
Blizzard bans player from Hearthstone following on-stream Hong Kong protest - wei_jok
https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/9254/blizzard-has-removed-blitzchung-from-grandmasters-and-banned-him-from-competing-in-hearthstone-following-his-on-stream-hong-kong-protest
======
alpaca128
"Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into
public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise
damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction
of the player’s prize total to $0 USD [...]"

That's pretty close to "Blizzard can remove you from Grandmasters as soon as
you open your mouth". Sad to see such a cowardice from corporations, although
in the case of Blizzard it was kind of to be expected after all their visual
modifications to Hearthstone in order to appeal to the chinese market.

~~~
mlang23
Isn't this basically the same with all big corporations these days? If you say
unpopular things on your YouTube channel, you will be demonitized.as a way of
punishment. In short, either you please big brother, or you will suffer.

~~~
virgilp
Is it a "big corporations" thing? Try saying e.g. that maybe Minsky was
innocent, see how that works.

OTOH who knows anymore, maybe big corporations do have something to do with
it.... it's certainly convenient. If you have money it's rather easy to summon
a mob to do your bidding and silence inconvenient people, so they must love
this new trend. Also if you have money and power, it's easy to get
discretionary, arbitrarily-enforced rules to not apply to you. All these new
trends are so much more convenient than the old "due process" thing....

~~~
joelx
I think we all need to boycott Blizzard and the NBA for putting money over
freedom and democracy.

------
orisho
Title is clickbaity. They did it for a political protest during an _official_
Blizzard tournament stream, not for actions on his own stream or something.

He put on a gas mask and called for liberation of HK. I'm with him, but I
definitely see why Blizzard has the rule in place, and it would not be right
to overlook this - they would then have to be OK with others doing other
protests. Blizzard should not pick a side.

~~~
tyfon
Sometimes you just got to voice your opinion [1]

Blizzard chose money over human rights and they will have to stand for it
themselves. They've already picked a side, money. Now they lost my money
though.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olympics_Black_Power_salute)

~~~
Iv
Same here.

I wanted to believe that even despite Activision buying Blizzard, it would
stay an awesome company. I should have known better.

Starcraft 1 was the first game I ever bought. I feel sad to have to boycott
them now.

------
Iv
> Blizzard has ruled that Hearthstone pro Chung "blitzchung" Ng Wai will been
> removed from Hearthstone Grandmasters, following the player's call for Hong
> Kong's freedom during a post-match interview. Additionally, Blizzard has
> stated that it will no longer work with the two casters who appeared in the
> now deleted broadcast.

[https://www.pcgamer.com/blitzchung-removed-from-
hearthstone-...](https://www.pcgamer.com/blitzchung-removed-from-hearthstone-
grandmasters-for-liberate-hong-kong-comments/)

I am a huge starcraft 2 fan. But from now on, I'll refrain talking about it.
Boycott Blizzard. They support Chinese censorship.

I am so sad. That was a company I really loved.

------
Rainymood
While I agree with the sentiment that is being expressed here (i.e. it's
"wrong"). I can't help but think about the fact that he ... simply broke the
rules. There is a clear clause in the ToS that states basically "You are
working for us. If you say anything that can damage our reputation, we can
cease working with you." Which, to me, makes a whole lot of sense to have as a
clause.

~~~
x220
He didn't damage their reputation. Blizzard shot themselves in the foot.

~~~
Rainymood
That's like, totally your opinion. Blizzard has a huge base in China that is
largely invisible to us. As a large (gaming) company you want to stay as
neutral as possible, or at least that's what I imagine what large PR firms
would consult Blizzard to do.

~~~
ryanlol
Standing up for totalitarianism hardly seems like a neutral choice.

------
cheeze
Companies are spineless and will do pretty much anything for money.

