Blizzard Bans Hearthstone Grandmaster for Hong Kong Protest

Off Topic News In Gaming
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Surprised no one’s posted on this yet.

" Blizzard has placed a 12-month ban on a Hong-Kong-based professional gamer who staged an anti-government protest during a post-match interview.

Ng Wai Chung put on a gas mask and shouted: “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age,” after a Grandmasters Hearthstone tournament.

Blizzard said the ban was for breaking tournament rules that players must not offend people or damage its image.

The interview aired on the official Hearthstone Taiwan video stream.

The stream was reportedly cut immediately after his statement and switched to showing adverts.

Hearthstone is played with a deck of virtual cards featuring heroes, relics and spells based on Blizzard’s Warcraft titles.

Chung, who plays under the name Blitzchung, has been a regular top-10 player in the Asia-Pacific region since 2015 and has featured in Blizzard’s roster of top Hearthstone players.

Many other players have taken now to social media to complain about Blizzard “caving in” to China.

Blizzard issued a statement, saying: "Grandmasters is the highest tier of Hearthstone e-sports and we take tournament rule violations very seriously.

“While we stand by one’s right to express individual thoughts and opinions, players and other participants that elect to participate in our e-sports competitions must abide by the official competition rules.”

As well as the year-long ban and loss of prize money Chung has been removed from the Grandmaster list that made him eligible to take part in top tournaments.

Blizzard said it would also stop working with the two video presenters who conducted the interview.

In a statement given to gaming news website InvenGlobal, Chung said his comments had been “another form of participation of the protest”.

He added: "It could cause me a lot of trouble, even my personal safety in real life.

“But I think it’s my duty to say something about the issue.”

So much backlash that Blizzard have made their subreddit private because of the controversy.

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Wow. Blizzard clearly didn’t think that one thru.

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I smell the second Blizzcon failure in a row.

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This just keeps getting better.

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Saw all this news on Twitter and through YongYea’s videos. Ended up uninstalling Bnet and Diablo III, not only because I haven’t touched either of them in so long, but it’s also about the principle and my issue with the CCP and their ideology of control and censorship that also pushed the decision.

Only question now is whether or not to uninstall Diablo I from my GoG client.

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D1 & 2 have nothing to do with the current blizzard staff and decisonmakers.

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Those were actually my thoughts when I was thinking about going through with it. I can easily say that supports my decision to keep the first Diablo installed in any case. That and Tchernobog is without question an excellent mod for it, even if still at version 0.1.6c

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It looks like Grim Dawn is among the suggested alternatives for Diablo, along with Fate and Titan Quest.

Scroll near the bottom of the page:

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Wonder if Blizzcon will get cancelled at the rate they’re going.

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Yeah there is about a 100% chance that there will be protests and people yelling during panels at this point

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That’s what happens when you get into geopolitics, even when you tried to keep geopolitics out.

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blizzard’s delving deep into eastern asia political theater since their decision to insult pc diablo fans by aiming diablo immortal for the infamous asian mobile mmorpg market. whatever blizzard do or don’t will be influenced by what china does now in the eastern asia geopolitics.

games that are being involved deeply into politics are like grim dawn players delving deep into post 75 sr shards. in other words, lots of imbalance, lots of stress, less fun (this is subjective).

i wonder, how deep will this blizzard drama go, hmm?

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I’m ready for my popcorn in November 1 & 2 live Stream. See how this Blizzcon goes and how they manage the protesters.

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A few ppl stood up during Q&A and shouted “free HK”, they just let them do it. Neither the moderators nor the audience really seemed to care.

Then came J. Allen Bracks Non-Apology, big opportunity wasted.

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activizzard has long been plunged deep into the darkness of chinese market. they’ve already invested too much eggs into that basket.