At this point it goes far beyond just gamers. From the NBA to Google, this effect is everywhere. To be explicit, the effect is U.S. firms letting China dictate what they do or do not care about on a global political scale.
You probably want to use a different example than Google here. Particularly since Google doesn't have a China presence because they refused to censor search results, and relationships there still appear to be less than solid to say the least. Your statement works with most U.S. firms, but very much doesn't at all for Google in particular.
And yet they still have no consumer products in China, and still redirect search to Hong Kong, and still do not participate in any censorship efforts.
This should be applauded and supported, since it's pretty much what people want others like Blizzard to do as well. Google is much closer to a gold standard to follow with their approach to China than they are to being lumped in with the NBA or Blizzard.
If a game publisher can (whether directly or not) nuke the job of a journalist for a review and get away with it, I'm not surprised at all when a government does something along these lines.
It happened with a journalist on a gun magazine as well. Lifelong second amendment supporter blacklisted for not spewing exactly the party line. This makes me wonder whether the whole right to bear arms things is AstroTurf at this point.
Businesses too: there has been massive hatred directed at Dick's Sporting Goods when it changed its arms sales mix in response to a large shooting last year [1]. Gun makers such as Springfield took heat for trying for stepping even a smidgen out of line [2] resulting in an abrupt volte-face.
Gerstmann's firing was widely reported at the time, he immediately turned around and created an influential gaming website that's still successful today, and Kane and Lynch didn't do well. Not a great example.
If the Western governments could maybe grow a pair and call out how this is very unfair maybe something would happen.
I work for one of the largest news publishers in the Nordics, and we were criticized for letting the CCP take out a full page ad in our largest newspaper that essentially said "no need for the Western governments to get involved, this is an internal issue that is best handled by us". Our editor in chief of that paper responded with this:
"Now we have the moral high ground. Until the Swedish government can take out a full page ad in The Global Times criticizing the CCP we can use this as one of many examples of how China does not value freedom of speech, but we do."
There is unfortunately a gaping hole where United States leadership should be and I don’t feel the companies or countries that used to be able to “follow the leader” have figured how to deal with it.
> gaping hole where United States leadership should be
I've seen this exact wording a lot recently. Is this the new propaganda line everyone parrots? I must have missed the previous administration's strong stance on ANYTHING AT ALL dealing with international relations, besides killing people from the sky. When did the previous administration lead on anything and not just bow down (literally bowing) to international leaders.
Sorry, the gaping hole in leadership was filled with someone who cares about the USA.
> the gaping hole in leadership was filled with someone who cares about the USA
[citation needed], I wouldn't trust the guy with international business interests to actually have America's best interests at heart over his own if the two don't align.
No real dispute with your criticism of the previous leadership though.
