Blizzard Suspends Hearthstone Player For Hong Kong Support, Pulls Prize Money

[Visions of Khas]

https://kotaku.com/blizzard-suspends...1838864961/amp

A Hearthstone player was disqualified from competitions upon voicing support for Hong Kong, and the two casters covering his match were fired.

Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai, a pro Hearthstone player from Hong Kong, ended a stream earlier this week with a statement of support for those engaged in months-long protests against local police and government. As a result of this, Blizzard has ruled that he violated competition rules, and have handed out a heavy punishment.

In the stream, part of the broadcast of the Asia-Pacific Grandmasters, Blitzchung wore a mask (similar to those worn by protesters) and said “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!”

[...]

Blizzard also add that, despite them physically ducking from his comments on air and immediately cutting to a commercial, the company “will also immediately cease working with both casters” involved in airing Blitzchung’s statement.

Well, I'm pretty fucking angry.

Fuck you, Blizzard. Just, fuck you.

EDIT

The company behind Gods Unchained is stating they will cover Blizchung's lost winnings, and have invited him to future tournaments:

https://twitter.com/GodsUnchained/st...180258304?s=20

EDIT II

NPR Article.

[Mislagnissa]

Don't blame Blizzard. Blame capitalism.

[Visions of Khas]

I can and will do both, thank you very much. Good to know you're giving them a pass, though.

[Mislagnissa]

I can and will do both, thank you very much. Good to know you're giving them a pass, though.

There are plenty of things to blame Blizzard for. Like trying to get children addicted to gambling, considering the lives of Chinese people worthless except for how much money Blizzard can suck out of them, and being generally evil.

Throwing a guy under the bus for trying to stop their evil ways ranks pretty low on their list of sins.

Blaming capitalism is technically blaming Blizzard since the alternative is communist and those filthy Blizzard executives having their ill-gotten wealth redistributed to those who actually deserve it.

[sandwich_bird]

Ha, was gonna come post about the same thing. Fuck them indeed. South Park was spot on once more.

Blaming capitalism is technically blaming Blizzard since the alternative is communist and those filthy Blizzard executives having their ill-gotten wealth redistributed to those who actually deserve it.

Those discussions usually go in the realm of black and white oversimplifications. I just want to point out that the general idea of capitalism is nothing more than fair liberty and meritocracy which is something most people would support. The problem is not the idea, it's the implementation just as it has been with Communism. It's very much like a software. You have this great idea for a game, but then along the way you release a half-baked product riddled with bugs and the user experience is passable at best. What does a good developer do in that situation? He fixes those bugs, use the feedback to improve the experience, etc. This is where the analogy ends because political systems don't have this smooth feedback loop; they are not evidence/logic based but instead are an emotional shit show. The result is that the "bugs" are very slowly fixed (if at all) and improvement is pretty much stagnant. This leads people to emotionally respond by calling the idea shit. They make the false assumption that because the result that originated from the idea is crap the idea itself must be crap. In truth, all it would take would be for the bugs to be fixed and then we can logically make conclusions on the idea; if it really suits our context.

All this to say that if we really want to blame someone, we should, as always, blame those with the power to makes changes for not making them (and being so damn shortsighted). This also may or may not include yourself if there exist a possible reality in which your actions leads to the changes you want to see I guess.

Ranting about this always makes me think about the ending AI speech from Metal Gear Solid 2. If you guys haven't heard it before, go google it(big spoiler alert obviously if you never played the game). These are some of the best lines you'll hear in a video game in my opinion anyways.

[Visions of Khas]

Yong Yea responded to the controversy:



EDIT Oh dear, NPR is getting in on the action too.

[The_Blade]

Holy shit Blizzard... fuck you. You spineless husk of a now worthless trademark. I uninstalled everything besides BW back when you tried to shove Diablo:Immortal down our throats. I think I'll just delete my whole account now, and play on the fish server or something.

Capitalism is not at blame here... It's just a shit company making decisions based on cash grabs. They only care about the investors, where Tensent owns 5% of Activision:Blizzard.

Let's show up the list of stupid crap they have pulled out of their asses to pander towards the green:
-No offline mode or LAN to prevent piracy in the piracy riddled markets of Korea and China.
-Giving the Chinese government server control of all the traffic going through battle.net in the SEA region.
-Firing the Austin office to open up the Chinese office.
-Slashing 401k for most of their employees.
-Killing the Heroes of the Storm eSports scene a DAY after BlizzCon.
-Lootboxes
-Kicking Metzen and Rob Pardo out of the company for creative differences.
-Virtue signaling and politics within their games and communities. What a bunch of hypocrites. Jeff Kaplan, I wish I could see your face when facing the execs tomorrow, cause I feel like that shit is so real for you.
-Diablo Immortal
-Starcraft 2 warchest insignificant contribution towards the price pool and time grinds.
-Censoring art and themes mostly due to China.
-Killing Heroes of the Storm
-Fire half of team 3 for the sake of profits just before a Quarter end.

-Ban a PROPLAYER and fire 2 CASTERS over free speech.

AND a special fuck you for anyone at Blizzard who has been "toying around" with sales on the iNcontroL and TotalBiscuit announcers lately... you can just rot in hell beforehand. I bet you never met either of them.

I'm too tired to write the rest of the list out... fuck you Blizzard. You've done plenty. Go move to China already.

So sorry this was what brought me here to rant Khas...

[Visions of Khas]

-No offline mode or LAN to prevent piracy in the piracy riddled markets of Korea and China.

Oh, is that what made their LAN decision for them? I never realized. I never realized so many of those things were due to the Chinese market. Jeez.

EDIT

There's some discontent within Blizzard.

EDIT II It's a small, petty thing, but I posted to Gods Unchained's Twitter in appreciation of their decision to support Blizchung, and they followed me in return. ^-^

[The_Blade]

I forgot I had Blizzard Stock. Just sold it... should have done that earlier.

I fucking love the community. They are trying to get Overwatch as a whole banned in China.

A friend from the Overwatch art team just told me they have all ditched productivity for the day. Not everyone has walked out, but the moral has been the lowest and working is not possible. Managers are trying to keep the problem "compartmentalized" to Hearthstone, but friend says they are all visibly just trying to do their jobs while at degrees of anger themselves. Rumors so far say that a lead artist from Hearthstone did quit today and wrote "We have no values left" on his tablet, before heading out to HR.

[Visions of Khas]

I fucking love the community. They are trying to get Overwatch as a whole banned in China.

I love that Mei is becoming a symbol for opposition. Unfortunately, I read her voice actor is pro-CCP.

So I've spoken with a friend of mine who works for Blizzard. They are of the mind Blizzard did the right thing, as inaction on Blizchung's statements would have threatened several thousand China-based jobs. We all know how fast the CCP came down on the NBA, so I suspect there's a lot of heated meetings going on behind the scenes between Blizzard execs and CCP officials right now. They also mentioned legitimate fear of extraordinary renditions for employees, or "disappearings," as China is wont to do. But they also say that many employees are absolutely irate about what Blizzard did, confirming the low morale Blade hinted at.

EDIT Huh.