Blizzard banned (and stripped all earnings of for the season I believe) the professional Hearthstone player for expressing support for Hong Kong in his postgame interview after his gm match. Blizzard officially apologized to China saying they will always respect and defend the pride of China. Anyone at Blizzard willing to chime in on what’s going down in the office in relation to this? Are people just keeping quiet? article for reference https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/world/asia/blizzard-hearthstone-hong-kong.amp.html TC: 200k
Blizzard does business in China, which Hong Kong is a part of. If a Hong Kong player breaks a law very vocally using Blizzard as a platform, then it seems like Blizzard is justified in banning that player. I get that Chinese laws aren't just by international standards, but Blizzard is subject to the laws where it does business. They don't have an obligation to support a revolution.
If anyone felt they had an obligation, people would be demanding a fine, not a boycott
It's a lose-lose situation for Blizzard. Get penalized by the Chinese government or get bad press and a potential boycott from HK supporters.
Blizzard gave away the game in their Chinese statement, in which they said that they would always defend China's pride. You can't claim afterward that this is an evenhanded push against alienating political speech
Blizzard is just another corporation selling out for money. Welcome to our Chinese overlords and say bye bye to free speech!
Same thing happened to GM of the Rockets. China is too big to fail.
Not the same thing. Chinese state/state-owned-enterprise banned NBA. When a state persecutes an individual/organization for what they say, then it is a clear violation of Freedom of Speech. I am a lot more sympathetic to NBA than to this HK guy.
Blizzard is running an international esports platform. Any political propaganda should be banned on such platform, just like IOC or FIFA does. Politics should stay away from sports.
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“In a post-match interview with the Taiwan stream of Hearthstone, Mr. Chung, who is known as Blitzchung, appeared with ballistic goggles and a gas mask, protective gear often worn by protesters during demonstrations in Hong Kong. Mr. Chung shouted in Mandarin: “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” a popular slogan of the protesters.” Nothing wrong for Blizzard to ban a political activist here.
I feel this would be a valid argument, but Blizzard made this political themselves in their response saying they will defend China's pride. Meanwhile NBA not selling out to China for $
Both the commentators were fired as well despite not commenting (they weren’t from HK)