Do Games Developers have a moral obligation in real-world issues?

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Canoe

Canoe
Does Tencent still own 9% of Frontier? Or has that figure gone up? I'm reading about the abhorent behaviour of Blizzard today, and wondering what the equivalent would be for Frontier, and how they would respond. It's a situation that leaves a very bad taste in your mouth..

https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/dezn1k
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/dezn1k/regarding_the_blitzchung_situation_and_rwow/


I'm trying to imagine a situation where Frontier is placed in a position of defending free speech versus maintaining the avenue to further revenue from foreign investors. It's not a happy avenue to wander down for sure. The delineation between real world issues and games has very much blurred in recent years.
 

Burke

B
Blizzard did this? Cause of the stated reasosns! This is a towering outrage. And the dude got robbed. WTH blizzard. Diablo games are these days anyway.


Edit: and i tell you this :) i might have played wow classic if they hadnt been so greedy to try and ring a sub out of me. The price of it aswell.
 

Turd Ferguson

Turd Ferguson
if you lay down with dogs, you will wake up with fleas.

What do companies THINK is going to happen when they start accepting money from a totalitarian Commie regime in exchange for influence?
 

Klarg

Klarg
They have no moral obligation to do anything other than follow the letter of the law. Everything else is really up to blizzard. I've never played WoW and don't really like blizzard games. Diablo 1 was okay I guess but not my type of thing. Never played 2 or 3, they look like more of the same. I prefer my RPG's with more RPG in them. I'm glad of that because even if they brought out the next amazing spaceship flying RPG and it was hailed as the best game ever created I would avoid it. I have few morals, but those random ones I do have (for example I never ride my bike the day after I have been out drinking, no matter what) I like to keep to and if FDev reacted like that then I would stop playing elite and never buy anything else they sold. I like to think they wouldn't react like this though.
 

RamirezKurita

R
To be fair, not paying out on prizes does save quite a lot of money.

On the other hand, we should have been expecting behaviour like this ever since they got in bed with Activision.
 

PiLhEaD

PiLhEaD
Turd Ferguson said:
...What do companies THINK is going to happen when they start accepting money from a totalitarian Commie regime in exchange for influence?
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Dunno... something like...?

"Hurrah, more money for our expansion plans combined with easier access into a huge market that might otherwise be hard to penetrate, and a nice fat end-of-year bonus for me as 'CEO'."
 

Turd Ferguson

Turd Ferguson
PiLhEaD said:
Dunno... something like...?

"Hurrah, more money for our expansion plans combined with easier access into a huge market that might otherwise be hard to penetrate, and a nice fat end-of-year bonus for me as 'CEO' in exchange for giving up some control and ."
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Barking_Mad said:
If you think China is a Communist country, you'd be wrong. It's a bit like claiming the US is a democracy.
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thankfully the U.S. is not a democracy, it's a representitive republic. And no, China is not a a communist country. It's a totalitarian communist regime, there's a difference.
 

Fishy

Fishy
Klarg said:
They have no moral obligation to do anything other than follow the letter of the law.
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This. That's how laws generally work. It's up to the consumer to decide what moral stance they want to accept/encourage or refuse to be part of. As long as people keep sending money to the corporation, well, they tacitly accept the moral stance of the company.

There's no need for an organised boycott for an individual to take a personal stance. And yes, it's probably going to be insignificant on the company's bottom line, and simply an inconvenience to the individual (my Nutella deprivation is affecting me far more than it does Ferrero's bottom line). But it's ludicrous to expect the company to take the stand on your behalf. Like charity, moral obligations start at home.
 

Morbad

Morbad
No, they don't have any moral obligations.

That said, I think their tournament rules are asinine and firing the interviewers because the individual they were interviewing went off script is also pretty crappy. While false pretensions to morality offend me more readily than coolly amoral business decision, this seems like a fairly clear overreaction to appease Chinese censors that will certainly result in significant backlash.

More personally, I feel Blitzchung is entirely correct and think $10k was a bargain for the sort of publicity Blizzard's ineptitude has given him and the message he conveyed.

Anyway, since Blizzard hasn't had an original idea in twenty years, nor do I really expect them to ever make another product I'd find appealing, and I don't own any Activision Blizzard stock, any displeasure with them on my part is rather moot. I'm just that much more disinclined to patronize them now.

Bigmaec said:
Companies don't like to get entangled in politics, especialy not into politics which otherwise earn them money.
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Kinda ironic, now that Blizzard has Streisand-effected themselves into an international incident.

Klarg said:
They have no moral obligation to do anything other than follow the letter of the law.
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Sounds more like a legal obligation than a moral one.

Turd Ferguson said:
I don't understand why people insist on personifying corporations.
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Because the law does. Corporate personhood is a thing and this legal fiction is used to shield the actual persons responsible for corporate action.

https://www.history.com/news/14th-amendment-corporate-personhood-made-corporations-into-people -- US perspective, obviously, but the idea and legal implementation of corporate personhood has spread far and wide.

Turd Ferguson said:
It's a totalitarian communist regime, there's a difference.
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It's a totalitarian regime that put communism on the to do list, but will almost certainly never check it off. How much of the CPC's espoused commitment to communism is party propaganda and how much is an honest delusion, I couldn't say, but even if by some miracle they reach the point where they could implement communism, I cannot imagine any such regime being willing to relinquish power.
 

Barking_Mad

Barking_Mad
Turd Ferguson said:
thankfully the U.S. is not a democracy, it's a representitive republic. And no, China is not a a communist country. It's a totalitarian communist regime, there's a difference.
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The US is representative of corporation lobbyists, yes. That's why it has no morals and no democracy. QED.

China is totalitarian yes, Communist no. Gave up on that ages ago.
 

[VR] optimal_909

[VR] optimal_909
EUS said:
Corporations have no moral obligations.
Financial obligations only to their shareholders/lenders.
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They do have a wide range of moral obligations like fair treatment of employees, protecting the environment and social responsibility. It is expected through and beyond the law, just like in case of natural persons. They do cross line, however, just like individuals do.
 

[VR] optimal_909

[VR] optimal_909
Turd Ferguson said:
thankfully the U.S. is not a democracy, it's a representitive republic. And no, China is not a a communist country. It's a totalitarian communist regime, there's a difference.
Click to expand...

Every communist country = totalitarian regime, there is no difference.
I do agree, however, that China is not a communist country. China is more like totalitarian capitalism.
 
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