Author Topic: china's impact on the future of videogames (Read 8994 times)

sleep · October 08, 2019, 02:52:28 AM

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/deviwm/blizzard_ruling_on_hk_interview_blitzchung/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/dej74n/blizzard_taiwan_deleted_hearthstone_grandmasters/

china is really big to companies like blizzard and riot games, who coincidentally also own the statistically most played videogames like league of legends

if blizzard responds like this without a single forget given, banning the player and taking all rights, and firing the announcers.
i can imagine a company like Riot doing something very similar, their Chinese player base is way bigger than any other region, plus they are owned by TenCent.

its early and i havent had my coffee but i wanted to talk about this here because if a player decides to speak about hong kong @ the Worlds events happening right now, and not at some Heartstone event no one cares about, i think we will really feel the effect of corporation censorship in a place that actually matters. (as opposed to the gunk posted here crying about corp censorship on YT&Twitter.)

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Conan · October 08, 2019, 03:06:50 AM

imo politics should stay the forget out of games. games are meant to be fun and entertaining, not a battleground for politics or a platform to proselytize. inherently ruins the fun.

it also forces devs into a hard position. anything they do will be deemed political in response, even inaction. if you dont remove it you�re implicitly stating �this is okay� as a company. if you remove it you get hit with �you clearly disagree� even if the rules state �no politics�. its pretty forgeted and they can�t pick the �moral high ground� easily as a publicly traded company which is legally bound to try to make as much money as possible (eg: they do have to cater to china or face getting censured and recalled by the government, and then justify to shareholders when their stocks lose value why their decision was correct)

Kobewarrior · October 08, 2019, 03:51:14 AM

be sure to download the chinese mobile game classic "Clap for Xi Jinping: An Awesome Speech", developed by tencent

Rockinboy2000 · October 08, 2019, 04:27:37 AM

習近平是唯一知道該怎麼做的真正的世界領袖。信息的自由流通對世界公民和共產主義思想以及中國的文化價值觀都是危險的。需要對信息進行監管，以使人們保持理智，這就是為什麼我相信華為和騰訊能夠有效地管理和控制這種信息流，言論自由除了煽動暴力，恐怖主義和反政府情緒外，什麼都沒有做，它將繼續做下去所以。

Rockinboy2000 · October 08, 2019, 04:30:41 AM

我還應該提到，香港和台灣一樣，都是不合法的國家，是英國殖民帝國主義的結果。過去一直並將永遠是真正的中國，沒有任何抗議活動可以改變這種狀況

Ceist · October 08, 2019, 06:23:14 AM

forget china

Biqus · October 08, 2019, 08:33:02 AM

Master Matthew� · October 08, 2019, 08:49:07 AM

This is a fantastic insight in how games will be made moving forward. If it's not allowed in China, it won't be allowed worldwide. Why make two games, when you can just make one?

lordician · October 08, 2019, 09:56:47 AM

Sorry but post-game commentary is supposed to be about the game.
Doing this during the post-game commentary is not professional at all.
Now if they did all that due to actions outside of the game, then i would not support it at all.
But this, in the context of how/where it happened, it makes sense.

While the movement might be worth supporting and all (i have not read myself in on what is going on exactly), that was not the right place for it.
It also really forgets with the representation of Blizzard. If they did not do anything about it, Blizzard would be marked as a supporter for the movement, while it is better to keep yourself out of the whole conversation. What is Blizzard's role in this conversation, do they really have any responsibility to take their stance in this conversation?
Acting on it might show they do not support the movement, but i think this is just a breach of conduct. If it was due to actions outside of the game (and commentary), it would be more worrisome.

Also if we support that, what keeps people from sharing more controversial opinions?
We need to draw a line somewhere, and i think they did that for a good reason.

sleep · October 08, 2019, 09:58:49 AM

god forbid you are against authoritarianship and genocide :p
definitely dont wan tthat title!!!! they put blizz in such a hard spot, wow!

Nix the Glaceon · October 08, 2019, 12:32:08 PM

politics in games be like *buzzing of botflies surrounding a mouldy 7-week old roadkill deer*

Conan · October 08, 2019, 12:50:35 PM

Quote from: sleep on October 08, 2019, 09:58:49 AM

god forbid you are against authoritarianship and genocide :p
definitely dont wan tthat title!!!! they put blizz in such a hard spot, wow!

you want other games to have the political commentary and toxicity you see here? then yes, you dont want it in official game stuff. i dont get why people find politicizing apolitical things like games a good idea.

Ceist · October 08, 2019, 04:07:29 PM

it's not politicizing the game, it's using what the game offered as a podium. i guarantee you if they were to speak about other worldly problems it would've been put on a pedestal.

you gotta use what you can because the little man doesn't loving matter.

forget the chinese government.

lordician · October 08, 2019, 04:47:20 PM

Sadly i cannot agree with you myself, but i can see why you say it.
Such opportunities are good for getting public recognition, however, that does not mean it will go unpunished if you go over the written rules.

Conan · October 08, 2019, 06:16:48 PM

Quote from: Ceist on October 08, 2019, 04:07:29 PM

it's not politicizing the game, it's using what the game offered as a podium. i guarantee you if they were to speak about other worldly problems it would've been put on a pedestal.

you gotta use what you can because the little man doesn't loving matter.

forget the chinese government.

i agree china's gov't is pretty forgeted but you cant say that allowing your game to be used as a podium isn't politicizing it. political views get associated with your game => politicizing the perception of the game and its company. its easy to say "this is fine" as a spectator, but not as easy to say that when you own the game/forums/esports scene and risk having your multimillion dollar game getting banned by a country which has the largest share of your playerbase.

like yeah, there's "doing the right thing", but in this case "doing the right thing" only has clear downsides and no clear upside. its not like the chinese government gives a forget what companies think: see the how they handled the nonexistent 1989 event that didnt happen in beijing. if they're willing to do that to their own people, the podium of a game company couldnt matter any more in comparison.

in comparison, the boost in sales/player participation in western countries would be nonexistent or negligible as nobody plays a game purely because "they did the right thing". the small boost in sales by people who want to support the company due to taking their stance would barely outweigh the cost of losing a massive playerbase with a LOT of disposable money.