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Comment by burger_moon | Hacker News Reader

I haven't been following this Blizzard situation (debacle maybe?) too closely but does anyone know which has had a greater affect on American's humanitarian interests in Hong Kong, was it Blizzard or the NBA?

It's hard to tell if I'm seeing Blizzard and gaming show up more because of tech overlap but both seemed to have a huge impact on increased discussion among people around me. It really brought a lot of exposure to people who don't follow the news that closely, ime anyways.

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I'm not sure who will have the greatest effect, but gamers are historically good at not forgetting old but unresolved news. Blizzard is going to be dealing with this for as long as it takes for them to make amends.

blizzard, by drawing attention and banning the HS player, has inadvertently caused their own PR nightmare. If they just left it alone, there would've been less issues, and the media wouldn't be discussing it at all.

> and the media wouldn't be discussing it at all.

But the Chinese government might. And that might be much worse for them.

Unless Activision Blizzard plans to move their HQ to China, having the US government talking about you in a very negative light is likely worse for them.

The playerbase for some of their games is apparently as high as 70% China-based [1]. We can't verify this, because Blizzard doesn't release that information publicly, but if even remotely true, losing access to the Chinese market would be financially devastating.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSAlh9l-c7Q

Blizzard does not release player numbers, but as a public company, they do release their financials.

Per Activision Blizzard's investor calls, approximately 10% of their total revenue is from China. So, with a profit margin of 25% and profits in the billions, Activision Blizzard is not going to go bankrupt even should they lose all their Chinese income.

Would you be impressed as a stockholder of a company that experiences a 10% reduction in revenue, voluntarily through an avoidable action?

If the action is in support of morals I (and much of the US) believe in, absolutely.

Money is not everything. I think it's a shame that so many are willing to support a company who will ditch their morals for just a bit more profit.

EDIT: This isn't just a hypothetical either, ATVI is on a blacklist of stock that I will not purchase. I hope others will do the same.

They are pretty likely to drop 10% just from us people dropping them.

I am just glad that both incidents coincided to happen within the same week. If it was just one or the other, it wouldn't have been as impactful. But with both NBA and Blizzard being put in a tough spotlight at the same time, the message is significantly amplified.

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