Hearthstone Team Receives No Ban After Protesting Blizzard, Drops Out of Tournaments

More Hearthstone players spoke out publicly against Blizzard during the stream of an official [...]

By Tanner Dedmon

More Hearthstone players spoke out publicly against Blizzard during the stream of an official event, but they haven't been reprimanded for their actions. The group of American University players in question were scheduled for another collegiate match after holding up a sign on-stream that voiced support of Hong Kong and urged people to boycott Blizzard, but they said the lack of punishment showed a hypocrisy in the way Blizzard treats different reasons. The team has since said they plan to forfeit their upcoming match and won't be participating in tournaments any longer.

The video below is the one that's been circulating on social media ever since the American University team took their stand this week. Shown in the bottom-left corner of the video, the team held up a sign during an official Hearthstone event that said "Free Hong Kong Boycott Blizz." The stream quickly cut away to the winners of the match to avoid lingering on the sign.

This event follows the ban of Ng "Blitzchung" Wai Chung, a Hong Kong-based player who voiced support of the Hong Kong protests during a stream. Blitzchung was removed from the tournament for his actions, had all his prize money taken away, and was banned from competing in esports events for a year. American University received no such ban from Blizzard and was scheduled for another match by Tespa, the organization that handles the league's matchmaking.

Casey Chambers, the player who shared the tweet above and was part of the American University team, told The Washington Post the group has no plans to continue participating in tournaments regardless of Blizzard's inaction. A post on Reddit from a user who claimed to be one of the players on the team gave their take on why the outcome of their actions was important.

"This shows Blizzard's hypocrisy in how it treats different regions," the player said. "They are hesitant to suppress free speech when it happens in America, on an English language stream, but will throw casters' and players' livelihoods under the bus if they are from Hong Kong or Taiwan. It should also dispel the idea that Blitzchung was punished for bringing politics into Hearthstone, because our message was clearly political and we weren't touched. Blitzchung was punished because China was watching."

The user closed their post by saying "it would be very inconvenient for Blizzard" if people continued to support Hong Kong on streams since "there doesn't seem to be any punishment" for it. They also echoed what many people have said this week: BlizzCon is coming up soon, and it's likely this controversy will be present at the convention even if Blizzard breaks its silence on the matter to address it.

1comments
Comments ( 1 )

of