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 Kripparrian too tweeted out that he has withdrawn and "saw a chance to speak through actions."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.
Stunning and brave. Imagine hard work, talent and everything else taking a backseat to what's between a person's legs. Like always it's not women that people have a problem with, women are amazing, it's why they're doing it and it's wrong.
Ah, so you're saying a Grandmaster and a rank1 legend don't work hard or have talent?
Now describe why Blizzard chose her for the invitational, no lying :)
Hint: they tweeted the reason.
Because one is a Grandmaster and one is a Rank1 Legend who happen to be women.
Is it a problem that they're women? Do you think they should only invite high ranking men?
uh-uh i said no lying. They didn't just happen to be women did they? They were chosen because they are women. I wonder, would you be braindead enough to dispute this?
"Why we’re doing this: representation and inclusion matter... 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."
Also, you know they did just invite men for those slots right? Before they were actually forcing any inclusivity. Not even high-ranking ones either. That's why they ended up making this statement.
No. They were chosen because they were good players. If they had been chosen because they were women, they could have chosen any rando.
The reason they specified women is because they realized that due to their unconscious bias, they were leaving out women despite them performing just as well as men were.
Women aren't performing just as well as men are. Why are you making up moral excuses for a corporation? They admitted making this move was to appear inclusive lol
Aaaaand, here we go again..... I'm just done with blizzard and all this shit for good.
Reason Regis gave up his spot: Doesn't want to hold an opportunity from someone who might actually need or deserve it.
Person who gets the spot: Successful influencer that was chosen based on gender.
Forcing "representation & inclusivity" in a community that is inherently NOT demographically balanced will actually prevent the people who deserve opportunities from getting them. And you're just kidding yourself if you think Blizzard or social infliencers care about who "NEEDS" opportunities.
Just my 2 cents, but invites to lucrative invitationals (which are essentially paid advertising btw) should be based on merit. I do not care if the participants are male, female, or any other gender, race, or ethnicity. It is completely irrelevant to me.
However, it is incredibly cringe when a player gets added to a tournament, who maybe shouldn't be there on merit? Watching Pathra get humiliated in Grandmasters was not good for anyone, least of all the players.
Guess what: every invitee is a successful influencer that got chosen based on how well they make Blizzard look. It's an invitational.
Unless you think only 10% of women play Hearthstone at a level to merit an invitation, which is dumb on the face of it, you could just as easily argue the previous selection was based on gender by excluding women. Blizzard deciding to correct some of the imbalance in representation is ultimately a good thing.
Uh, thanks for agreeing with my point?
And no, in the previous selection Blizzard did not admit to scouting only men. But they did admit to scouting only women to fill these two new positions ;)
I don't agree with your point.
Them deciding to use Regis' spot (as well as Kripp's) to feature more women is not a bad thing.
Women have a much harder time getting into competitive, professional play, solely because they are women. It has nothing to do with their ability or lack thereof. It's just plain more difficult to be a competitive player while being a woman. It isn't proportional to how many skilled female players there are. If the demographics are unbalanced, that's the reason why. There is no inherent reason as to why women shouldn't be just as capable of entering the highest levels of play. So why are they underrepresented?
Because people are shitty, and women have to constantly face unwarranted, unsolicited sexual harassment. That's aside from the people that just plain tell them they shouldn't even be there. The audience and their competitors both. Even last year's first ever female world champion spoke of the negative attention she'd get, of how she was told she doesn't belong there when she attended her first competition. No, it isn't everyone, or even close to. But there are enough hurdles placed in their way for no good reason whatsoever.
Having more women playing is only a net positive for the community, not a negative. How many potential grand masters have chosen not to try playing competitively solely because of the toxic reactions they would have to face?
Blizzard is a company. Any action they take is going to be motivated not by doing the right thing, but what they think is best for their bottom line. When that coincides with doing the right thing, don't just criticize them for their motivation. It's the exact same as it always is. Praise that they are doing the right thing, even if the reasons for it aren't the right ones.
This is just pathetic and disingenuous virtue signalling. You have NO IDEA whether the amount of female competitive players is proportional to the amount of skilled players... no one does... You want to know why women are underrepresented? It's because humans are sexually dimorphic. On average men and women are better at different things. Hearthstone happens to be one of them, just like Chess :^)
Next point. No, women do not have to constantly face unwarranted, unsolicited sexual harassment. This is blatant hyperbole. Men and woman can both face harassment in life, sexual or otherwise. This is a Fact of Life. However much you and I might wish for it, this world where there are no bad guys, spiteful people, or unfortunate misunderstandings does not exist. Actually, women are far more likely to be sheltered from abuse and harassment throughout life. Often by men. This is the reason they are more heavily affected by negative attention.
No, diversity is not inherently a strength. That's nonsense. In fact, communities built by an overwhelming majority of men tend to be very negatively affected when participation of women is so unnecessarily encouraged. Whether you attribute this to "male toxicity" is your own opinion. I could just as easily claim that female toxicity is to blame and it'd be just as valid.
Finally, if you automatically attribute inclusivity to "doing the right thing" you're simply shutting yourself off from any hope of reason. Justifying things to yourself this way isn't a very unhealthy way to look at the world. Offering two women a seat in the invitational is as much "doing the right thing" as it is if I offered my bus seat to someone because they were Asian.
These actions just make them bigger !
Congrats for the attitude Regis & Kripp !
Kudos to Regis and Kripp for working with Blizz to open up this opportunity for others. Not everyone will be in a position to do this, but they were and did. Leaders in the community.