Mitsubishi Pulls Blizzard Sponsorship Ahead of BlizzCon

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Mitsubishi Pulls Blizzard Sponsorship Ahead of BlizzCon

In a report by Kotaku, it looks like Mitsubishi has pulled their sponsorship of Blizzard ahead of BlizzCon next week.

Read the full story here

Horusra

Oh no...wait I have not bought anything from Mitsubishi in forever.

Amathe

Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan took this action. 

Mitsubishi took no action and still has offices throughout China:

https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/network/east_asia/china.html

So the title is a bit off. 

Phaserlight

Good look for Mitsubishi.

Utinni

People still applauding stupid shit like this thinking that Blizzard is the only company who bends over for China. LOLLLLL

Amathe

DMKano said:

Amathe said:

Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan took this action. 

Mitsubishi took no action and still has offices throughout China:

https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/network/east_asia/china.html

So the title is a bit off. 

Still Mitsubishi didnt prevent Taiwan Mitsubishi to withdraw their sponsorship. 

Because Mitsubishi is a Japanese company and we know the history if China and Japan and how much they hate each other.

Just because you have offices in another country it doesnt mean you dont hate their guts

I don't see your point. The company that pulled sponsorship is Taiwanese - not, as the title implies, Mitsubishi globally. 

And tehse other companies have not shared with me their thoughts and sentiments about Blizzard. Did they speak to you?

IceAge

"BlizzCon begins next week, and we will of course be covering the event."

..lovely! Just let us know what News will BlizzCon bring next week!

Albatroes

I guess its not news worth that the toys people bought were the sole prize pool for the wow 'esports' with 0 contribution from Blizzard. Small indie company Activision-Blizzard needs crowd funding.

Limun

DMKano said:

Hell yes - more companies need to pull their sponsorship from Blizzard.



Blizzard deserves everything that's coming to them since they decided to bend over for China

They are bending for money not China. Video game development was never about morals but about money and no matter how many players stop buying their games in the west its only a fraction of Chinese market.

mussolini

I heard that tons of 12-16y old gamer buying Mitsubishi now all around the world.

skeaser

I don't get the big deal with a game company wanting to distance themselves from politics. It seems like Blizzard's rule is that you don't bring up anything, not just China/HK, during your interviews and the winner did.

3dom

Why wouldn't Mitsubishi pull their money when Blizzard themselves withdrew $500k from their own tournament prize pool? (recent news)

Scot

Amathe said:

Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan took this action. 

Mitsubishi took no action and still has offices throughout China:

https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/network/east_asia/china.html

So the title is a bit off. 

All that matters is the drama the emotion the human story, not the facts. If the whole company had pulled out we would be hearing "Every Sponsoring Company Pulls Blizzard Sponsorship Ahead of BlizzCon".

The truth does not matter any more, not to gaming journalists, even news journalists. And then they will have an article on fake news and cry foul at a non-mainstream source. Laughable really.

Utinni

DMKano said:

Utinni said:

People still applauding stupid shit like this thinking that Blizzard is the only company who bends over for China. LOLLLLL

Just because other companies bend over for Chine doesnt make it any better for Blizzard to do the same.

When one company does something despicable, if a million other companies do it too - it doesnt make it any better.

So your entire apologist logic falls apart. 

Think about it this way - you take your car to the dealer for repairs and a job they said would cost $300 now ends up being $1500.

And they tell you - every repair shop triple charges what they quote - would you be ok with this?

Hmm?

Great Argument! 

IceAge

DMKano said:

The problem is Blizzard did nothing when the political comments that were favorable to China. 

Source? 

..and I mean source, not your usual theories. 

BizkitNL

DMKano said:

skeaser said:

I don't get the big deal with a game company wanting to distance themselves from politics. It seems like Blizzard's rule is that you don't bring up anything, not just China/HK, during your interviews and the winner did.

The problem is Blizzard did nothing when the political comments that were favorable to China. 

If they are truly politically neutral they would be banning people for pro-China talk too right?

See that didnt happen 

Blizzard took a side and it blew up in their face - Blizzcon should be epic

Hang on. What pro-china comments were made during the tournament? Because the tournament is meant to be neutral.

Utinni

IceAge said:

DMKano said:

The problem is Blizzard did nothing when the political comments that were favorable to China. 

Source? 

..and I mean source, not your usual theories. 

I believe the source is "blizzard bad". 

