On October 6th of this year. Hearthstone player Chung Ng Wai AKA Blitzchung was being interview after his win in a Taiwanese Hearthstone Tournament. During the interview, the caster told him to sum it all up in 8 words. Blitzchung said...

Translation is "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age". A pro-Hong Kong stance.

This clip has been taken down by Blizzard on all of their official channels. Even the original VoDs don't have this clip. Blitzchun, who is originally from Hong Kong, had the majority of players behind him, he knew there would be a punishment for his actions. He just didn't realize it would be this.   

Blizzard's reaction to this was swift. They announced the next day that Blitzchung was banned for a year, and that his prize money was forfeited. On top of that, the two casters who appear in the video above, also lost their jobs. Blizzard said that they encouraged Blitzchung to say what he wanted and did nothing at all to stop him. As you can see from the clip, they just hide behind their desks.

According to Blizzard, Blitzchung violated their rules. More specifically, this one. 

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.   

Blanketed rule as this is. This is what Blizzard used as their answer for the bans.

And this is where the s**t hit the fan. 

Quickly the entire Hearthstone community - well besides Chinese players, obliviously - came out in support of Blitzchung. During an American Collegiate Hearthstone Championship between American University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. A member of the American University team put up this sign during the live stream. 

"Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz" It didn't last long as the view quickly changed and the feed for the American University face cam was quickly pulled.

This went unpunished by Blizzard even though it happened on an official Blizzard stream. The casters didn't acknowledge it, and Blizzard never spoke about it.

So what happened to the rule? It's fine if you have this rule, but you need to enforce it across the board and not just pick and choose.

Besides players, casters were also joining in on this. 

One of the biggest names in the American Hearthstone community, Nathan "Admirable" Zamora, quit. He was set to cast the Hearthstone Masters Tour at Blizzcon. 

On top of Zamora, another notable Hearthstone caster also through in the towel.

Brian Kibler who is a hall of fame Magic the Gathering player turned very popular Hearthstone caster also called it quits. In a statement released on Medium. He said he thought Blitzchung was brave and criticized Blizzard for the punishment.

The outrage got so bad that Blizzard had to close their Subreddit due to amount of posts speaking out against them. They also banned hundreds of people (some are saying over a thousand) from their own forums. 

Many players who are not Hearthstone players stood behind Blitzchung. A lot of players cancelled WoW subscriptions and even pre-orders. Justin "Jayne" Conroy, assistant coach for the Overwatch League team Dallas Fuel was instructed to delete a tweet that called out Blizzard for "censorship" and draconian enforcement of its rules. Ironic actually. 

Employees also got in on this. 

This is a picture of a group of Blizzard employees staging an "Umbrella Protest" in front of the famous statue at their main office. 

Employees also covered up the "Think Globally" and "Every Voice Matters" values that are the core values that make up Blizzard. 

Politicians even jumped on this to show what a hold that China has on American Businesses.

Senator Marco Rubio (R, Florida) and Senator Ron Wyden (D, Oregon) both spoke out on this on Twitter with Rubio saying "China using access to market as leverage to crush free speech globally." and Wyden said, "that Activision Blizzard showed it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party.” 

Now speaking of Overwatch. 

Protesters are trying to get get Overwatch banned in China, which is hilarious since China has 2 Overwatch League teams and an Overwatch World Cup team going to Blizzcon this year. 

How are they trying to do this? 

By using Mei.

Mei is the only character in the game from China. They are using Mei as a "pro-democracy symbol" and there is an entire Reddit thread dedicated to her on the r/Hongkong subreddit showing how pro-democracy she is. Some of this images are a-mei-zing. 

Protesters figured that after the internet made the association of Chinese President Xi Jinping to that of Winnie the Pooh, which got Winnie the Pooh effectively banned in China. That if they put Mei on their side of this fight that China would ban Overwatch in the country. It so far hasn't worked yet.    

There is even a video! 

#BlizzardBoycott was also trending on Twitter for awhile and there is a staged protest at Blizzcon coming up in 2 weeks. 

Blizzard actually cancelled a launch party planned for tomorrow at Nintendo World in New York City because they fear protesting. The event was for the launch of Overwatch for the Nintendo Switch. 

This whole thing has been a giant cluster for Blizzard. Blizzard/Activision stocks are down because of this and this issue doesn't seem to be going away. Blizzcon 2019 is in 2 weeks. There are huge protests planned for it. 

There are 2 main issues at hand here. Legality and morality. 

Legally, Blizzard has every right in the world to do this to their players. They signed contracts with Blizzard to ensure a certain standard. When you are on stream, you are not only representing your self, but also Blizzard as a whole. 

Morally, Blizzard is 100% wrong. A Chinese player is using his platform to speak out against tyranny. Blizzard should have swept this under the rug. Why didn't they? 

Simple, money. Q2 of 2019 Blizzard reported that 12%, or $400 million, came from the Asia Pacific market, which also includes Japan. 

While 12% isn't a lot compared to the US or European markets. There is a lot more to it.

All games entering China have to be regulated. They need permission to be able to sell on the Chinese market and those regulators are controlled by the Chinese government. Piss off the government, your games don't see shelves and there goes your 12%. 

And then there is Netease. Netease is the developer currently working on Diablo: Immortal. They also maintain all the Asia Pacific World of Warcraft servers. Netease is owned by Tencent. You remember Tencent right? I did an article on it yesterday that you can read right here.

Another developer that Tencent owns created Call of Duty Mobile. They created a mobile version of a multi-billion dollar franchise and they are going to hand deliver it into the smartphones and tablets of over 10 million Chinese players. Cha-ching?

Tencent is also known to side with the Chinese Government. Just last week Houston Rockets GM sent out a Tweet in support of the Hong Kong protesters. NBA league president defend this Tweet, calling it a right to free speech, after officials in China called for an apology. In turn Tencent suspended the online broadcast of pre-season NBA games. Basketball is huge in China and a lot of analysts are saying that the NBA lost millions because of this. The NBA apologized and now you can watch pre-season games in China.

Blizzard insists that the actions against blitzkrieg had nothing at all to do with their relationship to China. Their reliance on Chinese businesses, partners, investors, and approvals from Chinese regulators shows that it did. If Blizzard didn't punish him, they would be losing millions of dollars. With Activision already breathing down their neck to make more money for them. Blitzchung was already banned before he could finish his sentence.  

Yes, Blizzard did roll back the punishments and that's great. But they need to do more. They need to apologize to this kid. Stop trying to make China happy and instead make us happy.

Do what's right. You can stand up to this, or you can cave like the rest. And just remember, while you get 12% from China. You get the rest from the other parts of the world. That 12% isn't going to mean anything when everybody else is boycotting your product. 

This has been James with Game Fix. Game on everybody! Oh and #boycottBlizzard until they grow a pair.