On October 9th, mainstream gaming company Blizzard Entertainment suspended Chung “Blitzchung” NgWai from their competitive Hearthstone match, a turn-based card game that Blizzard runs. During the post-game interview, NgWai said, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age.” Blizzard banned Blitzchung for violation of official game rules. They let him keep his prize money as the incident happened post-game, but they banned him from joining their professional esports matches for one year.
Despite the onslaught of public backlash for seemingly showing support for China, the gaming company remained silent until they released an official statement on October 12. Blizzard stated that the decision to ban the pro gamer aligned with their official tournament rules, reiterating that it was not affected by the current Chinese politics. They have since decided to reduce Blitzchung’s ban from twelve months to six months. Blitzchung spoke up about this situation after Blizzard released its official statement. Although he believes six months is still quite long, he apologizes for not speaking carefully in public places and thanks Blizzard Entertainment for reconsidering his ban. However, popular game magazines have criticized the company, saying that this statement does not provide an in-depth explanation of the issue, and it leaves out what official rule Blitzchung had violated.
This ban may be due to the fact that about 5% of Blizzard stocks are owned by Chinese giant Tencent. Recently, Blizzard has been under hard times financially. According to Nasdaq, Blizzard stocks dropped dramatically at the end of 2018. In the same year, they canceled the official esport match of their game “Heroes of the Storm” without prior notice, leaving many pro-gamers jobless. The company also decided to fire 800 employees to save costs. Although the explanation provided by Blizzard rules out Chinese influence, when Blizzard began to ban people from their forums for speaking out in favor of Hong Kong protest, people began to criticize Blizzard, saying that they were showing favor to China.
Meanwhile, Blizzard Entertainment was forced to cancel its New York Nintendo Superstore event as fans continue to protest against their decision to side with China amidst the Hong Kong protests.
Written by Sungwon Mun|Staff Writer
Comments