A professional Hearthstone player has been suspended and had all his prize money cancelled for showing support for pro-democracy protesters.
Officials from Blizzard Taiwan have thrown out a Hearthstone player for showing support for the ongoing protests in Hong Kong, after he spoke up at the end of a livestream and wore a mask – which have been banned by Hong Kong authorities.
Chung ‘Blitzchung’ Ng Wai was competing in the Asia Pacific Grandmasters and proclaimed, ‘Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age!’ at the end of a stream, which got not only him suspended but also the people in charge of the stream – who literally hid under a table during his comments.
According to Blizzard this violates an existing competition rule about doing anything that might bring competitors into ‘public disrepute’ or which ‘offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image’.
in a post-match Hearthstone Grandmasters winning interview, Hong Kong HS player @blitzchungHS said “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!”
in response, Blizzard Taiwan has now deleted the VOD from their official Twitch channel https://t.co/l5lcMu4ULR
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 7, 2019
As a result, Ng Wai has been thrown out of the Grandmasters, has been banned from Hearthstone esports for 12 months, and has had all of his prize money withheld.
‘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’, said Blizzard in statement.
Blizzard then went on to disable all comments on the news story on their site, which they never normally do.
The reasons are obvious, in that Blizzard doesn’t want to do anything to offend mainland China, in terms of either players or the government.
The fact that it was on a Taiwanese channel would have made things particularly difficult, especially after Taiwanese-made horror game Devotion was review bombed by Chinese gamers earlier in the year.
That led to it being pulled from Steam worldwide, merely for having a Winnie Pooh meme hidden in an obscure part of the game.
Breaking: Effective immediately, Blizzard has removed Hong Kong Hearthstone player blitzchung from Hearthstone Grand Masters, rescinded all his prize money, and have suspended him from pro play for one year for his recent interview.
Statement below https://t.co/ByI8vrZk1a pic.twitter.com/3h6jKYezMQ
— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 8, 2019
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