Late Friday (Irvine, California, USA local time), Blizzard Entertainment president J. Allen Brack put out this written statement (backtracks on the original punishment) regarding the whole Hearthstone Grandmasters Tournament protest that happened the prior weekend.
Brack does a good job laying out Blizzard’s corporate mission (which the community and even some company employees have been questioning given the lack of internal communication regarding the entire incident). This latter part, I am familiar with in a corporate environment (where there might be internal politics and fiefdoms that can create these walls leading to a vacuum or black hole). He then goes on to provide reasons defending the actions taken (which has now been mostly rescinded with the suspension from competition being reduced to six months) and also noted the casters (who Blizzard originally mentioned they would no longer work with) would be now suspended six months as well.
Brack specifically mentions that the specific views expressed by blitzchung (alias) were NOT a factor in the decision and neither was their (Blizzard’s) relationship with China. This is where things don’t really add up because this seems to be at odds with the statement written for the Chinese media by Blizzard’s Hearthstone Chinese social media team (which was reposted on Weibo). Chinese Kanji is very contextual in nature; the translated statement makes it clear that China had everything to do with the original infraction handed down when it came to the last sentence (written from the Chinese point of view).
Blizzard Entertainment is not a Chinese owned company. While it has close partnerships with NetEase, that is all that it is, a partnership. Yet, there is no mistaking the words “we”. Again, Kanji is very contextual and there is no way this can be mistranslated. Who in Blizzard’s corporate PR hierarchy in Irvine, California, USA actually cleared this harsher toned statement along with the “We will always respect and defend the pride of our country” part (which follows the same structure when it comes to how propaganda statements are constructed) that was very specifically crafted for China?
Brack did not even address this social media post made by their Hearthstone team in China (it’s a verified Blizzard China account). This is where his “OK, what could Blizzard have done better, and where do we go from here?” comes into play with the subject of this blog entry. Communication has not been the companies strongest suit in recent years. Last years BlizzCon announcement of Diablo Immortal and inability to deal with the negative reaction to it quickly, was a prime example. The company’s broken record of needing to do better with communications is just that, a broken record.
Basically, this messaging comes across as tone deaf; as a response that was concocted to diffuse the growing backlash outside and inside the company due to what must be inadequate internal communications (disconnect) between leadership and the lower level workers. Those employees staging their own protest by that Orc statue is just not good optics for the company. It doesn’t help that the “dents in Blizzard’s armor” (i.e. gaffs) under Bracks watch since he took over last year, has grown. Good developers don’t necessarily make good company leaders. I wasn’t particularly thrilled when I learned that this was Morhaime’s choice for president (not CEO though since they decided against having one) given his smug (a common trait that existed with a lot of Blizzard’s lead designers) past response back in 2013 to the WoW community regarding a classic version (“you think you do, but you don’t…”).
And unlike the past where much of this sort of bad PR could be swept under the rug (due to the strong bonds they once had with the community), the company does not seem to be adequately prepared with their corporate PR (like no crisis management response team seems to exist). Their big community PR event (BlizzCon) is just around the corner and they couldn’t even get this response on the mark (by not addressing the Chinese social media statement). The pressure is going to be on every team (especially the Diablo one) to not screw up their announcements and Q&A sessions.
There used to be a time when Blizzard Entertainment could seemingly do little wrong (and when they did, their community was far more accommodating to easily forgiving and overlooking those gaffs). Now though, a lot of goodwill is being tested and will be pushed to the limits as the company expands into the mobile market (and in the case of China, tries to walk that fine line when it comes to doing business in that country).
