Board 8 > Blizzard bans and withholds prize money from hearthstone player for HK support

(+) Yeah! (+)

Video of Mei being used on the streets of hong kong (there's a bunch around 1h28m).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt9_6lE2UTo&t=1h28m
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metroid composite posted...

Daily Show segment on Hong Kong and the NBA (briefly mentions Activision)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izohpKPd9CM" data-time="

I know it seems so easy to pile on. Everyone has been talking about it for years, everyone agrees. But this really makes it so obvious and I think finally Americans can rally behind one singular truth

Trevor Noah is not funny

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https://twitter.com/ARmastrangelo/status/1182421875122720770

NBA players can't even comment.
what a joke.
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https://news.blizzard.com/news/23185888

Blizzard finally responds and reigns in the punishments a bit.

probably not enough to quiet the mob
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I don't really accept this.
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The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision.

This is a totally believable claim. Very certain they would have done the same thing if he would have said "black lives matter"!

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Im not sure how to feel. I think realistically this about the best response we could have hoped for from Blizzard since theres like no way theyd say yeah China made us do it and now were saying FUCK EM!, but the best we can hope for still isnt necessarily good enough to let this go.
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Of course its sarcasm. Blizzard isnt believable here at all. And if this ridiculous excuse was somehow true, their Weibo response wouldnt have mentioned protecting our national dignity:

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/10/verified-chinese-blizzard-account-doubles-down-on-political-policy

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I don't think this is the kind of thing where an apology brings back much if any good will. They bowed to China happily before their fanbase imploded. Nothing except a change in policy going forward that is actually enforced will make a difference, and that's not going to happen.

Also they kept a 6-month ban on the casters (which essentially kills their careers) who had nothing to do with what happened so yeah.
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Lol so fucking tone deaf. They'll use this pathetic answer as an excuse to completely ignore it from this point on, though.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Of course its sarcasm. Blizzard isnt believable here at all. And if this ridiculous excuse was somehow true, their Weibo response wouldnt have mentioned protecting our national dignity:

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/10/verified-chinese-blizzard-account-doubles-down-on-political-policy

the Weibo thing isnt directly from Blizzard, its the Chinese company handling Hearthstone there or something. I bet the people making the decision and the people who posted that didnt actually interact before the post.

of course I still dont believe that China had no factor in their decision
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KamikazePotato posted...

Also they kept a 6-month ban on the casters (which essentially kills their careers) who had nothing to do with what happened so yeah.

Honestly, there are enough e-sports in the world and few enough casters with experience that if they want jobs casting Magic, CS:GO, League or whatever esport they want, they can definitely get an interview.
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lol trusting blizzard.

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The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision.

lol sure.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Nothing except a change in policy going forward that is actually enforced will make a difference, and that's not going to happen.

this is really what getting over this comes down to for me

ok, they relaxed the punishment on blitzchung which is good

but i believe blizzard punished blitzchung harshly because they are acting in the interest of appeasing china

i want to know that blizzard in the future will not treat it's community based on appeasing an authoritarian government. this apology did nothing to convince me of that.
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CoolCly posted...

i want to know that blizzard in the future will not treat it's community based on appeasing an authoritarian government. this apology did nothing to convince me of that.

Same. Calling a request for humane treatment of humans a "divisive issue" doesn't give me much confidence in blizzard's future handling of these sorts of things
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xfd, what a ridiculous lie of an apology
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terrible apology
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red13n posted...

The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision.

lol sure.

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Can't speak/read Chinese so I can't vouch for its veracity but this seems interesting: https://twitter.com/SGBluebell/status/1182817588147052544
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i've been reading a lot of Tales of Demons and Gods lately which is a chinese light novel, and the grammar he's describing is what I see there all of the time. i would absolutely not say i'm knowledgeable about chinese writing, but the examples he's pointing out are common in the literature i happen to be reading.

