<story><title>Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale</title><url>https://www.promethean.news/news/activision-hires-notorious-union-busting-firm-wilmerhale</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kelnos</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really understand this attitude, or line of reasoning, or whatever you want to call it.&lt;p&gt;Sure, if a company does something that you find reprehensible, not giving them further money (or attention) is certainly a reasonable -- and honorable! -- thing to do.&lt;p&gt;But if you&amp;#x27;ve already purchased a standalone[0], non-subscription product from that company, and that company doesn&amp;#x27;t gain any benefit from your further use of that product (or lose anything from you stopping use), I feel like you&amp;#x27;re only hurting yourself if you stop using it.&lt;p&gt;I will concede that if the act of playing one of these standalone games makes you think of the bad thing the company did and makes you angry&amp;#x2F;upset, I guess it makes sense to stop playing them.  But unless the bad thing they did is something personally&amp;#x2F;viscerally important to you, it feels like that&amp;#x27;s a bit of an odd trigger.&lt;p&gt;[0] If the game is multiplayer, and connects to a company-run server, I guess you could make the argument that they benefit in some way from their active-users numbers being higher.  I personally don&amp;#x27;t find that argument all that compelling, but everyone can of course decide where the cutoff of benefit is for them.</text></item><item><author>brainfish</author><text>I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other.&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and quit playing Hearthstone at that time. However I had still played some of my other old favorites, reasoning that I was not providing them further financial support. The recent announcements about their terrible, sexist culture had challenged that notion for me, and I was not sure what to do.&lt;p&gt;This news is the straw that breaks &lt;i&gt;my&lt;/i&gt; back. That Activision&amp;#x2F;Blizzard would double down on their despicable behavior and stance in this way is completely beyond the pale, and I for one will never again fire up those games that I loved so much.&lt;p&gt;Thanks for ruining that for me, Blizzard.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blitzchung_controversy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blitzchung_controversy&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ctrl-j</author><text>One of the things that companies rely on these days is engagement and playerbase. If you don&amp;#x27;t find that compelling, that&amp;#x27;s up to you, but Blizzard invests millions every year into maintaining their playerbase - so at least &lt;i&gt;they&lt;/i&gt; find it compelling.&lt;p&gt;Just by being a part of the starcraft community, you are providing support to activision blizzard.&lt;p&gt;If we were talking about offline-only non-community driven content, sure... but this is a company that is almost entirely driven off of multiplayer games.</text></comment>
<story><title>Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale</title><url>https://www.promethean.news/news/activision-hires-notorious-union-busting-firm-wilmerhale</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>kelnos</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t really understand this attitude, or line of reasoning, or whatever you want to call it.&lt;p&gt;Sure, if a company does something that you find reprehensible, not giving them further money (or attention) is certainly a reasonable -- and honorable! -- thing to do.&lt;p&gt;But if you&amp;#x27;ve already purchased a standalone[0], non-subscription product from that company, and that company doesn&amp;#x27;t gain any benefit from your further use of that product (or lose anything from you stopping use), I feel like you&amp;#x27;re only hurting yourself if you stop using it.&lt;p&gt;I will concede that if the act of playing one of these standalone games makes you think of the bad thing the company did and makes you angry&amp;#x2F;upset, I guess it makes sense to stop playing them.  But unless the bad thing they did is something personally&amp;#x2F;viscerally important to you, it feels like that&amp;#x27;s a bit of an odd trigger.&lt;p&gt;[0] If the game is multiplayer, and connects to a company-run server, I guess you could make the argument that they benefit in some way from their active-users numbers being higher.  I personally don&amp;#x27;t find that argument all that compelling, but everyone can of course decide where the cutoff of benefit is for them.</text></item><item><author>brainfish</author><text>I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other.&lt;p&gt;I haven&amp;#x27;t purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and quit playing Hearthstone at that time. However I had still played some of my other old favorites, reasoning that I was not providing them further financial support. The recent announcements about their terrible, sexist culture had challenged that notion for me, and I was not sure what to do.&lt;p&gt;This news is the straw that breaks &lt;i&gt;my&lt;/i&gt; back. That Activision&amp;#x2F;Blizzard would double down on their despicable behavior and stance in this way is completely beyond the pale, and I for one will never again fire up those games that I loved so much.&lt;p&gt;Thanks for ruining that for me, Blizzard.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blitzchung_controversy&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Blitzchung_controversy&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>donmcronald</author><text>Maybe it’s just a normal thing as you get older, but knowing the company mistreated people sucks the fun out of it for me.  I’m not completely against playing the stuff I’ve already paid for, but they won’t get another penny from me.&lt;p&gt;I’d like to have a database that tracks the C-Suite employees.  I’d personally boycott any company that hires any of them.  Their careers should be over IMO.  I wish we could take away Bobby’s money too, but that’ll never happen.</text></comment>