RegisKillbin & Kripparrian Withdraw From Inn-vitational This Week - Blizzard Announces Plans and Replacements
Blizzard announced 2 new contestants for the Inn-vitational event this week and RegisKillbin announced on Twitter why he is voluntarily withdrawing from the event and gives his long-view thoughts on the situation. Kripparrian too tweeted out that he has withdrawn and "saw a chance to speak through actions."
We have two new participants for the Crossroads Inn-vitational! Welcome @lunaloveee8 and @AvellineHS to the roster, and a huge thanks to Kripp and RegisKillbin for graciously offering their slots.
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) April 20, 2021
Why we’re doing this: representation and inclusion matter, and we’re committing ourselves to being better. It’s vital that our events represent the reality of the Hearthstone community made up of numerous talented and deserving women who dedicate themselves to the game every day.
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) April 20, 2021
In order to commit ourselves to doing better in the future, every community event’s invitees will have a greater representation of women moving forward. This is only one piece of our future plans around diversity and inclusion.
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) April 20, 2021
To the women of the Hearthstone community: thank you, and know that we will live up to this through our actions.
— Hearthstone (@PlayHearthstone) April 20, 2021
.@underflowR and I saw a chance to speak through actions, good luck to everyone https://t.co/4zrkW8g5vK
— Kripparrian (@Kripparrian) April 20, 2021
Regis' Message, in full:
Quote from RegisKillbinTo get right into it: I want more creators to get a spotlight in Hearthstone, so I volunteered to withdraw from the upcoming Inn-vitational event, and will be reducing my involvement in future events that have more competitive elements.
Now for the context: I want gaming to be a joyful experience that brings us all together, yet so many in our community use it as a weapon to tear people down and tear people apart. I’ve been appalled by the comments I see from people playing our game. Some seem to think the tavern is only big enough for them, using bigotry and malice to turn people away. I want to help open the tavern doors even wider and encourage more people to come have a drink and play a game of cards.
So this week when all the conversations about representation started, I realized I had already taken too long to act. There are a diverse array of creators working to grow their communities and establish stable careers, and I don’t want to get in their way, especially for events that have prize pools based on performance in the game.
For a while now, I’ve been feeling guilty about being involved in seemingly everything in Hearthstone. When you’re growing your audience and still finding a footing financially as a creator, it feels impossible to turn down opportunities, so of course I welcomed all the cool stuff I got to do at first. I’m super thankful to have had those chances to grow. But after the career side of it begins to stabilize, suddenly it feels like you’re taking opportunities from others when you don’t really need them.
So there are a few reasons I’m giving up my spot:There are some people saying I and others “deserve” to be invited to these events due to our marketing value and audiences we bring. I certainly acknowledge I have one of the larger YouTube viewer counts in our game, and sure, those numbers do probably warrant invitations based on promotional value alone. So perhaps it is understandable, but I’m not sure it is ideal. If we spread the love and get more people involved, won’t that help the game find fresh and bigger audiences? Won’t I benefit if the game grows? In other words, it’s not much of a sacrifice to make if the game and community are better for it.
- I want more people to get opportunities and spotlights.
- I am not trying to showcase my skills or build my audience off being great at the game. These events are a great springboard for people who are trying to do that.
- I am lucky enough to have super supportive viewers and a stable financial situation. Prize pools in these events are enormous and can provide smaller creators with tons of time and resources to reinvest into their content.
- I’m not that good at the game and worry I will embarrass myself on the biggest stages. (this is only sort of a joke)
All of that said, please don't put any pressure on other creators who are not able to do the same, nor send any hate to those taking my place. I'm no hero here, just stupidly lucky enough to have such a supportive community that I can afford to do this, both financially and from a growth and content standpoint. So please don't celebrate this gesture, instead celebrate the creators getting their time.
Thanks much for reading, and I look forward to seeing you in the tavern!
-Regis
A few follow-up thoughts I couldn't squeeze into a single page.
Originally I just wanted other people to be involved, I can't claim that I had the foresight to think about it as a representation issue. That conversation this week just made me think about it in new ways and kick-started this decision.