Utinni

Torval said:

Amathe said:

Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan took this action. 

Mitsubishi took no action and still has offices throughout China:

https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/network/east_asia/china.html

So the title is a bit off. 

Are any other Mistubishi subsidiaries contributing to the tournament? Then it doesn't matter because their Taiwan branch is their only representation. If they were only one of several Mitsubishi contributors then your point stands. If not then it sounds like you're trying to downplay this hard.

A Taiwanese business took issue with China! BREAKING NEWS!!!

BruceYee

Last time I checked(which was a while ago) Mitsubishi cut/s down a large amount of the world's rainforests for monetary gain. I consider that worse than banning some gamer from a competition WHATEVER the reason may be.
TAIWAN Mitsubishi pulling sponsorship from Blizz for "politics" is crazy cause that is the exact reason why they are doing it ----> politics.

Ohnooze

I just came to say Kotaku sucks.

Ginaz

Amathe said:

Mitsubishi Motors Taiwan took this action. 

Mitsubishi took no action and still has offices throughout China:

https://www.mitsubishicorp.com/jp/en/network/east_asia/china.html

So the title is a bit off. 

Taiwan #1, China #51

Amathe

Torval said:

Amathe

Are any other Mistubishi subsidiaries contributing to the tournament? Then it doesn't matter because their Taiwan branch is their only representation. If they were only one of several Mitsubishi contributors then your point stands. If not then it sounds like you're trying to downplay this hard.

I do downplay it. Hard. I could personally care less if Blizzard bans some e-sporters because they broke Blizzard's rules and used an interview to make a political statement.  But I'm not here to discuss my political views. If only others could be persuaded to do the same. 

The reason for my post is that support for this "cause" is being attributed to an entire multi-national corporation, and that just isn't true. 

blamo2000

IceAge said:

DMKano said:

The problem is Blizzard did nothing when the political comments that were favorable to China. 

Source? 

..and I mean source, not your usual theories. 

I didn't see the readit post, but I saw some screenshots of a translation someone posted on twitter (I'm not sure if its from readit or a different source, just backing up this was stated by others and if the translations were accurate, this is correct).

I don't have twitter and I think I got to the thread by a news post here, as this and rpgwatch are the only game sites I visit and I don't think rpgwatch posted it.  Could be, but I doubt it.  

blamo2000

Utinni said:

IceAge said:

DMKano said:

The problem is Blizzard did nothing when the political comments that were favorable to China. 

Source? 

..and I mean source, not your usual theories. 

I believe the source is "blizzard bad". 

Could it be that China is bad and not Blizzard is bad?  I won't lie and say I am a huge Blizzard fan.  I never liked any game of theirs until WoW, or since WoW.  And only specifically WoW vanilla through WotLK.  But I absolutely loved vanilla through WotLK.

I played and loved Classic like a maniac.  See my posts.  I loved it.  I was having a ball playing it.  That would have been what I played for years and years until and unless they forced Cataclysm on everyone again and ruined classic all over again.  I stopped only and specifically because they are bowing to communist totalitarians.  

Bladeburaiba

It is a little simplistic to say that Blizzard needs to be consistent, or neutral, in politics.  Aside from not breaking laws, a company is only legally beholden to one group of people, and those are the stockholders.

That means they need to take whatever actions needed to protect the returns of the shareholders.  If it makes them more money to kowtow to China, then they need to do so.  If they need to ban their users from making political statements which will destroy shareholders' profit, then they need to do so.  If it is the opposite action, then they need to do that.  In that, they are being very consistent.

People who are saying it was a no-brainer to go against China, would act very different if their jobs and their families' livelihood were on the line.

Standing from the outside, as an American, you wish that they would support freedom.  They could, and when their profits go down by 20%, when the stock tanks by 35%, and they get canned, I am sure none of us would help them.

The funny thing is, that might happen anyway.  It is surely a very difficult situation for them.

As for me, I wish that they could just make good games for us without worry about politics.

Wizardry

This all began well before the China ordeal,Blizzard has been shooting themselves in the foot for the past 18 months or so.There has been more sad news that most people don't even know about from Blizzard, a constant stream of ineptness.

I remember a short while ago so many were pointing fingers at Activision,almost like making excuses for Blizzard.This ship is a mess but guess what,they will release a pile of crap Diablo mobile and millions will buy it and support the cash shop,whales everywhere.