Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337
Unlike Blizzard, Epic Games says it won't ban players for political speech
Fortnite developer Epic Games said in a statement that it will not ban players or content creators for political speech. The message comes after Blizzard caught fire this week for banning a professional Hearthstone player for shouting a statement associated with Hong Kong protesters.
"Epic supports everyone's right to express their views on politics and human rights. We wouldn't ban or punish a Fortnite player or content creator for speaking on these topics," an Epic Games spokesperson told The Verge.
Over the weekend, Blizzard banned Hearthstone player Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung from participating in tournaments after he voiced support for the protesters in Hong Kong. In a post-game interview on Sunday, Blitzchung said, "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!" Now, he cannot participate in any tournaments for an entire year (effective October 5th), and Blizzard is withholding any prize money he would have received in the Grandmasters tournament over the weekend. Those forfeited winnings have been reported to total around $10,000.
[...] Following Blizzard's decision, the company's own forums and subreddits dedicated to its games ballooned with messages from angry fans condemning the ban. The r/Blizzard subreddit went down for a few hours on Tuesday after the board was overrun with memes and posts calling for players to boycott Blizzard and its games like World of Warcraft,Overwatch, and Hearthstone.
Senators on both sides of the aisle have also taken notice, tweeting out statements criticizing Blizzard's move. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said, "Blizzard shows it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party." He continued, "No American company should censor calls for freedom to make a quick buck."
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @08:37AM
What about "fortnite cheater" story, oh Epic one?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @08:56AM (7 children)
Chinese giant Tencent owns just 5% of Blizzard, but 40% of Epic.
Epic already allows developers to disable review functionality for their games in the Epic Store.
Maybe they will be smarter about the censorship by keeping the Western and Chinese gamers very separate. As a consolation prize for the West, free spyware on your computer.
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @10:08AM (6 children)
Still not sure why foreign companies are allowed to do this.
We have a huge chunk of our milk production owned by some French company, the prices are just nuts and people wonder WTF is happening. People from outside the country are buying up land all over the place. This won't be our country soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @10:28AM
It's because foreign companies are creating AI-based solutions which can effortlessly extract profit from policy bricks. Without the land, this would be negotiable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @10:32AM
That's the trick. Find a loophole, or just a hole, and penetrate it repeatedly.
When it comes to countries like China or Saudi Arabia, they need to spread the money around while the good times are still rolling. That leads to diversification... and control.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday October 12 2019, @12:27PM (1 child)
It's the very definition of capitalism. Restrict that, and you're restricting a company's ability to get capital investment - you're standing in the way of its progress and growth.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @04:01PM
Are we witnessing self-realization unfolding?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:03PM
If you want to restrict capital flows, Cuba is that way. But seriously, protectionism is akin of communism.
And who is the "we"?
Again, you didn't even mention who this "our country" even is. But I agree, Americans are buying too much land in New Zealand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @09:34PM
Maybe you should consider moving out of France?
(Score: 4, Touché) by looorg on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:28PM (4 children)
Waiting for some future winner to go nuts and start to quote from Mein Kampf and then end the whole thing a proclamation of white power! Which Epic will be all fine with cause after all -- free political speech.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:06PM
FTFY
(Score: 3, Interesting) by canopic jug on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:40PM (1 child)
That's been the usual way to target and take down sites and services with a policy of free speech.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Monday October 14 2019, @12:18PM
Don't need a random player, winner or not, to mouth off. All you need is an agent provocateur to obtain an account, then say stuff to trigger all the parents.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:18PM
Please do not conflate things. There is clear distinction between teachings of Adolf and the Jewish Construct of "White People". White people never existed in the history of the Earth until they were invented by the Jews. There were Romans, Greeks, Franks, Goths, Slavs, Saxons, and a million other ethnicities, no such thing as Whites (outside of Belarussian context). The international Jew, centered in the US, invented "White people" to hide in plain sight. It is a fake skin this creature can wear at will in order to do his filthy subversion. All thoise preaching "White Power", just like their Black counterparts, have been conned by the Jew. Black people also never existed until invented by the Jew. A black person is a mixed person that lives in the US, having on average 15% European 85% African ancestry.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 12 2019, @06:14PM
This is one of the cracks in capitalism. Why do so many companies want to throw resources into censorship efforts, particularly when it can so easily backfire? I often wonder if it's their monopolistic, control freak natures that leads them to make this mistake. To do this, they have to wander from the worship of profits and money. Of all the things they could put ahead of profit, if only briefly, censorship is a Hell of a thing to pick. Didn't they learn anything from Prodigy Internet?
They shouldn't want to make censorship their business. They should be glad to leave such efforts, if any, to law enforcement. Wash their hands of the matter, and just be a common carrier.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Saturday October 12 2019, @11:37PM (2 children)
https://twitter.com/sgbluebell?lang=en [twitter.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:39AM (1 child)
Also, "he should receive his prizing"?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday October 13 2019, @03:08AM
Sounds like a failed trip to the dictionary.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday October 14 2019, @03:02PM
Competition is "good" blah, blah, blah. Still ticked off about the exclusives. It's one thing I greatly disliked about Xbox vs Playstation, but for PCs, there's literally no reason for them. Other than someone's big fat paycheck.
Console exclusives are selling points for the hardware. In the past it was more about, needing multiple dev teams to support multiple consoles, but not quite as big of a deal nowadays. Though, even games like Terraria, don't do their own in-house console ports.
Artificially limiting PC sales, because X store front wants this game. Yeah, I'm not going to support your store.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"