of the CCP, but it's erroneous to asset without evidence that the average Chinese disagrees with the party line on this issue. 50% of the mainland Chinese I've talked to have a negative opinion on the HK protestors and the other 50% don't really care very much. I haven't met any that actually support the protests.

It's also erroneous to assert that your anecodotal evidence reflects reality, but I don't think it actually matters if the people support the CPC or not. Some things are just plain wrong, and people throughout history have supported foul actions because it suited them personally to do so (or because they're scared of the repercussions of not doing so.) Much of what China does is just wrong, I couldn't care less if their citizenry supports it.

Haven't you found it interesting that all of our media coverage has provided an extensive amount of coverage of the protesters, but almost nothing about the context of people outside of the protest? What percent of people support the protests? What are the average views on it? How has their day to day life changed if at all? Are they in support or against the transition to violence? So forth and so on. An immense amount of potential reporting material there, but it seems be being almost entirely neglected. "Almost" is a weasel word -- I'm not really able to find anything meaningful at all.

This seems odd. Like you, I'm not terribly fond of anecdotal evidence, so I went searching for some way to try to gauge what people might be thinking. One thing I came upon was this [1] survey from 2016 which was carried out following the protests of 2015. One of the questions that was asked was whether or not Hong Kongers would be in favor of separating from China once the "one country, two systems" agreement ends in 2047. If there is any bias in their numbers, one would expect it to err on the side of Hong Kong given the institution that carried it out. [2]

Only 17.4% of people said yes, 22.9% were ambivalent, and 57.6% were somewhat/strongly against it. I wonder what percent of the protesters are in that 17.4%? What are the views of the 82.6%? Why aren't these questions being asked, let alone answered, by our media? Whatever the case, it seems very safe to say that the vast majority of people in Hong Kong do not see the China as having an "oppressive authoritarian" government. And I think it goes without saying that views towards their government are going to be even more favorable in the mainland. So no you're not just talking about the Chinese government - you are talking about the Chinese people.

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-china-survey-idU...

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_University_of_Hong_Kon...

I'd say that since roughly 30% of the population has protested that's a large percentage of the population. You're citing statistics from 3 years ago. Most of the country supports either staying their own self governing entity or becoming their own separate country.

These protests are literally about extradition to China. I find your completely biased information suspect.

https://www.ibtimes.com/hong-kong-protest-2019-largest-histo...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_independence