I will still do events, but I will aim to limit myself to those that are less competitive and more promotional (tournaments vs theorycrafting, for instance) because that's where I think I best serve the game and my audience.
For how this worked, I made an offer to Blizzard to withdraw last week on April 15th. I didn't want to force their hand, as I had made an agreement to participate. After some discussion on their end, they decided to accept the offer.
I don't want people to celebrate this action. I always get nervous for these events anyway, in some ways it's a relief. Sure there's a financial downside, but I recognize there's also a social upside. This is a case where the right thing and a self-serving thing aligned perfectly.
There may be those who wonder why I'd ever give an advantage to "competition" when I'm running a business. It has crossed my mind. But at the end of the day, I think a rising tide raises all ships. And I welcome the challenge to float.
Just let others do what they want, it's not really affecting you at all.
Kripp shouldn't have been there because he doesn't even play Hearthstone.
But this is just embarrassing quota mentality.
This has nothing to do with quota, check out Zeddy's video on this.
???? wtf he does but its battleground mode LMAO . at the moment he is streaming poe has well.
but hs is main game.
I guess some of the problem from Blizzards perspective could also be this:
We want to run an event that people will watch. We should invite people that viewers will get hype about. So... Kibbler, Trump, Kripp, Dog..etc. People know them, they get butts in seats.
The gamble is running an event, while highlighting other lesser known content creators, and it possibly looking like: Jim5556 & Girlunicorn & personthatplaysHS. They may all be really great, but personally seeing a list like this makes me way less interested in the event because the draw becomes about gameplay.. which in my opinion is a very low percentage of why I watch HS events.
However, introducing a couple lesser known creators that are very entertaining to every event is a fantastic idea. J4cieChan comes to mind. Great personality, good at HS but invited to very little.
Yep, this is the balance Blizzard will have to deal with, weighing popular streamers that draw watchers in and having less well known streamers that are fun and capable, but represent more, and can greatly benefit from showing out at this type of event.
It will be good if Blizzard doesn't fall into the trap of recycling these same representatives over and over again too. Keep it fresh. Invite some new faces every time.
Otherwise you end up with 1 or a few streamers becoming the go-to representative for their group. Keep it fresh and keep it moving. There's enough quality people to fill these broadcasts 10 times over, so use it.
They already fell in to that trap, xskarma. You can legit count on a certain few streamers being part of any and everything that Blizzard does. It's the same tired personalities, too.
Agreed. However, just to elaborate a bit, I think these kind of promo events can be looked at as an ‘all-stars’ event. If the NFL held an all star event it would include Tom Brady, Patrick mahomes, Payton manning, etc. You probably wouldn’t find the likes of Andy Dalton, Dak Prescott or Matt Moore. Sure it would be nice to give these guys there shot, but it’s not usually what a promo event is trying to be about.
MRA philosophers, unite!
Every single time there's a hint of equality or representation they swarm with "virtue signaling" and comparing inclusion to racism.
Look, the problem isn't inviting women. The problem is inviting women because you they're women. (Replace "women" with a sexuality, race or whatever else you like.) Equality doesn't mean you give black people as many medals as white people. Equality means you give people an equal chance to earn a medal regardless of the color of their skin. Now... when you invite female streamers with a smaller viewership over a male streamer with a bigger viewership, simply because you don't have enough women, that's rightly something to be concerned about. It raises eyebrows for all the right reasons.
Everyone, regardless of who you are, gets a shot at becoming an esports champion or popular streamer. There's nothing wrong with giving some underdogs a chance, but you should never turn it into positive discrimination.
In short: the discussion is at least warranted. Let people voice their opinion.
The comments in this thread are exactly the point that the female players are making and have made for actually quite some time now. The problem isn't the invites, as you correctly stated, it's the attitude toward women, toward this decision, that seeks to discredit moves like this as adamantly as possible.
