Blizzard is perfectly fine with politics if they think it won't hurt their bottom line. They've been fairly supportive of the LTGB movement in their western markets. It's why the statement about China having no influence over their decision is such obvious bullshit.

> Blizzard is perfectly fine with politics if they think it won't hurt their bottom line.

This applies to most business unfortunately.

China probably didn't force them directly. That's the thing about authoritarianism. You learn what you think the government wants, and you enforce it on yourself, potentially going above and beyond what they'd ever even think of demanding upon you. You stop being willing to say things that are critical of the central government out loud, and eventually you even stop THINKING things that are critical of the central government through practice.

They totally have that right, and we totally have our right to call them out on that. So they can ban political speech in their events, and according to the Streisand Effect, that is guaranteed to garner them a lot of negative attention, with plenty of people willing to cross their line to make a point.

At anyrate, Blizzard has done a lot for the HK movement since you can’t have civil disobedience without the disobedience. They’ve conveniently provided the context that such disobedience can exist in (and if it wasn’t them, it would be someone else).

Of course they are. And if everyone wants to protest them because of that, so be it.

This is the thing about the whole "free speech" or "private platform, private rules" debate. You can absolutely do whatever you want, and the entire rest of the world is able to react in whatever way they want. You're allowed to think they're entitled to have a platform they moderate. Other people are allowed to freak the fuck out about the moderation or the behaviors that lead to moderation, or whatever.

This is just a pet peeve discussion point of mine as it feels less about the topic and is often used to just dismiss the discussion outright. "They're allowed to do whatever they want, so please be quiet and sit down" type of thing (not saying you're doing that here).

TL;dr- everything is political to someone, so and common sense is almost always cultural.

I wouldn't want to be responsible for suggesting legitimate protest be quelled, but there's a large, if not super majority proportion of their customerbase that isn't interested in this latest controversy, and would like to see Blizzcon/random eSports tournament without interruption. Blizzard is obligated to that group as much as they are everyone else.

Blizzard isn't obligated to anyone but Blizzard. Isn't that the point of capitalism? They just get to do what they want (assuming it's legal) and "the market" will decide if they're doing the right thing. They could start making pro-nazi propaganda huge part of the WoW experience if they wanted. But the point is that whatever market they choose to service will affect how people feel about them.

Again: they can do whatever they want, but once you've made your bed you need to lie in it. You can't make everyone happy all the time, and that's fine. Some people are always going to think Blizzard is shitty because of this, and will swear off their products. Other people will be pissed for 20 minutes and come back when <dope new game/feature> launches. And other people are just going to be annoyed that corporations are pandering to vocal mobs.

Blizzard don't owe me anything, and I don't owe them anything either. Welcome to capitalism. Good fucking luck, it's terrible out there.

> but they're absolutely entitled

No, they are not entitled to that. No player broke any laws when they did that. It is fully within anyone's legal right to make political statements, and it is fully within consumers legal right to be upset about whatever they want.