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.
![All The Great Dark Beyond Card Reveals for October 12 - Day 2 [Finished]](dark-beyond-reveals-day-2-thumb.webp)
Comments
So many people are completely ignoring that even if we took the context of everything happening in China out of the equation Blitzchung still broke tournament event rules. Those of you expecting a full reversal is more or less trying to give him a free pass for throwing a charged political statement into a Blizzard event, taking advantage of the full publicity after winning the event. You ask for a reversal of logical consequences for him then you are more or less saying it is okay for other players to blatantly mic drop charged political comments during other events if the timing and situation aligns and calls for it.
I don't care if there are politics I do or do not agree with. I still don't want politics shoved into my entertainment when it is avoidable. Maybe Millenials think it's all cool to just hijack events for their own reasons but I prefer to keep human rights and entertainment in their mostly separate categories in most situations. Wanting these two vastly different topics separate is not saying you agree or disagree with what is going on on the other side of the world, contrary to popular belief.
Post the rules then? I skimmed though GRANDMASTERS OFFICIAL COMPETITION RULES https://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/page_media/w4/W4NWIBHB74T31564507077190.pdf and only found this part
It's very vague. Bliztchung didn't even say anything offensively, he said the slogan to show his support for HK protestors. And in term of punishment, there's no part that says Blizzard can ban you 1 year from their tournaments and take away all your prize money. Team America did the same right after, they literally showed "boycott Blizzard" sign on the camera, where was their punishment huh? Because Chinese wasn't offended in this case?
FIFA fined (not suspended) two players in their 2018 World cup event because they showed Eagle hand gestures to the camera(it was a political statement). FIFA is much larger (and more corrupted) than Activision Blizzard, 2018 WC was broadcast worldwide, even then they knew where was the borderline.
By making such extreme punishment I'd say Blizzard has showed their political stand on this one and it's a Pro-china one. This is just pure hypocrisy and you know it.
This is deeply troubling, hopefully now people can understand the global concern i.e. Huawei and the like...
I'm still deciding the best personal action to take.
On Destiny's - not that one - Twitch channel a WoW dev that was a guest on the stream let it slip that WoW would almost always be in Steam's most concurrent game if it was on steam - He also let it slip that roughly 70% of WoW players are from China. China is well known for delisting and baning any game/devs/publishers that even remotely seems to speak out against them.
What Blizzard has done is abhorrent and just downright ethically wrong - but I can see why they felt like they had to do that... Still keeping that shit uninstalled though. Fuck Blizzard.
The original video is behind a Subscriber paywall - so here's a reaction to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSAlh9l-c7Q
Blitz didn't make an anti-china comment, he made a pro-democracy comment. Big difference. He's supporting his Homeland, just like anyone should.
PC means PERFECT CHINA in Blizzard
I am really shocked about this. I am a long time player but as a result I uninstalled all my blizzard games as well as battle.net and withdrew any credit cards associated with Bnet. If you want to participate at least with a minimum effort, boycott the upcoming Blizzcon. It is their main source of advertisement revenues and a day in the spotlight. Losing the viewers will send them a message and make their partners reconsider their partnership. #boycottblizzard
First off I think it's fair they punished Blitzchung for using the winner's interview for a political protest. Anyone could have foreseen that would have caused problems for Blizzard and that there would be consequences; had they fined him and disavowed the protest I would have moved on.
BUT I think the punishment is way too harsh, no prize money, kicked out of grandmasters and banned from competing and firing the casters? That's not punishment anymore, that's taking a side.
There Blizzard went way too far. I can't support a company that takes that step, so I'm at least going F2P for the foreseeable future, I was planning on buying the Hex bundle for instance.. not anymore, nor am I pre-ordering the next expansion. Still deciding on whether i want to take a further step.
Especially egregious is the fact that these broadcasts are on a delay of 30 mins, so what was Blizzard doing? They could have chosen not to show the interview, but instead they aired it and then they made scapegoats out of the casters and Blitzchung...