To make it about the invites is to miss the point. These female players are opening up about the consistent mistreatment they receive from Hearthstone's community team leaders, from viewers, from fellow players. Representation matters and when it looks like it's being forced right now it's because it has to be, because the culture and atmosphere created by gatekeeper male players is hostile to female gamers. That is the point. That is why this "discussion" isn't much of a discussion, it's female players calling out multiple problems as the establishment saying "You're right, lets' fix this," while outspoken guys with something against this fix for inequality in Hearthstone representation and inclusion are comparing it to racism, which is a wild and frankly disrespectful take.
Male gamers have been - time and time again - proven to be unreasonably protective of gaming as "theirs" and it manifests in forums like this, where people LOSE THEIR MINDS over two players choosing to use their power, their position as prominent players with the ability to enact change, to give the Hearthstone team a chance to represent their player base more accurately, to give deserving competitive female players a stage that needed to be handed to them not because they weren't qualified but because the mindset in gaming as a whole is "This is for guys," so female players don't get considered on equal ground. If they did, Luna would have been a shoe-in from the start, Slysssa (a better BG player than Kripp) would have made the cut. There are plenty of talented and worthy choices for this corporate tournament (which is another great reason to embrace representation: it's a showcase) whether male or female, so this isn't a problem, this isn't an issue, it's a decision that was made by individuals in the face of multiple accounts by female players showing inequality, and that decision brought something great about.
I'm not stopping anyone from voicing their opinion, I can't do that because I don't even have the ability to censor people on here. I'm disagreeing with with their opinion.
"Don't invite someone because of their identity" isn't a bad sentiment on the surface -- in an ideal world, we should all have equal representation, and thus it wouldn't be necessary.
But that's not how the world works. Just as we give people with disabilities privileges that we don't give to people without them, like handicap parking spots, which would be unfair in a world where disabilities don't exist, inviting people based on their identity, when their identity group is underrepresented and marginalized, isn't giving them an unfair advantage. They are already suffering an unfair disadvantage.
Maybe one day we can get rid of handicap parking spots. But we're not there yet.
Filling slots based on irrelevant immutable genetic characteristics and the bigotry of low expectations doesn't need to be COMPARED to bigotry. It IS bigotry.
Easy there... you’re using logic instead of feelings which can get you in serious trouble on this site.
Rating every Argument you disagree with as subjective or emotional doesnt seem very logical to me. Its an easy way out to not question your standpoint. If you are a woman in the twitch world, chances are you will face a lot of objectification and harassment. this keeps a lot of women from even trying, so i dont think the playing field is leveled and women and men have equal chances at succes. therefore i support extra measures to get women more representation. You can disagree with me on the premisses or on my conclusion, but this is a sound argument (to me).
Calling a comment merely stating that representation matters racist and sexist suggest to me that you never read up on real world issues like racism and sexism and therefore likely never talked to women and people of color on these issues or got their standpoint on things like that.
Props to kripp and regis. <3
I think they know that very well and that's why it was very noble of them to do it, and never intended or expected Blizzard to turn this into another identity politics fiesta.
It's a mistake not doing this for them. Everytime they do an event they get a boost in subscribers. Regis and Krip should never think they are so established that they don't need the extra viewership. Someone new might come and take their viewers from them because the new person had exposure at events like this.
Well that's a pretty racist / sexist way to behave.
Because let's be real, if a group of men came to an event with mostly women and cried about how they don't have any connection to the people here because they don't "look like them", that's what would be the comments. Here, because it's women that can't fell a connection to other people just because they have a penis, it's totally acceptable and should be accomodated for.
It’s always about the money, all of the time. Only a painfully naive person would think that any of the moves by Regis, Kripp, or Blizz are in effort to actually promote some form of inclusiveness.
All the touchy feely kumbayah is present because it’s financially disadvantageous to go against it. Coca Cola and Delta are in an uproar over the Georgia voting law changes purely because it’s bad for business. Its ALWAYS about money, ALL of the time. Santa Claus isn’t real, and businesses don’t care about anything except their bottom dollar and removing obstacles that get between them and their money. The hope for inclusive minded business is a fallible pipe dream for the young and inexperienced. Sorry to break it to you kids, the world is a rough mother.
Oof, that's a pretty bleak view of the world you have there. That says more about you than about other people though.