I remember thinking the structure of the post was odd when reading it but never in a million years would i have even considered that someone chinese wrote this

but after reading that chain... it's entirely possible.
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Yeah, I thought a couple of wording choices in the post seemed odd, I just wasn't really thinking about it at the time

Paratroopa1 posted...

Yeah, I thought a couple of wording choices in the post seemed odd, I just wasn't really thinking about it at the time

Especially if you consider how deeply rooted Blizzard is here in Southern California. We don't talk like that here. Its pretty clear this is probably just a mangled up pre-prepared statement that all he did was sign off on.
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Yeah it reads a lot actually like Nintendo statements that have been translated or when you hear the translator directly translating what a Japanese person is saying in a video or live event.

I can believe that the statement was not written in English originally.
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The whole concept sounds so ludicrous though. Like Blizzard HQ and Brack can't come up with their own PR statement? What Chinese person would even write this for them? Blizzard China? Netease? The Chinese government? Why would that be easier than just Brack or his team writing it?

And this would mean Blizzard is so thoroughly whipped, that not only are they trying to appease the Chinese government before issues occur, they are actually directly being told what to do?
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CoolCly posted...

The whole concept sounds so ludicrous though. Like Blizzard HQ and Brack can't come up with their own PR statement? What Chinese person would even write this for them? Blizzard China? Netease? The Chinese government? Why would that be easier than just Brack or his team writing it?

They probably worked with someone on the Chinese side of things. I'm sure his own PR team had a part in it. Its just obvious it had a probably far ranging influence.
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So what was the deal with the blizzard link posted on this page? I got an error page when I clicked on it. Based on the posts it seems like they are changing the punishment? What's the scoop?
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Was that statement put out in any other languages? Like the incident was at the Asia Pacific tournament. It might actually make sense that the original version was in Chinese.
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IfGodCouldDie posted...

So what was the deal with the blizzard link posted on this page? I got an error page when I clicked on it. Based on the posts it seems like they are changing the punishment? What's the scoop?

6 month ban for everyone involved, player gets his prizes instead of 1 year ban, no prizes.
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GildedFool posted...

IfGodCouldDie posted...

So what was the deal with the blizzard link posted on this page? I got an error page when I clicked on it. Based on the posts it seems like they are changing the punishment? What's the scoop?

6 month ban for everyone involved, player gets his prizes instead of 1 year ban, no prizes.

Ok, thanks.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Also they kept a 6-month ban on the casters (which essentially kills their careers) who had nothing to do with what happened so yeah.

Ehh...the casters are definitely implicated in some way.

Right before Blitzchung said his bit, the casters said "say the 8 words and then we will end the stream" and then ducked their heads below the desk, so they knew what was coming and semi-encouraged him.

I don't know how much punishment they should get for their part, (the lifetime ban from all blizzard games was disgusting, and 6 months still seems harsh), but I do understand them getting some kind of punishment.
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So according to a Blizzard employee on discord, Blitzchung will not be removed from Grandmasters:

https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1182850498044612609

That's...an interesting thing to forget to add to their press release. >_>
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doesnt the article say 6 months ban?
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WazzupGenius00 posted...

Can't speak/read Chinese so I can't vouch for its veracity but this seems interesting: https://twitter.com/SGBluebell/status/1182817588147052544

This is actually really noticeable:
https://mobile.twitter.com/advokccat/status/1182935700116824065

I don't know much about translating from Chinese, but those spaced out ellipses are seen a lot in Japanese writing. Is that just the standard Eastern way to do it?

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Grand Kirby posted...

This is actually really noticeable:
https://mobile.twitter.com/advokccat/status/1182935700116824065

I don't know much about translating from Chinese, but those spaced out ellipses are seen a lot in Japanese writing. Is that just the standard Eastern way to do it?

The post about it's our country? It's because NetEase wrote it. They are a Chinese company that Blizzard works with.

