<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>bakuninsbart</author><text>Some of the best fiction was written by people with absolutely despicable opinions like Francois Céline or Knut Hamsun. You can see it in their art, but their art isn&amp;#x27;t limited to it, and still holds a lot of value. Friedrich Nietzsche&amp;#x27;s opinions on women and politics are plain dumb, yet his &lt;i&gt;other&lt;/i&gt; thought can be extremely compelling, and he is rightfully one of the most influential thinkers of modern times.&lt;p&gt;Going back further in time will only make you miserable if you hold the work closely accountable to the person. Terrible people can still say really good things, and I don&amp;#x27;t believe it is different with games or modern entertainment in general. Old Blizzard games are still good, and old Louis CK sets are still funny.</text></item><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>aftergibson</author><text>Celine and Hamsun aren’t getting engagement activity from their in-app analytics. They also can’t respond to all of the legitimate criticisms against them. Activision can and they’ve decided to bring in the Pinkertons.&lt;p&gt;At the end of the day, another player booting up an Activision game is another (tiny) data point that says whatever activity Activision&amp;#x2F;Blizzard is engaging in is a-ok with that player. It’s not revenue driving right now, but in 6-12 months, this has blown over and enough of the tiny subset of temporarily outraged players will eventually start to generate revenue. That’s what they’re banking on.&lt;p&gt;Decide what you care about or don’t, but at least accept&amp;#x2F;own  the impact of your decisions and don’t conflate the situation with century old authors.</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>bakuninsbart</author><text>Some of the best fiction was written by people with absolutely despicable opinions like Francois Céline or Knut Hamsun. You can see it in their art, but their art isn&amp;#x27;t limited to it, and still holds a lot of value. Friedrich Nietzsche&amp;#x27;s opinions on women and politics are plain dumb, yet his &lt;i&gt;other&lt;/i&gt; thought can be extremely compelling, and he is rightfully one of the most influential thinkers of modern times.&lt;p&gt;Going back further in time will only make you miserable if you hold the work closely accountable to the person. Terrible people can still say really good things, and I don&amp;#x27;t believe it is different with games or modern entertainment in general. Old Blizzard games are still good, and old Louis CK sets are still funny.</text></item><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>falcolas</author><text>One small difference between those specific artists and Activison-Blizzard - they&amp;#x27;re dead. But more importantly, their beliefs are also a product of their times.&lt;p&gt;ACTI doesn&amp;#x27;t have that excuse. They&amp;#x27;re all with us now, and their actions don&amp;#x27;t have the shield of being reasonable in the society they exist in.</text></comment>