I like Jim in general, and I've appreciated his voice in the Hong Kong discussion, but I do wish he'd acknowledge...
1. Not every product purchase is a political decision. I don't buy toilet paper thinking about the politics of who I'm buying it from or what values I may or may not be supporting.
2. Blizzard is more than a few decisions by its corporate leaders. As an example, my experience has been that Blizzard has the best customer support in the industry. I've also enjoyed their creative development, artistic works, and much of their game designs. I think it's wrong to lose that nuance in the discussion. Most of the company was not involved in the blitzchung discussions or decisions, so why denounce the whole company?
Why does he name "Blizzard is shit" and not "J. Allen Brack is shit" or "X person is shit"?
For your first point, I completetly disagree. You may not view it as political, but it absolutely is and has ramifications beyond your entertainment purchase. Just not thinking about it doesn't change the monetary implicit support of something happening.
That's not a judgement on you or anyone else, it can be very hard even if you're actively trying to be aware of the source and cost of your entertainment or other purchases... but to just say that it has no bearing on the world, what you're exchanging money for is naive. Everything has consequences and thus is political. I could inundate you with examples of child/slave labor/poor working conditions/pollution and poor waste management/etc that your (and mine!) seemingly mundane purchases monetarily support, but I think you and other people are aware of this already anyway, even if only in vague way. And those specific examples are besides the point, the point is that exchange of money supports business practices however they are done. Giving companies your money or not is not just a perfectly valid choice to knowingly support or not a companies policies, but just forgetting about or choosing to not pay attention to these things doesn't suddenly make the political aspect of it go away. Again, not a judgement on you or anyone else. People have limited ability to actively pay attention and choose every single purchase in that thoughtful of a way.
As to your second point, I agree. I love the games Blizzard puts out, Overwatch has been a huge part of my life for the last couple of years (and diablo/starcraft/warcraft before that in my high school years). To me, that makes this horrible decision by blizzard that much more of a reason to be vocally displeased about it. It's NOT just some toilet paper that I didn't research the originals of where they get their materials from or something, it's a company and products I'm actively invested in and a part of my life. To ignore something I find so... uh distasteful? is a nice way of putting it? doesn't sit right with me. While there's legitimately great people at Blizzard, even some I've had the pleasure of personally interacting with, I can't forgive or ignore the overall company's decisions and business practices because I like some people who are employed by them.
