I haven't followed the situation closely, but we never get to A/B test such decisions. We make a decision and see the outcome for which one we chose.

Saying they created this situation is a little like blaming a casualty of war for living in the country they were born in. China exists and it's a large country with growing power that has fundamental cultural differences with the West and always has.

There may be better and worse ways to respond, but we have to recognize that everyone is, to some extent, just a bit player on a world stage where many other forces are in play. Not everything that happens in our lives is a thing we directly caused.

It's common to take it for granted when the existing world stage benefits us and wonder where we went wrong when it shafts us. Both views are only partial explanations at best.

This isn't a fundamental cultural difference. This is a tyranny that brokes no dissent and murders its people to stay in power.

I took History of The Far East in college decades ago. The cultural friction between China and the West substantially precedes the current government of the country.

Regardless of what is going on there politically currently, they are a growing economic power. That makes them the proverbial 800 pound gorilla that people are increasingly afraid of pissing off for fear of financial consequences. They have one seventh of the world's population. It's a huge market that simply cannot be ignored.

>It's a huge market that simply cannot be ignored.

True, if your motive is profit above all else.

Otherwise, it is quite simple to ignore China's demands. Create the products, services, etc. that you want to create. If people in China buy them, fine. If China says they'll buy them if only you do Thing X, if you do not morally agree with Thing X, simply do not do it.

There are near limitless numbers of businesses that are economically viable without catering to China's demands.

Well, I don't know where communication went wrong, but I'm not talking about catering to China's demands. My original point was that this whole thing could have negatively impacted the company regardless of how they chose to act. I stated as clearly as I know how that it's probably a case of "caught in the crossfire" and blamed for being shot when the only way to escape the crossfire entirely would be "you shouldn't have been born in that time and place as it wasn't safe."

You can be a peacenik conscientious objector who refuses to take sides in the war and still get caught in the crossfire while minding your own business and trying your hardest to stay out of the fray.

People that try to pin this as a cultural difference only need to look at Taiwan, which is a functioning democracy, and equally as Chinese.

wait what? why make it so complicated... the simple fact is that people are pissed because one of their own got a treatment they didn't like. i am not involved or following but i get enough in the news to figure what's happening. a simple google search will give you plenty.

also, this is not the first time the gaming community went against a company. and tbh i am not sure some young ones don't know or care much about politics of what's happening in the east. one of their own got sacked. that's all that matters.

so yes, they probably shouldn't have banned that player.

Or just not went as overboard with it. Doing something might have been a good idea to still send a message (both to China and to players to please not repeat it), the tricky bit is not looking unreasonable while doing so. (e.g. certainly not rescind the price money)

But Blizzard would likely have lost access to the Chinese market.

Wrong, it would have got huge media play in China as Blizzard not enforcing its rules in opposition to China. Just like the NBA issue.

Highly debatable. It's by no means clear the rules should have been applied to this case; they were very vague "we can ban anyone for anything that makes us look bad", but what has made Blizzard look bad here has primarily been the enforcement of the rules.

If they had just played it off as the players speech, and nothing to do with them at all, it is by no means clear any significant blowback would have stuck to Blizzard.

The NBA issue is very different because the original tweet was from the general manager of a team with close Chinese ties. It's like if a Blizzard exec had expressed pro-human rights sentiments in an interview.

Obviously we'll never know now, but Blizzard did so much to increase the perceived importance of the event beyond where it would naturally have been (eg, their statement on an official account saying they would always "resolutely safeguard [China's] national dignity"). Once you've framed it in those terns, it's hard to back down. Were there really no alternatives though?

Only if China decided to do so. They can pick a fight about anything they want to, so there is really no avoiding that.

For further evidence of that, look at what happened to Lotte, a Korean conglomerate that was essentially banned from China for the crime of having previously owned land that the Korean government used for a military purpose that China did not like.