With the protests in the US keep going on many game companies decide to delay events and releases. But is this because they care or because the have other motives?
World of Warcraft
A hour ago blizzard said the following:
More important voices than ours need to be heard, and now is the time to listen. We are postponing our upcoming World of Warcraft: Shadowlands live stream planned for June 9, and will share more details about the expansion in the future.
But that bring 2 questions. First what is their intention. To be honest i find it strange that they do this because of what happened with the Hong Kong protest in Hearthstone last year. Secondly they did not do something like this when the covid pandemic started and to be honest that was a bigger world wide issue then the anti racist protests. And let me make one thing clear. I am supporting those protests because racisms is a bad thing. But i don’t see why Blizzard delayed the Event for this.
ARK: Survival evolved
Yesterday a new map should have been released for ARK. But a couple of hours before the release Wildcard said this:
Given the situation in the US, and the rest of the world right now, we will be rescheduling the ARK in-game celebration until Thursday, June 11. We understand that our community has much anticipated the ARK in-game party and the launch of Crystal Isles, and we’re looking forward to sharing all we have prepared for you next week. We felt it would be inappropriate to celebrate milestones during the present time as there are bigger things afoot, and that outweighs any plans we otherwise had. We believe now is the time to be respectful and hear the voices of others.
This is even more unbelievable because the last expansion genesis has also been delayed several times. It is already said by many fans that Wildcard just uses the protests as an excuse.
Playstation
PlayStation also delayed an important event with the following reason:
We have decided to postpone the PlayStation 5 event scheduled for June 4. While we understand gamers worldwide are excited to see PS5 games, we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration and for now, we want to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard.
To be honest with you. I think this is a marketing stunt from many companies. Racisms and gaming are 2 separate things (except for GTA V of coarse). And now even more people on the world are disappointed. We still live in the Corona Crisis and we could use some nice things to do. If you are in a lockdown region it is one of the few things you can still get hyped for these days.