> Those of us that spend money on Blizzard products are definitely making our statement with dollars. I really want to play this new Priest deck in Hearthstone, but don't have any of the cards. Instead of buying some, I'm just not playing. I really want to play Overwatch with my friends that have a Switch, but I'm not buying Overwatch for the Switch until they make clear what their values are.
You can't make much of a statement with only dollars. There are a million reasons why someone may have chosen not to buy something, so the message sent is highly ambiguous and unlikely to be interpreted correctly.
Every boycott needs to be backed up with a statement outlining its reasons, and the boycott will only be maximally effective if each participant echos these statements to the boycotted company and in the media.
The former works, the latter will sound extremely convincing (because you see the comments as being entirely one sided in favor of boycott) and achieve nothing.
Let's wait and see.
I deleted the account and I urge you to do the same. Just not spending does nothing.
I'm giving Blizzard a chance because they have a lot of good will built up, but as time goes on it's becoming clear that they aren't going to do the right thing. Right now, it feels to me like if they could personally take the right to vote away from 8 million Hongkongers, they would. And that is not where I'm going to spend my money.
What I think is interesting about all of this is that China tried to make a power grab. Our market, our rules. But it appears that they like watching basketball more than they like every employee of the NBA to be opposed to reform in Hong Kong. And I'm guessing they like having their Chinese teams competing in the world stage in things like Hearthstone Grandmasters and Overwatch League, so they can't really tell Blizzard to take a hike. So with that in mind, I feel like Blizzard is free to do the right thing here; the last thing China wants is isolation. But it's a game of who blinks first, and corporations are pretty bad at playing that game.