Houston Rockets HM Daryl Morey tweeted support for Hong Kong -> the NBA comes out against Morey's comments ( https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/nbas-apology-china-draws-outrage-political-spectrum-1245772 )

Professional Hearthstone player voices his support for Hong Kong in a post-match interview -> Blizzard responds by banning the player and firing the broadcasters who participated in the interview. ( https://twitter.com/InvenGlobal/status/1180954142396710912?s=09 )

South Park makes an episode critical of how American corporations are censoring themselves in order to keep doing business in China -> All traces of South Park are scrubbed from the Chinese internet ( https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/south-park-banned-chinese-internet-critical-episode-1245783 )

These stories are indicative of a trend that is incredibly impactful in world politics. The US Government is run by corporations. Those corporation have shown a willingness to take their orders from the Chinese government. The implications for this behavior are fucking massive.

For example: The US government is trying to get rid of Huawei phones. What happens if some corporations who want to appease China start putting their products on platforms built by Chinese technology?

The Chinese government has managed to do something that the US can't: keep control over corporations. China is gaining ground in the struggle for global political power. Obviously the Chinese government is terrible, but their methods are winning. Might Makes Right.

This post was edited by Kayeto on Oct 8 2019 04:37am

bah humbug
it took me 4 minutes to write mine

anyway, the top comment on IGN's thread about hearthstone;



Remember, these are the video game companies that conspicuously throw in gay, trans, 'empowered' female characters, that show explicit support for trendy social movements, that even stick a hijab wearing female scientist into HZD somehow, not to mention oodles of climate change propaganda explicitly in that game's lore. Different company but same idea, Blizzard has been all over the social pandering. But as soon as it comes to putting their money where their mouth is, their mouth is sealed shut, sewn shut, cauterized shut with a hot iron and then covered in a metal facemask

This post was edited by Goomshill on Oct 8 2019 04:49am

China is big money. That's all that matters to these for profit companies.

It's hilarious how they don't even try to hide what side they're on.

Such a scoop after Google & Apple

Fuck china. yeah, i said it.

Remember when Blizzad created a mobile game to enter into the Chinese Mobile Market - chose Diablo 3 as the guinea pig and then removed the Witch Doctor from the game because Chinese don't like that sort of stuffs.

I do.

remember when Blizzard bought a mobile game from a chinese developer for "diablo immortal" but it turned out they got ripped off and it was just a reskin on an exiting game with blizzard IP hackily tossed in?

I do.

I don't think they got ripped off, honestly. They had to have known the NetEase game existed (or else why partner with them?) and that it was going to translate over heavily into the poop product they were making.

It's obvious the project is (at the moment) a failure. They refuse to release it although it's been confirmed to be finished and ready to go.

Good stuff - Blizzard whores out Diabla and she's really sore.

i think they knew it was a reskin, but somehow (and i don't fucking even get how) they expected it to go over well enough because most people wouldn't find out it was a reskin.

in reality it took literally like 5 mins before someone who played the chinese game spotted it and called it out. the livestream wasnt even done before it was known to be a reskin.

maybe they thought they could rush to market inbetween releases, and sweep up enough in app purchases to make it worth doing it. then if it worked ok they could develop more mobile games.

and right now classic wow is making blizzard all their money. re-releasing a game no one in that company was even responsible for tripled their subs.

Which is exactly why I think that the next Diablo release will be a subscription based MMO/RPG hybrid. They'd have another WoW level subscription based game on their hands.

Not sure if it would Cannibalize their current WoW base, but it would definitely attract some Diablo fans that don't play wow.