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 Kripparrian too tweeted out that he has withdrawn and "saw a chance to speak through actions."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.
What ever happened to VKLi😮n?
She is still active in the Chinese league and almost qualified again for the WC 2020 I believe.
This should be happening due to decisions based from Blizzard, and not from Hearthstone "grandpas" like Kripp and Killbin. Jesus...
Stunning and brave!
I love the fact that gender matters more than popularity and skill. Blizzard must be happy that they will look great in SJWs eyes :)
I get the popularity argument, but skill? A goldfish is more skilled than Kripp. These two players are definitely more skilled than the two that are stepping down
To those who feel like the deciding factor is political or social pressure, weather or not you are a minority, it is understandable that this feels like pandering or catering. I would encourage you to actually take a look around you and consider what the reality is. If you work for a large company, odds are your entire board of directors are white males, the women will most likely be white as well. The senior leadership team i work under including all our executive officers is 90% white male. There is two women in that level, and few have any form of ethnic backgrounds. Three months ago, some idiot I work with told one of his coworkers to go back to the middle east and have relations with a goat. He was a third generation porta Rican descent who was born in Florida who did 12 years in the USAF. Most minorities are worried that if they are pulled over by law enforcement, that they will be shot by some cop who thinks he's gods gift to the world. Minority soldiers who fought in Korea and Vietnam wars are still struggling to maintain or even get the benefits they deserve, most of that were designed to be especially difficult for these minorities to collect. This trend of using policy to suppress minority's today continues with most law enforcement officers enjoying almost complete immunity for their actions (4 out of 138 who killed someone actually serve time in connection with that sentence). These are just tips of the biases and systemic and institutional discrimination that remains in all aspect of American and world society.
I really understand how it feels like inclusion and diversity are being shoved down your gullets. I also wish that these creators wouldn't have to feel like they are obligated to take some sort of action. I wish that we could just stand on merit, but there almost isn't any aspect of our society where that is truly the case. In an ideal state your gender would be person and your race will be people, judge solely on actions taken. If its not fought for at every chance and the whole of society languish to take action as a large unit, than discrimination will still be a problem for the next century to deal with as well.
P.S When selecting crews for the first maned mission to space, the women who participated out preformed and out scored all the men, but were not chosen because "America couldn't handle the deaths of a female astronauts."
You must have a very shallow worldview if you assume everyone reading your preachy comment is living in the same situation as you. Pretty bigoted as well, what's wrong with a majority white or male leadership? You would never dare say the same thing about leadership in majority ethnic countries. What about Finland, where the all-female government is running the country into the ground? Did you know that the reason many minorities are afraid of getting shot when pulled over is because people like you and a certain basketball player spread a myth that the police want to hunt them down and kill them? In some 3rd world countries this is actually true at a troubling level but you want to take attention away from that so that you can look good standing up for American minorities. Typical American tbh, thinking that manipulative American media reflects what goes in the rest of the world.
Typical Non-American thinking he knows everything there is to know about America.
Nice comeback did you write it yourself?
Fuck off with your anti-intellectual bullshit.
#WellPlayed
Krip: i suck at ranked...im just good in bg. Sorry.
*average in bg
Are people really going to try and argue that a current Grandmaster and someone who represents their Country in international play and who has held Rank 1 on ladder should have not gotten invited, because they are somehow not qualified enough?
Really?
That's a special kind of bullshit.
I think these invites just go to show that there's plenty of women available who could show out in events like this, and all they need is a chance to show it.
Which they are hopefully finally getting, moving forward.
I don’t think people are saying they aren’t qualified, the invitation is pretty much just a marketing stunt and the qualifications boil down to “can you get us more twitch viewers watching hearthstone”. People are arguing that what got them qualified was the fact blizzard was in the middle of a PR blunder and that they are pretty much there as a quick fix to make blizzard look better.
