The problem isn’t that Activision is invested in China. The problem is that Activision is on record for directly punishing people who supported the demonstrators in Hong Kong. Activision then tried to cover their actions by claiming that human rights are a “divisive political issue”.
If any of the other companies you’ve listed has taken a similar stance to the demonstrations in Hong Kong, I’d like to know.
-Tom
Exactly. @Ultrazen, dropping a long list into your post just to be a dick isn’t going to endear you to anyone. Make it collapsible or edit it down, please. And I’d be curious to know what it’s actually a list of. Companies that have invested in China?
-Tom
You titled the thread to encourage a conversation about the boycott. You don’t get to put the toothpaste back in the tube by changing the thread title. :)
-Tom
Without getting too specific - given some M&A that happened over half a decade ago, I’m questioning the accuracy of whatever it’s meant to be.
It’s just meant to say ‘it’s impossible to be an ethical consumer, so get off your high horse,’ basically.
For me, actively punishing someone for standing up for democracy was a bridge too far, but I’m sure my consumer hands are far from clean.
Fuck, the way things are trending with the Uighurs, we’re getting pretty close to ‘1930s companies doing business with Nazi Germany’ territory, I fear. Not to say that China is Nazi Germany, but what they’re doing … ain’t good. (However, we are getting rather far afield from Blitzchung and Diablo at this point, and to Tom’s point, it wasn’t “doing business” that sparked this particular boycott at all.)
Well great. Thanks to the original title and this reversal, we get to encourage and enjoy the people coming into the thread to tell us they are not giving Blizzard money and why we should play that game that’s not D2 instead. Awesome.
I’ve also been watching Bluddshed streaming D2 on Twitch. He’s an avid D3 player and he seems to have been enjoying the alpha. No email, so I guess I don’t get to try it out.
But I agree with @divedivedive that it’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint and fluid animations do for the game. Looks really cool yet still classic.
(edit: belatedly noticed an autocorrect from my phone)
Scott’s topic when he started the thread was specifically about the boycott, even if that wasn’t his intent. It invited comment on whether a D2 re-release was enough to get people to change their minds. And in the case of at least one poster, it was.
Furthermore, no one in this thread is telling you what you should or shouldn’t play! They are instead explaining their own choices. If that evokes any sense of shame for you, maybe it’s worth examining why you feel that way.
-Tom
Well there was this:
I’m not seeing where Eric is telling you what you should or shouldn’t play. But if what he wrote makes you feel ashamed, perhaps you should look at why you feel that way.
-Tom
It doesn’t one bit. But thanks for proving my point twice. Diablo 2 with a generous dollop of P&R for added intellectual stimulation it is then. Not much more to discuss from an early alpha weekend, to be fair.
For those who enjoy Twitch, Bluddshedd is playing at a fairly high level on controller right now. Lets you enjoy the throwback to inventory tetris once loot starts dropping in big piles.
The spell effects are definitely looking much better than their classic version.
Man, you aren’t kidding. I couldn’t care less about all that… Twitch… that’s taking up a quarter of the screen.
He’s in Act 2 tombs now. That brings back a lot of memories.
Yep. I have a feeling I’m gonna be buying this on day one.
My intent could have at least have had a chance if you hadn’t changed my thread title back. Allow me to formally state I don’t condone this action.
Wait so boycott was put in the title but the intent was not to talk about about the boycott at all.
Pretty sure anytime Activision / Blizzard comes up, this is going to follow them. I mean they made that decision themselves when they decided the concept of democracy was suddenly controversial.
I knew it would come up, but I naively hoped it wouldn’t take over the entire thread. Ah well. Silly of me. It’s fine either way, I am mostly frustrated that when I realized my mistake I was forbidden from taking steps to try and get the ship back on course.
We’ve only got a 100 posts in here. It’s just a baby topic at this point.
It’s a 20 year old game many of us played before; I am sure the controversies will pop-up now and then, but this is hardly spinning on and on.
I enjoyed D2 back when it was a different company and didn’t require Blizzard accounts at all, long before the real name fiasco. I just played via IP, and it was great fun. Finished D1. Never did finish D2, but these days I just think there are better games out there and better companies. If they want to try and spin a remake, sure… but the days of Battle Chests selling for years at the same price of a new fresh game are probably just over. I’ll look back though on the days where retail box stores had like 20 different copies of Sims and the Battle Chest as like the extent of their PC offerings though.
I for one am perfectly capable of talking about both a game and the wider issues around its godfuckingawful IP rentiers in the same thread without exploding.
Probably. Or I’ll get banned for another week. Either way.
No invite for me. Sad panda.
I’m pretty keen on checking this out when it releases, to tide me over until Diablo 4. I don’t expect to love it like I did Diablo 3 though.
I played some of the Reign of Terror mod a while back and it mostly just made me wish I were playing proper Grim Dawn instead. :)
You started a very specific conversation. When that conversation happens and you decide at some point you don’t like it, you don’t get to tell people to no longer have that conversation. Threads don’t belong to you, Scott. They belong to the people participating in them.
-Tom