I've been keeping a close eye on the Blizzard/HK fiasco, and there are two developments worth noting.
First of all, Blizzard released the guide for attendees yesterday, and it includes this passage:
Blizzard said:
A NOTE ABOUT PERSONAL EXPRESSION AT BLIZZCON
BlizzCon has always been a place where we celebrate the passion and diversity of the Blizzard community, where we encourage and support the many creative and thoughtful ways attendees share and reflect their views and interests—and this year will be no different. We welcome open, constructive, and civil discussion of different perspectives at the show, and we also want to make sure everyone's aware that all attire and cosplay is allowed at BlizzCon as long as it adheres to the
long-held standards we've laid out for the show each year.
Now, I understand that the whole situation with Blitzchung exploded in the first place because of, shall we say, a loose interpretation and enforcement of the stated rules. But I've read their explicit policies closely, and the bottom line here is that pro-HK messages on T-shirts, signage, and community artwork are theoretically permissible, even if we know their production team for the online stream will probably try to dodge or minimize that on camera to maintain the appearance that everything is fine and everybody is as gleefully hyped as always. (Full-sized umbrellas, probably not, unless they are specifically inspected and approved at the costume desk.) If people get screened or reprimanded for this, they
should be raising a stink about it.
Second—and pertinent to the above—one of the better actions I saw proposed when this situation exploded was the distribution of pro-HK T-shirts outside the Convention Centre. I saw a number of different groups jump on this and set up crowd funds to do just that, but I'm pleased to report that an experienced global solidarity group,
Freedom Hong Kong, will be supporting this with T-shirts and leaflets on site:
So we'll see what the mood is like and how much of it we can actually witness from afar.
My personal view on this is that Blizzard will survive the weekend just fine, and that we shouldn't expect too much from the blowback on site: scattered boos and muted applause, one rogue Q&A moment that they'll be prepared to handle in advance (and probably more prepared for than the "out of season April Fool's joke" exchange in 2018), one or two costume displays you'll hear about after the fact. If passive displays of pro-HK messages on T-shirts or e-sports cheer signs are too prevalent and well distributed to be avoided by the video crews, or if J Allen Brack is widely booed in the opening ceremony, I think that's enough to be considered a modest success.
My sense of the vibe online is that at this point, everybody knows what their level of discomfort with Blizzard is, and that there is a general reluctance to take it out on developers or community figures who are still in the fold—much less on fellow Blizzard players. At this point there is a pretty clear segmentation of those who genuinely resent Blizzard, those jumping on a bandwagon to spam on Twitch, those who are annoyed with Blizzard but not to the point of consumer action (which, individually, often feels meaningless), and those who are just annoyed with or apathetic to the whole shebang and want to bury their heads back in the games. This weekend, they will all be under the same roof.
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If you're following BlizzCon from home and you're neither a Virtual Ticket holder nor someone who follows Overwatch/Hearthstone pro tournaments, there won't be much to see in public view on Saturday anyway, so why not take note of the
global emergency rallies in support of Hong Kong that are being arranged in major cities all over the world as we speak. These only happen once every month or so, and given the precariousness of the situation in HK and how rapidly it moves week to week, each one could be the last one to meet with much success. The Blizzard issue is highly visible and well known in pro-HK circles, and dropping by to say hello to one of these, specifically on BlizzCon weekend when you could be at home watching pro Hearthstone, will doubtless be appreciated as a show of support.
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Lastly—that's a lot of talk from me about HK but not about Blizzard's showing itself.
I'll be quite honest: I've been back in the fold of following the StarCraft championships, as I knew I would, and I'm looking forward to the bracket on Friday that is certain to run extremely late (even if it's a whole lot of Zerg). SC2 is fully in maintenance mode, and there isn't even a panel for it this year (which is less than what Heroes of the Storm got last year just weeks before its development staff and e-sports operations were gutted), so I'll take what I can get.
As far as the product line goes, the main draw for me this weekend will be Warcraft III Reforged, which is sure to see a beta announcement and a release date, possibly pushed into 2020. There is a great deal of interest in whether Reforged will serve as a content platform that goes beyond WC3/TFT and delivers something new like SC2's co-op mode, as WC3 is innately such an excellent fit for that already with all the one-off hybrid factions that are already in the campaign. I don't expect anything more than the straight remake we've seen so far, but I would be pleased to see it (playable content, I mean, not just cosmetic microtransactions like unit skins).
We all know the big guns this year will be Diablo IV and Overwatch 2, and I could not be less interested. These are the Blizzard IPs that interest me the least, and I say that as someone who spent part of yesterday catching up on all the Overwatch animated shorts, which are always lovely to see. (I've always thought the visual design, world, and characters of Overwatch were absolutely wasted on a genre like the multiplayer shooter.) So I am not at all dreading any twinge of internal conflict like some people are, if they're telling themselves, "I love Diablo and Overwatch, these announcements look amazing, and it hurts to tear myself away from Blizzard when I know they'll drag me back." I don't love Diablo and Overwatch. But I do know the feeling, and I won't judge; I've already made my peace with the certitude that I'll be playing WC3 Reforged.
I really am looking forward to the WoW expansion announcement and cinematic, but I like following these even during cycles when I'm not interested in playing the game and don't see myself going back. This will probably be the only thing I get out of the opening ceremony aside from an Overwatch short—and it speaks volumes about the current state of Blizzard that, totally apart from their China catastrophe, I'll be watching for cinematics rather than actual products. It has never been easier for me to withdraw from their catalogue, if not yet fully.