What if Blizzard realized their line ups for these events didn;t match their intended company goal they have for being inclusive in their games "Every Voice Matters" and chose to invite two highly skilled women from a long list of deserving candidates.
No quick fix, no "make them look better", just 2 deserving candidates for a spot in a tournament, chosen because they represent a shockingly underrepresented group in the original line up.
The original line up had 2 women on a group of 20 players. That's 1 in 10.
Even with this, there are only 4 women on 20 players, or 1 in 5, or 20%.
That is STILL not even close to the true % of women that play Hearthstone.
I'm perfectly okay with holding Blizzard to the fire over what is undoubtedly a dumb initial group of players. But that's not what some of the detracters are doing. Some of them are specifically upset that Blizzard chose women to replace the men that withdrew and question their qualifications and question that there are not better men to be chosen instead.
And THAT is bullshit.
"People are complaining the invitational has too few women."
"Hmm, they're right. Let's invite more women."
"Now people are complaining we invited more women..."
Yes, it's a "quick fix" to make them look better. It's also the right thing to do. If you want to complain they are too discriminatory in their invitational practices, complain about the initial group, or that two more women isn't enough. Don't defend the status quo.
Competitive play is more difficult when you are a woman for no other reason than that you are one. People are asshats, so as soon they see a woman playing, they're either sexually harassing her (either by praising her looks and throwing unsolicited comments her way, or complaining she isn't pretty enough for them to want to do that), or complaining that she "doesn't belong there". Inclusivity matters.
Unless you genuinely think women can't play as well as men (and I don't know why you would), more women playing is good. Who knows how many talented potential players there are that don't ever even try because they're afraid of harassment?
I wouldn't care about this substitution in the slightest if it was presented as "Kripp and Regis are out, Luna and Avelline are in". It's not the fact that women are getting spots in the tournament, I literally couldn't care less. Hell, I find Luna and Avelline more interesting to watch in competitive play - that's not where Kripp and Regis excel. It's the fact that this is presented by Blizzard as "We're putting Luna and Avelline in for diversity!" that really annoys me. There's two scenarios that are possible here:
-Blizzard decided that despite Luna and Avelline not being the best choices they should have the spot for being women. This means people who would've got the spots don't have them because of their identity. This is not an OK outcome - thus, Blizz has made a shitty move.
-Blizzard decided that Avelline and Luna were the two most deserving players for the Innvitational, noticed they were both women, and decided to retroactively play the inclusivity card to accrue brownie points. This would be disingenous and deceitful - thus Blizz has made a shitty move.
Once again, the only thing I'm annoyed at here is the framing, not the act itself. The Hearthstone e-celeb scene has been largely dominated by white guys for ages, and I'm glad to see other people getting a chance in the spotlight. I think Regis' statement is absolutely lovely and I applaud him and Kripp for dropping out. I just don't buy Blizzard pretending they're some sort of progressive force for good, especially given Hearthstone's history with China and Hong Kong.
Edit: for some dumb reason I thought it was Alliestrasza getting a spot instead of Avelline - substituted the name.
While I think this is a great thing and should happen more I disagree that this is blizzard watching out for the company goal of every voice matters considering past history (such as hong kong) I would say its more likely someone higher up saw the backlash they were starting to get on Twitter in regards to woman players of hearthstone and when Regis and Krip decided to withdraw they saw it as an opportunity to score some good PR.
That being said its doesn't make this a bad thing and the people who are complaining are being idiots. Yes if this was for say gm and they started only inviting woman to fill the diversity role I would say that is disrespectful and pandering to anyone who would put the effort into getting into that bracket but it isn't its just a fun invitational that is meant to be used to boost the popularity of hearthstone and its attending streamers
You claim to know women aren't even close to 1/5 of the Hearthstone demographic. Interesting you didn't provide the real statistic since you apparently know it... They actually make up around 25% of the playerbase. Besides, invitationals aren't supposed to correlate with demographics exactly. They should correlate with ability, if anything.