The Superficial Value of Player Voices and the Bottom Line

Blizzard, a huge game company known for games like StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch, recently caused an incredible controversy over remarks a Hearthstone grandmaster, Chung “blitzchung” Ng Wai, made in support of the Hong Kong protests during the recent Hearthstone e-sports match.

Blitzchung was suspended and his prize money was taken. It sparked a week-long controversy, filled with Reddit and twitter backlash.  At this time, about two weeks later, Blitzchung’s punishment has been reduced to six months suspension, the prize money has been restored, and a few apologies have been made, but the issue still stands that it happened in the first place.  The hosts for the game goaded the player into making “political” remarks on stage, and the player was punished by someone on the Chinese end of things. The hosts were subsequently fired as well, though their punishments have been changed to suspensions instead recently.

Political remarks are already banned in e-sports stages, so punishment according to that violation is understandable, but I think, not justifiable, specifically because preventing the players from using their platforms as a form of protest or as a way to influence others isn’t right.  And in the end, it shows that e-sports are more player-generated advertising than anything else. One could make the argument that all sports are this way––I look at Colin Kaepernick and the backlash against his activism. Icons and merchandising are important for selling sports merchandise and memorabilia, and if icons should decide to affect the bottom line negatively, they will be cut.  Sports are not an honorable monolith––they are organized and powerful entertainment businesses.

Coming from a company that says “every voice matters,” Blizzard has done a terrible job actually implementing and protecting that idea.  They routinely ignore culturally insensitive and outright racist things and produce material of the same quality, fetishize and minimize their female characters, and subscribe fully to rainbow capitalism, dedicating more of their resources to marketing gay characters than to supporting gay players.  It comes from the fact that Blizzard receives most of its revenue from China, and thusly has to get the support of the Chinese market to sustain itself and its business. The only way to access the Chinese market is to get through the Chinese government.

However, even in general, being subversive and making change isn’t really in Blizzard’s budget plan.   While they need to mediate a changing American and European market alongside a Chinese one, in large part, the way Blizzard runs its games and content drives away more liberal players.  There is very little incentive to appeal to progressive causes because that is not where the money lies. Allies can suffer bad representation, but those belonging to minority communities frequently will not any longer.

Thusly, this displays one of the main ways capitalism can stunt decent content and prevent it from becoming great.  There is definitely a desire to push for a stake in the Chinese market. There’s also a drive to push for a stake in as many American and European markets as possible.  But the company doesn’t necessarily care much at all about the individual player or the ideals that they, the company, promote. They have individuals within the company––moderators, developers, creators––that want to uphold those things.  There are developers that walked out of Blizzard in protest against the ban against the grandmaster. These are individuals. However, Blizzard the company cares most about its bottom line, and it shows. All companies do, ultimately. Blizzard is not the only company that does this, and player outcry is often about issues with Blizzard and not the actual humanitarian issues occurring in Hong Kong––or anywhere else for that matter. This is an ultimate failure of understanding what and where the problem is. To emphasize this point, members of Congress have weighed in on this issue, urging Blizzard to change the measures taken against blitzchung––meaning there is a focus on human rights more than on gameplay and experience of the product and game. More than this is about politics, it will always be about people and the fact that we must all become more aware of the value of human life before it’s too late.

Sources:

https://www.pcgamer.com/suspended-hearthstone-grandmaster-blitzchung-responds-to-blizzards-statement/
https://www.pcgamer.com/hearthstone-grandmaster-called-for-the-liberation-of-hong-kong-in-deleted-post-match-interview/
https://www.dbltap.com/posts/congress-members-sign-letter-urging-blizzard-to-reverse-blitzchung-ban-01dqjbyx8jqq
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/blizzard-president-responds-hong-kong-controversy-1247191

10 Replies to “The Superficial Value of Player Voices and the Bottom Line”

  1. I’ve been following this Blizzard controversy since it started, and I agree with a lot of your points. I liked the connection you made with Colin Kaepernick. I hadn’t thought about the Blizzard situation in connection with that controversy before, but I think it only reinforced my feelings about the situation. I’m curious to see how this will effect Blizzard going forward, especially with many groups planning protests at BlizzCon next week.

  2. This is a very interesting topic. I like and agree with a lot of what you brought up. The whole Blizzard controversy really shows how much capitalism plays a role in how businesses see and treat their consumers, and it’s nothing new. I think someone online said it best, and it’s that they’re showing more concern over money than they are over the democracy movements happening in Hong Kong. For Blizzard to preach “every voice matters” and promote games that are about fighting for freedom then, at the same time turn around and do the exact opposite is incredibly hypocritical. I think it’s great you brought this up to spread more awareness on the matter.