We've seen it from the NBA, Blizzard, Disney, and the like. The fact of the
matter is that if you want to do business in China, you have to be open to
censoring things that they don't like.

~~~
anonthrowaway28
South Park rules.

------
zeouter
The fact they went so hard on this (and will no longer work with the two
casters who tried to hide / not be associated) is part of what's particularly
so insulting, and egregious.

They are implicitly making an example of this, thereby sending a political
message.

------
__s
Similarly, let's not forget the MtG deck _Umbrella Revolution_ :
[https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/adriennereynolds-101714-whats...](https://www.coolstuffinc.com/a/adriennereynolds-101714-whats-
in-a-name-lee-shi-tian-and-the-umbrella-revolution)

------
mister_hn
That's really sad and stupid. Now magically all the tech giants are blocking
the accounts of HKers.

Here you have the power and the dark side of the cloud: one click and it's
game over

------
playing_colours
I am thinking about it from the angle of video games vs. real world.

Be a hero, a revolutionary, a pirate, feel encouraged to work hard, explore
more, improve yourself, rebel, but only there in a safe artificial illusion,
virtual world they built for you. In real life, do stay a passive compliant
consumer, a source of money (or energy like in Matrix).

This chasm seems to keep widening with the progress in technologies like VR,
and this way of organizing a society is very convenient for businesses and
people in power. Welcome to Coward New World!

Ingenious next steps in this direction would be to seamlessly integrate our
jobs into artificial reality, so that people can sustain themselves, make
money for corporations and people in power - do all this staying totally
immersed in the illusionary world. Get exclusive game currency, bonuses to
your stats from your employer for a good work. Mmmm, I want to write a book
about it :)

------
sawaruna
The cost of Tencent investment funds.

------
ngcc_hk
Not a surprise. If you still do not get, prepare for a world with no freedom
of speech. Starting from Cathay, nba abd this.

You have to kill Winnie the pool per South Park advice. You have to ... there
is choice when you have to no freedom.

------
prepend
I like how esports is so close to sports sports. This is the equivalent of
“taking a knee” during NFL games while the national anthem is played.

What’s curious is that it now pits free speech vs China with Heartstone own
Kaepernick. The NFL issue, I think, was two social groups (kneeler vs people
upset by kneelers) with NFL/Nike/etc in the middle.

This new situation has a social group (players/free speeches/HK) vs a state
(China) with Blizzard/etc in the middle.

It’s curious how Blizzard so quickly picked their side while NFL and Nike are
still not going all in on one side (NFL didn’t ban, just no one hired player).

------
craftoman
I keep tracking Blizzard cause I play Hearthstone from time to time. This
company is unethical, it doesn't even care or respect their own employees and
you can see it based on their previous scandals. They are treating both
designers & developers like money making machines and they ruined almost every
of aspect of their games. They spend millions of dollars in tournaments and
always trick their costumers into buying more and more gaming content. It's
the most greedy gaming company after EA.

~~~
pinouchon
They shouldn't have accepted to get bought by Activision. The only way they
make good games now is by releasing old titles (sc remastered, classic,
reforged)... And now this

~~~
craftoman
Yeah and the irony is that Activision was formed by Atari employees who left
the company because they were treated like sh!t.

------
jimbob45
At this point, Blizz must be hoping that the bad publicity is better than
their current no publicity. Hearthstone is the #14 title on Twitch as I type
this out and prominent players have noted how much less viewership the
tournaments consistently get.

Also Tencent owns a portion of Activision Blizzard. That would be my guess for
who is pulling the strings behind this specific incident.

~~~
lmedinas
I think Blizzard wants to make a statement and being strict about politics
have no place in their games... Honestly i would be surprised if any gaming
company would allow that, independent if the Player is right or wrong.

With respect to Twitch placement, since when Twitch is a benchmark for number
of Players in a game worldwide ? HS lost momentum because of the greedy
economy of the game and because other games surged.

Another source for the subject: [https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/10/in-post-
game-interview-hea...](https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/10/in-post-game-
interview-hearthstone-player-calls-for-the-liberation-of-hong-kong/)

~~~
LordDragonfang
>I think Blizzard wants to make a statement and being strict about politics
have no place in their games...

Meanwhile in Overwatch, they've made a point of a diverse cast and canonically
made several characters gay/bi, upsetting plenty of far-conservatives. (all of
which is excellent, of course) Hell, Starcraft literally features storylines
about revolutionaries fighting a dictatorship.

I get that game politics are different than real-world politics, and they have
to draw the line somewhere, but it's a little conspicuous _where_ they've
chosen to draw the line.

------
Debugreality
Very brave @blitzchungHS hope your message is heard.

------
ohashi
NBA, Blizzard, who is next?

~~~
twno1
What next? I just checked how many game companies owned by Tencent. I don't
think situation will going better. Especially these are popular esport games
(Fortnite, LOL, PUBG)

[https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-
has-...](https://www.pcgamer.com/every-game-company-that-tencent-has-invested-
in/)

------
x220
The act didn't bring Blizzard into public dispute. Blizzard banning the player
brings Blizzard into public disrepute because it shows that they are cowardly
whores willing to do anything for money.

~~~
bilbo0s
> _The act didn 't bring Blizzard into public dispute._

Like most things these days, that depends on which "public" you're talking
about.

~~~
x220
Do you have any evidence that the free HK statement itself harmed Blizzard's
business?

~~~
RealStickman
Do you have any evidence that leaving that statement wouldn't harm Blizzard's
business?