The casters should honestly have been fired. They asked Blitzchung to say "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of out times." They went against their contract.
I fully agree that BlitzChungs punishment were too harsh tho.
There was actually not anything that was done initiatially, until the Chinese viewers demanded for them to be punished.
Source: https://twitter.com/czhihong/status/1181452540753235971
It is a very hard punishment when you think of Roger who cheated twice and it took Blizzard a lot of time to react on this
What is the reaction of the other players in the tournament scene? I hope for an act of solidarity
FUCK BLIZZARD AND FUCK CHINA AND ALL OTHER COMMUNIST COUNTRIES
It isn't Blizzard's job to be champions for human rights regardless of how you do or do not feel about the modern politics. Many on here are grossly misunderstanding how taking a stance that didn't result in Blitzchung's removal could end up badly for them by making it seem they were taking a stance in very real international politics.
You want to stand up for human rights do it on an actual appropriate and impacting medium, not after a card game tournament. There are plenty of real avenues to fight for human rights in ways that have a much higher chance of actually doing anything.
Blizzard not acting in this situation would potentially imply international motives on the topic of human rights, which from a business standpoint would be suicide for a non-human rights associated corporation.
Personally I'm big about human rights, especially the abuse of individuals and groups of women and children, but I'm not about to try and high jack a tournament and use it for my own podium, while at the same time scratching my head in bewilderment about why my prize money was taken away due to breaking rules that were already established before using a win for international attention.
EDIT: It should also be pointed out that the very first moment you start allowing your tournament participants to start using your events for political motivation without responding to it you then set the precedent in the future that if sociocultural tensions arise in other countries for any variety of issues those future players would 'have to' be allowed to have space and time to also project their opinions during future tournaments. Blizzard is doing the smart thing by trying to be consistent with their rules and guidelines instead of bending because some other players have strong opinions about modern politics.
There were responses between nuke from orbit and do nothing. Blizzard had a lot of options and by choosing to be heavy handed as all hell, they've made a lot of people mad.
Yeah I kinda wish my favorite game developper wouldn't actively participate in governement repression.
They had some leeway how to respond to Blitzchungs stunt (official warning, a fine, banning him from future interviews) but the really went all out. On everyone involved.
After the recent South park and NBA incidents and 3 weeks before Blizzcon this is a total desaster from a PR point of view and will cost them at least my money.
Also please cut the "iF yOu ReAlLy CaReD aBoUt HuMaN rIgHtS" crap
See the NBA. Willing to give up some big market exposure and lots of $$ for supporting freedom of speech. I care about who I give my money to.
This wasn’t action that implied Blizzard was trying to stay neutral. This was clearly picking a side
Yeah it's picking a side, but what are you going to do when you're under the stranglehold of literally the world's largest consumer base? And it's not "some big market exposure", it's literally several millions of dollars. China earns more money that the US through Hearthstone purchases. You have to remember that Blizzard isn't a charity, they make products with the intent of profit. This has the risk of turning Hearthstone Tournaments to places to discuss politics, which just puts them under more fire in the future. If you want to support Hong Kong, do that somewhere else, not when playing video games.
Companies should absolutely be held accountable if they do immoral things.
Immoral? Are we really going to try to put a card game player not getting their winnings when saying something political on the same level of immoral? Want to know real immorality? The actual events of what is going on in China, not some reprimand loosely related to the actual issue when said during a tournament that doesn't want charged political phrases thrown into its events.
Real immorality is when those close to you get assaulted or abused (which has happened to many of those close to me), not some logical consequence handed to a children's card game player safe in a children's card game tournament. Please do not compare the stripping of entertainment monetary winnings to a term which more rightfully so should be used to describe actual mistreatment of individuals or groups.
Blizzard cracking down on a pro democracy activist to appease chinese sentiments absolutely is immoral. It's not about the amount of suffering they've created but about the stance they've taken.
That's how I see it and that's how a broad spectrum of the community, press and even Blizzard employees see it.