Huh? The foundation of their success is some excellent video games. I’ve never associated Blizzard with justice or “wokeness,” not that it would be a bad thing to be associated with.

I think people could argue that modern Blizzard does specifically lean into being diverse or "woke". Overwatch got a lot of praise on it's release for having such a diverse cast and they have continued to lean into that over the years since. I also think people could argue they started being more inclusive and diverse with some stuff they did in WoW, but I think they really got attention for it starting with Overwatch.

With that said, I kind of agree with you in that the foundation of their success was making fantastic PC games.

Fair enough. Overwatch and WoW happen to be the two Blizzard games I never really got into, so it makes sense that I missed that connotation. I've kept up with the competitive Starcraft 2 scene (mostly in Korea) and I haven't really noticed any association of Blizzard with being particularly concerned with social justice.

They removed Raynor’s cigar in some situations, and removed some skeletons in WoW, both for Chinese audiences.

Yeah, whenever I read stuff like that I feel like I've been living in a parallel world. I've always grown up around people who played video games and they've never cared about anything other than the games themselves. They might passively agree or disagree with a company's stance on something but they'll still keep that entirely separate from the games being produced.

News flash: Every company that says "Every Voice Matters" is only pandering and never sincere. They just want your money. Right now, touchy-feel-good stuff is in vogue.

Yeah but it's a bit hard to run a PR campaign backing off that when you have it engraved on a fcking plaque outside your HQ.

That plaque has done more damage in light of their recent actions than any directed media campaign ever could.

The reason Blizzard is up shit creek without a paddle is because they simultaneously tried to virtue-signal and pander to developed world sensitivities while selling out to CCP for views opposed to those.

Blizzard knows their core audience doesn't care anything about this stuff. Just a few angry people on the internet. Sure, they did some pandering to sucker more people into liking them, but they know who's paying the bills, and it's not the outrage mob.

Ah yeah. That must be why they're on the front page of HN and stuck between a rock and a hard place with having to cancel Blizzcon after Mei became an international pro-HK meme.

Sure. Just like i suspect a lot of people lie, it isn’t really a surprise. But if you get caught in a terrible lie while being hypocritical in public about it, expect to be called out on it.

Then they need to be called on every instance of hypocrisy in word and deed. If every company lies... maybe there's a learning point there.