Blitzchung and two casters from Taiwan have been removed from the Hearthstone Grandmasters program.
On Sunday, Blitzchung made a comment on the Asia-Pacific Grandmaster's stream in a post-match interview, while in a mask, stating "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age". Blizzard Taiwan removed the VOD containing the interview and it, rightfully so, caused a bit of a stir on reddit. Blizzard has now put up an official blog post on the matter, stating Blitzchung will receive no prize money and be banned for 1 year from the tournament series.
This is certainly troubling that a single country, China, can have this much of an effect on Hearthstone when they quite clearly violate basic human rights. Blizzard has a deep relationship with China with NetEase running all their games for the Chinese locale, and one thing they do in response to that relationship is refer to Taiwan as "Chinese Taipei", a move we don't copy here instead refering to the country as it should be, Taiwan. I've never been one that agrees with the mix of gaming and politics, but here we are.
Tencent, one of China's largest gaming companies, purchased a 5.023% share of Activision-Blizzard back in June of 2016. Tencent also owns 100% of Riot Games, the creators of League of Legends, 48.4% of Epic Games, and an unknown amount of Discord. Additional ownership information was recently covered on PCGamer.
In support of Blitzchung, many on reddit have stated they had their Battle.net accounts closed, are going to instead go to the F2P model, or will no longer be playing the game.
What are your thoughts on this?
Quote From Blizzard During the Asia-Pacific Grandmasters broadcast over the weekend there was a competition rule violation during a post-match interview, involving Blitzchung and two casters, which resulted in the removal of the match VOD replay.
Upon further review we have found the action has violated the 2019 Hearthstone Grandmasters Official Competition Rules section 6.1 (o) and is individual behavior which does not represent Blizzard or Hearthstone Esports. 6.1 (o) is found below.
2019 HEARTHSTONE® GRANDMASTERS OFFICIAL COMPETITION RULES v1.4 p.12, Section 6.1 (o)
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, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.
Grandmasters is the highest tier of Hearthstone Esports and we take tournament rule violations very seriously. After an investigation, we are taking the necessary actions to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
Effective immediately, Blitzchung is removed from Grandmasters and will receive no prizing for Grandmasters Season 2. Additionally, Blitzchung is ineligible to participate in Hearthstone esports for 12 months beginning from Oct. 5th, 2019 and extending to Oct. 5th, 2020. We will also immediately cease working with both casters.
We’d like to re-emphasize tournament and player conduct within the Hearthstone esports community from both players and talent. While we stand by one’s right to express individual thoughts and opinions, players and other participants that elect to participate in our esports competitions must abide by the official competition rules.
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Comments
According to the Blizzard employees, it wasn't a grouped agreement to ban Blitzchung, since they're beginning to protest themselves.
I'll be keeping up to date with this site for the next week or so hoping for some sort of reversal of this decision. I'm honestly not holding out hope. In the mean time I've deleted my HS app and my battle.net client.
In lieu of any change I'll probably be done with outof.cards by proxy simply because I won't be playing the game anymore. I honestly feel much worse about that than I do about my decision to quit supporting blizzard games. To Flux and the crew, you guys run a great site. You're community involvement is awesome and I'm sorry if Blizzard's doctrine hurts your development greatly. I like you guys a lot and I'm still holding out hope for the best. Peace and love to you all!
-Trollbert
"
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
"
So... should Blizzard get banned from Grandmaster tournaments according to it's own rules?
I can already see the Twitch chat during the next Tournament.
So many blocks incoming...
Imagine being a Hong Kong HS player who played the game for 5 years and spent $1000 on it. Just imagine. This is so disgusting.
To people saying he broke the rules because there is no place for politics on the tournament, well usually you get a warning or you have to sit your next match, you dont get utterly baned and destroyed.
I remember that cheating at tournaments is not punished that hard...
Yeah this is pretty much the harshest punishment they could hand out to all people involved. This all about appeasement
You gotta lower your ideals of freedom if you wanna suck on the warm teat of China
Blizzard has taken sides against democracy by punishing Blitzchung so heavily. I can understand banning him to deny him a platform if you want to stay out of politics, but by firing the casters and robbing the champion of his prize money they have gone beyond that.
Chinese human rights violations are something, that should not be acceptable. But let’s all take a step back.
It‘s not Blizzards responsability to fight this battle. It‘s certainly not the Hearthstone Grandmasters Tour that should be the Platform for this discussion.
Blizzard never wanted to be involved and that’s 100% normal. Blitzchung forces them to take sides. They can‘t ignore it. They most certainly can‘t publicly support his statement. Blizzard has rules to follow aswell, both with shareholders and the chinese government. It‘s not a single person taking this decision and its consequences.
If Blizzard in your eyes is unethical, so is every international company that is involved in China. Heck, every government that trades with this country!
What happened is unfortunate and it feels wrong to ignore it. But if you care about this subject, it‘s wrong and hippocrit to make Blizzard responsable for anything.
Blizzard can be held responsible for the severity of the punishment. That was completely their decision. Many of us don't like how heavy-handed it was.
As far as examples of companies involved in China, look at the Daryl Morey story involving the NBA. They are obviously taking a hit in China, but I'd say that ethically they are trying pretty hard to be right.