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Is it true that the apology post, despite being released in America on 10/11, was dated 10/12...which it would have been in certain parts of the world?
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Corrik7 posted...

The post about it's our country? It's because NetEase wrote it. They are a Chinese company that Blizzard works with.

No, it's from the statement released from Blizzard's president.

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Grand Kirby posted...

No, it's from the statement released from Blizzard's president.

Oh idk then

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Having some help from China pr would make sense, blizzard wants to win both sides here.

But the degree to which that post does not read like a normal native speaker is really alarming.
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Does anyone remember the Real ID controversy back in 2010? There was a brief attempt by Blizzard to force users to post under their real names on the Blizzard forums. This resulted in a massive backlash, complete with the account servers going down under the strain of people cancelling. Like now, the current President Mike Morhaime issued a lengthy statement in which he apologized and announced the cancellation of those plans. It is interesting to compare and contrast the two statements!

http://web.archive.org/web/20100712103810/http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=25968987278&sid=1

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Yeah, seems likely that it was written in another language, although I'm not sure we can linguistically tie this down to China. (As noted above the elipses could just have easily come from a Japanese keyboard).

I'm looking up what I can on Mandarin specifically. Mandarin is usually SVO, occasionally SOV (SVO is the same as English, "I drink Juice", so we're unlikely to catch too much here).

Mandarin places indirect object before the direct object ("give me book" -- in english it would be "give me the book"). This contrasts it from other mainland languages like cantonese (which are "give book me" -- in english this would be like "give the book to me")

Mandarin places adverbs before verbs, e.g. "I first go", rather than "I go first".

Mandarin places adjectives after the noun, e.g. "wind strong", rather than "strong wind"

Alright, now let's go to the Blizzard writing to see if we can catch any slips or a pattern...and the blizzard announcement seems to be gone? What? Is it just me? EDIT: ok, nvm found a link that works; I'll start a new post.
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metroid composite posted...

Alright, now let's go to the Blizzard writing to see if we can catch any slips or a pattern...and the blizzard announcement seems to be gone? What? Is it just me?

Yes.

https://news.blizzard.com/en-us/blizzard/23185888/regarding-last-weekend-s-hearthstone-grandmasters-tournament
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metroid composite posted...

Yeah, seems likely that it was written in another language, although I'm not sure we can linguistically tie this down to China. (As noted above the elipses could just have easily come from a Japanese keyboard).

I'm looking up what I can on Mandarin specifically. Mandarin is usually SVO, occasionally SOV (SVO is the same as English, "I drink Juice", so we're unlikely to catch too much here).

Mandarin places indirect object before the direct object ("give me book" -- in english it would be "give me the book"). This contrasts it from other mainland languages like cantonese (which are "give book me" -- in english this would be like "give the book to me")

Mandarin places adverbs before verbs, e.g. "I first go", rather than "I go first".

Mandarin places adjectives after the noun, e.g. "wind strong", rather than "strong wind"

Alright, now let's go to the Blizzard writing to see if we can catch any slips or a pattern...and the blizzard announcement seems to be gone? What? Is it just me? EDIT: ok, nvm found a link that works; I'll start a new post.

Lmfao

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metroid composite posted...

I'm looking up what I can on Mandarin specifically

You're not gonna be able to figure anything out unless you're native in Chinese like the tweeter. It's way beyond grammar. But you're native in English so you can tell what parts don't sound right.
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Alright, let's take a look:

"I want to take a few minutes to talk to all of you about the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament this past weekend."

SVO.

"talk you tournament" is...I guess indirect object before the object

"past weekend" "few minutes"-- this is adjective before the noun, whereas mandarin would be "weekend past" "minutes few".

Ehh...there's just nothing weird about this sentence, feels normal to me.

"On Monday, we made the decision to take action against a player named blitzchung and two shoutcasters after the player shared his views on whats happening in Hong Kong on our official broadcast channel."