  3. I thought your article was very interesting article because I found it very comparable to a brief period in which I worked at a Chinese owned company. I found that while I worked there, there was a constant internal battle between whether we should be focusing more on our Chinese market or the American market because they are both so different. I think at the end of the day, the respective governments are so different, there is no way to make everyone happy — unless the thoughts of the government / cultures themselves change. In situations like this, companies are also trying to not get sued, because at the end of the day they still do want to make money and be able to put content forth. I’m not sure what the solution would be, but I think it’s good that you brought up this matter.

  4. I 100% agree with this article and that the game industry has had a major problem when it comes to actually communicating with its customers. Whether it’s this situation or any of Konami’s shenanigans (or really any other major corporation for that matter), whenever there’s a public outcry that causes them to have to apologize for their actions, they always half-ass it and then go right back to what they were doing before. If corporations are given the same rights as people, then they should be punished the way people are as well. Companies like Blizzard actually censoring people or EA creating a gambling scheme in Battlefront II to manipulate children is scummy enough to be considered a crime in my book, and it’s looking like they might become actual crimes in the near future.

    Oh, and Free Hong-Kong!

  5. Given that I know nothing about esports or Blizzards games, this was a topic I was completely unaware of. You brought up an interesting question on what the role of athletes both in gaming an professional sports should be. It definitely forces us to evaluate what the purpose of competitions are, because we don’t necessarily think of gaming tournaments or football games as elaborate advertising, but they are not inherently political spaces either. However, if you are given a platform that puts you in the public eye, do you have the responsibility to speak out on political topics that concern you, even if that does conflict with the marketing agenda?

  6. This is a great example of the relationship between media companies and the government, especially through capitalism. While some markets are different, like the American versus Chinese market, the bottom line is that companies prioritize their access to funding over human rights. This particular case is interesting in that the players drive the business in a lot of ways, but they’re not really valued as decision-makers and can still be cut. I wonder how the e-sports community will continue to gather and respond – as you mentioned, certain individuals have spoken out, but they continue to be silenced.

  7. I thought this was a very interesting topic, and though I don’t know much about multiplayer games, I think that the attempted punishment was completely uncalled for. China has been interfering a lot with media since the protests began, the ban of South Park being one attempt to punish activists. It is really too bad that companies like Blizzard are more interested in their financial pursuits than their political or social ones, and I think that this event might only work against them, at least in the American market.

  8. It is very interesting that recently we have been seeing so many controversies related to American or other foreign media and the Chinese government at the same time of these riots and protests in Hong Kong, almost as if the stars have aligned to remind us of the blatant issues of both Capitalism and Communism. The thing I find most about everything on a general scale is that China, with its Communist ideology (although we have been able to see much more free market activity in recent years in the nation) is a country that the United States is completely incompatible with in every way, and it is mind-boggling why the US would even consider supporting and funding the government of such a country. It all goes to show that nothing matters more than money, and we kind of owe China a lot of that. This is all reflected in a way that makes it seem like the Chinese government is controlling what American corporations, especially those that make entertainment and media, do, just to be able to sell their product in the vast market that is China. This is clearly not okay, as it promotes caring about the financial gain more than the quality and care of the product, and it causes stories and their messages to be watered down and self-censored. This encourages the Chinese government to act how they do, and we as a nation are not helping.

  9. I think one thing that is said and proven in this article is that all any of these big corporations care about, is the big mighty dollar and they will do whatever it takes to make sure their business stays the same and they continue to make an abundance amount of money. However, censorship is always such a fishy topic. We have freedom speech in America, but we get people who complain about it when they feel threatened by someones stance or opinion, a prime example of this is the Colin Kaepernick protest you mentioned. He was excising his right as an American, yet he started a whole lot of controversy. I like how you also tied in that these businesses in sports really only use these platforms to market and sell and they are willing to keep it this way no matter what, even if it means censorship. I think this connects to an overall problem we face in our society with the voicing of one’s opinion. Freedom of speech is an incredible thing to have in our country, yet people feel as though they can’t speak out. We all have our own different opinions and view points on subjects and you should be able to discuss and have a conversation about it freely without having to worry about sparking hate. I think until that moment comes, we’re going to unfortunately continue to see issues such as this.

  10. Unfortunately, for such big companies like Blizzard, I believe money making is the primary goal. So, if they change their «No political remarks on stage» policy, they risk losing their Chinese market share. I don’t think this is something they would wanna do. That being said, I agree with your argument that the companies should focus more on what’s better for the people rather than politics.

Leave a Reply