I’m not normally in the habit of reposting my Massively Overpowered columns here, but as Blizzard’s games have such personal significance for me and have been such a huge part of this blog’s content, I wanted to signal boost my take on recent events.
Not So Massively: The Blizzard I loved is dead
I really hope they find the courage to make amends for this. I want to be able to forgive them.
Superior Realities 
I was going to leave a comment on the M:OP piece but i decided agaisnt it. I’ll just repeat what I said in a comment at TAGN:
“If anything useful comes out of this perhaps it will be an awareness that, just as China is not our friend, neither are corporate entities. They neither know us nor love us. They cannot and they will not. It’s fun to pretend they do sometimes, like it’s fun to pretend your cuddly toys can talk, but it’s not a good idea to believe your own fantasies.”
Blizzard isn’t an entity; it never was. It’s a notional collective that’s actually the vehicle for the decisions and choices of a small number of individuals. All businesses are. When those individuals change, as they inevitably must, the “persona” of the business may, usually will, change. We all know this but because humans can’t help but personalize and anthropomorphize everything, from inanimate objects to abstract ideas, we act as though we don’t.
Brand loyalty is built on this willing self-delusion.
All the rules they had, and the even higher level of scrutiny were there to address player behaviors. We have all demanded a higher level of penalty to prevent toxic behavior. I don’t think they ever thought they would need rules to address political statements during or after matches. I’m sure the new rules will be very specific.
You’re not wrong. I do generally try to keep this in mind; it’s part of the reason I try to avoid demonizing specific companies the way so many people do. EA may do dumb stuff sometimes, but that doesn’t make them an ogre we should hate. I prefer to judge each game and each individual decision on its own merit.
At the same time, a major decision like this is something that is going to colour a company as a whole, until such time as actions are taken to rectify it and/or the persons responsible are removed.