A Well Deserved Take-Down

Following Blizzard banning a gamer and taking his prize money after he made pro-Hong King protests, they have been flooded by GDPR requests by customers who find their kowtowing to China unacceptable.

Complying with these demands are both extremely expensive and opens them up to massive fines:

Being a global multinational sure is hard! Yesterday, World of Warcraft maker Blizzard faced global criticism after it disqualified a high-stakes tournament winner over his statement of solidarity with the Hong Kong protests -- Blizzard depends on mainland China for a massive share of its revenue and it can't afford to offend the Chinese state.

Today, outraged games on Reddit's /r/hearthstone forum are scheming a plan to flood Blizzard with punishing, expensive personal information requests under the EU's expansive General Data Privacy Regulation -- Blizzard depends on the EU for another massive share of its revenue and it can't afford the enormous fines it would face if it failed to comply with these requests, which take a lot of money and resource to fulfill.

I really hope that this protest goes forward.

Blizzard is hoping that this will blow over in a few months, but if people put in requests now, they need to comply in the next 30 days or face massive fines, and that ain't cheap.

Cue Nelson Muntz.