User blog:Subsourian/On Blizzard, China and the Wiki

Normally I wouldn't be using this as a LiveJournal and this will go to like four people, but hey it's a blog for a reason.

I took a bit of time away (well, as much as I could as much as I immerse myself in StarCraft) to think on the recent Blizzard situation. For those that don't know, Blizzard recently came down hard on a Hearthstone pro for talking about Hong Kong in a broadcast. While the situation is a bit complex, and I do think Blizzard was in their right to punish him, the severity of the punishment, both to him and the casters, was very much to appease China. I don't think many people would argue that.

To make matters worse, they then released a non-apology, which did scale back the punishment (and thankfully actually paid the guy), but after insisting that his punishment had nothing to do with China. After the Chinese arm of Blizzard stated they would do whatever it takes to defend the dignity of China. While that arm is co-owned by NetEase, it does speak for Blizzard, so very clearly one of these mouthpieces is lying.

I have a lot of American biases, I do believe you should be able to speak your mind without government reprisal, but having been around Asia, the influence of China is something that frightens me. My now-fiancé studied in Taiwan, and the concern over every time China tried to flex its military muscles to maybe try to push into the island was a very real one, worrying whether she'd be caught up in something flaring up. I won't go too deep into my own political views, but I also back Hong Kong wholeheartedly. The idea that speaking out in favor of them can lose you a job overseas, especially in America (which is more the NBA thing), is outrageous to me. So needless to say, Blizzard's decision to kiss up to China VERY much doesn't sit right with me, so I took part in a lot of the boycott.

Having said that, StarCraft was always something core to a lot of my identity, and where I made a ton of friends from. It's hard to step away from a game shortly after they made you canon for screaming at them loud enough. And while the corporate aspect of Blizzard is deeply corrupt in my eyes the dev teams and people who work on the games themselves are still great and passionate. It's a universe I love and really hope to help hype people up for (as well as nitpick relentlessly), and as frustrating as it is to know the money you spend to support it goes to a company you so deeply reject, it's a universe I want to see thrive for years to come.

So as expected my step away from the wiki wouldn't be long (though I see Hawki took care of my usual routine, much appreciated). I do think I'll continue to support SC, but step away from the surrounding Blizzard products, at least for the time. I say this still going to BlizzCon, but hey someone has to yell about the deletion of all the short stories this year. So maybe it's a bit of hypocrisy, but whatever, I'll be sticking around.

TLDR: Blizzard's made some awful decisions that I can't in my right mind support, but also I don't intend to leave SC or stop helping out around here.