I think making it purely a profit margin thing is dumbing it down anyway
Does China bow out completely with a less severe punishment or even no punishment at all? Hard to say, but honestly really doubtful. Was the decision to be severe largely about appeasing massive profit generator China? Possibly, but again, hard to say.
For me the point of interest is less about "is Blizzard okay to make a decision entirely because it boosts their bottom line" cause I mean clearly they are and it's just about whether you find it scummy. The interesting thing to consider is more "is Blizzard necessarily in the wrong if they want to keep charged topics off their streams in general." Because I think the latter thinking is a bigger factor than a lot of people are giving credit for, and part of this was trying to make a decisive example to prevent further incidents. They're not entirely unrelated or anything and I'm not saying trying to purge that kinda stuff isn't ultimately being done with a profit driven mindset (more of a preventative potential bad PR measure) but I consider the latter a lot more acceptable as a mindset than "let's get in good with the regime by totally obliterating this guy" which is how everyone seems to be framing it.
Like I just don't think it's reasonable to hold a company to a standard where they're expected to basically take the role of an activist-- the "these don't represent Blizzard" disclaimers are nice but they're technicalities more than anything. If you broadcast something, it's getting tied to you. Wanting to prevent that is fine. Blizzard is a gaming company not a news outlet or public forum and not wanting heat associated with their brand is acceptable. It's not a matter of straight censorship it's about whether a content creator has control over what gets associated with them.
But yeah, the extent of the punishment was egregious so I don't support Blizzard here, but I just don't think they're necessarily scum of the earth either depending on what the mindset was, which we can't really know. Backpedaling and admitting they overreacted and dialing the punishment back a lot (and completely for the casters) would do a lot to mend the situation.
I see no chance Blizzard rescinds their decision. I am not going to go buy a Blizzard game because I support their action, but I am not going to skip out on a game I want to play because of who made it either.
I see so many people saying there are going to boycott Blizzard because they don't play their games anymore anyways (fake boycott) or they will buy Activision games still but not Blizzard (a bit weird). But, honestly it is a real small group who actively are going to boycott Activisoon-Blizzard that dump significant money into their games. While they potentially were going to lose a massive amount by losing out on the China market.
I believe their decision was extremely based on their markets, whether you think so or not. I do not think they are wrong to reserve the right to make that decision either as obviously not wanting to be associated with controversy seems fine to me. However, I'd bet $$$$$$ was the underlying reason here.
And, I definitely do not think it was to signal their support of the Chinese government regarding Hong Kong either.
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Xbox Live User Name - Corrik Currently playing: Division 2