One Straw too Many

Aside from the Homeworld series Warcraft and Starcraft were some of my favorite RTS games growing up.  For whatever reason I never got into Diablo (although my brother did).  I also never played World of Warcraft because, as I have stated in the past, I'm not a fan of MMORPGs.  As one might guess, I haven't been very interested in Blizzard's more recent releases either; Hearthstone?...pass.  Overwatch?...No, thanks.  Even Starcraft II failed to get my attention since so much design focus was placed on the E-sports side of things.  Still, I always held onto a glimmer of hope that the studio would return to the aspects of their games that interested me the most.  Sadly, ever since Blizzard was bought out by Activision, I feel like whatever talent the studio had remaining simply disappeared.

It's something that really began to show at the last Blizzcon with Wyatt Chung's rhetorical question, "Do you guys not have phones?"  In other words, their focus had become totally fixed on mobile platforms, microtransactions and tapping into the Chinese marketplace.  My understanding is that China is an especially lucrative place for video game companies, not just in terms of new player potential but a lack of stigma when it comes to loot boxes and pay-to-win gameplay elements.  Those things, along with free-to-play or fee-to-pay games, have become a plague on the industry.  The fun and interesting parts games are inevitably eroded away by more repetitive, more obfuscated, and more addictive gameplay whenever these revenue models are utilized.  It has reached the point now where playing live-service games is about as enjoyable as chain smoking.  Honestly, I don't see why that kind of electronic entertainment should be tolerated any more than regular casinos.  Taking the most unhealthy parts of video games and magnifying them to make a quick buck is as devious as all the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas...yet, despite all the awfulness associated with this industry trend, Blizzard keeps marching toward that golden grail of gambling in video games...piling those straws on that camel's back.  That is until just recently, when a big chunk of wood got chucked on top.

Actually, I'm not alluding to Blizzard laying off a bunch of employees despite record profits.  No, that was a big stick, but "log" I'm referring to here is the banning of Blitzchung by Activision/Blizzard/PRC for taking a pro Hong Kong stance.  It's one thing to be selfish and money grubbing, but quite another to be complacent in denying people basic human rights.  Upsettingly, this isn't even an issue unique Blizzard or the video game industry.  In fact, quite a few American companies such as Apple, Disney and Google (the providers of this very blog hosting service!) have been guilt of disturbingly similar behavior.  I've seen a lot of people trying to frame this as a free speech issue, but I fail to see what's controversial about being for human rights or opposed to hate speech for that matter...It's not taking a political stance so much as having an ounce of moral integrity.  Something a lot of the head honchos and these companies (and the NBA) seem to lack.  It's particularly duplicitous coming from places like Disney, who stylize themselves as being progressive.

Another thing I've seen some people online try to do is claim that this is actually just racism against Chinese people.  While I'm sure that is a motivating factor for some, I don't understand how it invalidates calling out American companies and the Chinese government on their human rights abuses.  Just to be clear, if we were to consider this form of whataboutism valid then it could be used to dismiss any criticism of any institution.  Don't like the way Spain is handling Catalan?  You're just racist toward Spaniards.  Don't like Brexit?  You just hate the Britons.  Don't like the way the American government handles...well...anything recently?  You're just prejudiced against fat, orange men with bad hair - You get the idea.

The camel's back is broken and this has been a long time coming.  Blizzcon is just around the corner and I hope protestors make things truly awful for all those executives and Blizzard and Activision.  I also hope that in the future things become awful for any corporate executive that doesn't have the moral fiber to put fundamental human rights before profit margins.