I agree, the punishment is hard. But people have lost their jobs for less.
As for the NBA story (i only took 5 minutes to read into it, sorry if i‘m wrong), it seems to me that they didn‘t act quick enough and can‘t take it back now. People have apologized and „regret“ what happened. This is not done yet anyways.
Blizzard is no white knight in this story, sure. But my point is, we can’t blame them for not acting. Especially not out of our comfortable situations.
Ah sorry I should have been more specific about the NBA example - since there are a lot of pieces to that one. The part that I appreciate is that the NBA commissioner has stated that he is sympathetic to those who were upset by Morey's pro Hong Kong tweet. However, he's not going to take action against Morey for exercising his freedom of speech. He's standing with him, even if it means a substantial loss of business in China. Basically, putting principles above profit in this example.
And I don't fault Blizzard for acting. I know they had to do something, but the harshness of the punishment doesn't sit well with me.
Greetings,
A couple things I want to mention that I have not seen brought up here (but I easily could have missed it/them) and some that have. Do I think Blitzchung is a hero and what he did was fantastic. I do - very much. But, he also has said he KNEW he was going to get banned. He knew it was against the rules (so the whole, it wasn't against the rules argument is invalid). The casters also knew what they were doing. That makes their action that much more noble.
Should Blizz have done what they did. Absolutely. E sports is not a forum for politics. As noble as their actions was, it is still politics. I don't play HS for politics. When streamers start bringing it up, I change. Blizz is also accountable to shareholders. Some of these shareholders are average people saving for their retirement. To punish them for someone else actions (while we happen to see is noble) would not be appropriate for Blizz.
And the big point I want to bring up. First, remember we get after Blizz all the time for their lack of communication and lack of explanation when they do communicate. However, this time, they communicated quickly AND loudly AND clearly. Did the we like what they said No. BUT the fact is, we are talking bout it. The WORLD is talking about it. The media is picking it up. The more mainstream media is picking it up. If Blizz just did what Blizz usually does would their be this much attention and talking about it? I don't think so.
I think that Blizz knows they are doing on the media front. I think Blizz what is hard place. I think they used their media power is such a way that China could not make repercussions about it. Yea, at the same time, they have exploded this story world wide. Sure, Reddit was all over this. But I don't think it would have been picked up and carried like it has.
Since Blizz has made their very public statement, China can't ignore it. They can't wipe it under the proverbial carpet. Anyone who follows Blizzard but not HS will now hear bout this.
This, I feel, was a very strategic move by Blizzard. This very forum is helping to prove that. Be as pissed as you want at Blizzard, but the fact is - their actions have done more for Hong Kong than doing nothing at all.
TL:DR;
I think Blizz's move was genius. I think Blizz coming out like this has done more to SUPPORT Hong Kong than if they had done their usual and just been quiet. This story is now world wide and would not have been if BLIZZ had remaind quiet on it. China can no longer ignore this story.
Have to agree with you here. This would not havr gained the coverage it got and would have been totally forgotten. With the exception of the few people watching the stream
You are only emphasising the importance of politics in non-political forms of media. Blizzard gets direct monetary support of their decisions from people who are and aren't interested in politics, just as people in China are impacted by human rights violations whether or not they care about politics. It's not like Blizzard hushed someone because they said anything at all relating to politics. They did it solely because China lines their pockets.
"They [Blizzard] did it solely because China lines their pockets." Could you please point me to any evidence of this. You state it as fact, so you must have clear evidence of it. Otherwise that would only be you opinion or your feeling about the situation.
If you did, indeed, mis-speak. Could you still point me to any evidence or facts that led to such a position? I mean, other than "they are a corporation, so therefore they must be evil".
Of course I am emphasizing the importance of bringing up the Hong Kong situation in non-politcal forms of media. That is a large part of my point. What Blizzard did has brought it to MANY more people than would have know about it. Those that don't frequent political media. Another point for Blizzard!
I don't know if this is true (the intent of Blizzard to garner global attention while still keeping their lucrative ties with China strong), but I greatly hope so.
While many have suggested Blizzard determined the severity of the punishment, I think that is an assumption as well... we simply do not know what the influencing parties were in that decision.
Each individual has their own decision to make on how they will react to this information (and, if chWolfgang is right, this information reaches a lot more individuals based on Blizzard's actions). They each must decide if a reciprocating punishment should be levied on Blizzard (i.e. quitting, protesting), if Blizzard's actions, while concerning to reprehensible, are understandable, or if they stand with Blizzard's decision and support it. This is the freedom that we enjoy in our country (as well, I pray, in all of yours) and within this forum.
When given that perspective, what truly matters becomes clear. Don't allow your reactions toward Blizzard distract you from the real issue.
Edit: as the story continues, Blizzard continues to make poor decisions, so as hopeful as I was that Blizzard was attempting to covertly bring global attention to Hong Kong Human Rights, it seems this is not the case. They also handled the two casters for Blizzard Taiwan unfairly and have (as far as I can tell) not reverted their stance on firing them for simply being the recipient of BlitzChung's message. Any recommendations for games like Hearthstone?