OK, so a few things grammatically feel weird--sentence is long and rambly, and IDK why there's a comma after Monday. I don't really think any of this implies translation, though. Looking at other J Allen Brack writing, he throws around commas like they're candy so seems legit.

SVO "we made decision", "[we] take (action against) player", "player shared views".

No real adjectives or adverbs to look at ("official broadcast channel", oh man)

So...none of the markers I was looking for. I will note that the compounding is an unusual choice, though. "we made the deicision to take action" instead of "we took action". Still perfectly sensible English.

"At Blizzard, our vision is to bring the world together through epic entertainment."

The use of quotations here is one thing the twitter user called out. Not a smoking gun by any means, but weird I guess. Here's what he wrote in February "One thing that remains constant: we are committed to creating epic games and entertainment experiences. "

SVO "[our vision] is [stuff]"

Honestly short sentence, not much here.

"And we have core values that apply here: Think Globally; Lead Responsibly; and importantly, Every Voice Matters, encouraging everybody to share their point of view."

What the? Why are there semicolons instead of commas after Think Globally, Lead Responsibly? Like...I can see why if someone had this in a word processor, the word processor might put a red underline and tell you to add a semicolon. "Think Globally" is technically a complete sentence. But in this context it's an object, enumerating core values.

I checked J Allen Brack's past writing, he never used a semicolon. So...I mean, yeah, this is weird.

Starting the sentence with And...why hello there King James Bible. Yeah, this is a bit odd--not something he's in the habbit of doing looking at his past writing.

One thing that suggests against a translation here, though, is capitalization of all the core values. Capitalizing random words in sentences is something I do All The Time And It Drives Some Of My Friends Crazy. But if you're just shoving it through a translator you'll lose all the capitalization every time.

SVO "we have [core values]". "everybody to share [their point of view]"

Not a lot of adjectives or adverbs to work with "core values"--not going to mess that up.

"The actions that we took over the weekend are causing people to question if we are still committed to these values."

OSV "[the actions that] we took" -- this is a construction that does not exist in mandarin as far as I know.

SVO "[actions...] are causing people"

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Ehhh...alright, well, it's weird for sure, particularly in the punctuation, might be translated from something, but I don't see much that suggests Mandarin in particular.
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metroid composite posted...

"At Blizzard, our vision is to bring the world together through epic entertainment."

The use of quotations here is one thing the twitter user called out. Not a smoking gun by any means, but weird I guess. Here's what he wrote in February "One thing that remains constant: we are committed to creating epic games and entertainment experiences. "

That line seems to be a reference to Blizzard's mission statement. They've used similar wording before:
https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/diablor-iii-eternal-collectiontm-brings-legendary-action-rpg

Bringing the world together through epic entertainment is core to our mission at Blizzardwe cant wait to welcome a new generation of demon-slayers to Sanctuary.

However, I don't think that exact line and wording is in their mission statement. However, since it does exist nearly word for word in other places maybe the person copied a different location and didn't realize it wasn't the original wording.
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metroid composite posted...

Yeah, seems likely that it was written in another language, although I'm not sure we can linguistically tie this down to China. (As noted above the elipses could just have easily come from a Japanese keyboard).

I'm looking up what I can on Mandarin specifically. Mandarin is usually SVO, occasionally SOV (SVO is the same as English, "I drink Juice", so we're unlikely to catch too much here).

Mandarin places indirect object before the direct object ("give me book" -- in english it would be "give me the book"). This contrasts it from other mainland languages like cantonese (which are "give book me" -- in english this would be like "give the book to me")

Mandarin places adverbs before verbs, e.g. "I first go", rather than "I go first".

Mandarin places adjectives after the noun, e.g. "wind strong", rather than "strong wind"

Alright, now let's go to the Blizzard writing to see if we can catch any slips or a pattern...and the blizzard announcement seems to be gone? What? Is it just me? EDIT: ok, nvm found a link that works; I'll start a new post.

nvm now this is the dumbest post in this topic

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