Blizzard bans professional Hearthstone player for expressing support for Hong Kong

A Hong Kong professional Hearthstone player has lost his prize money and has been banned from tournaments for a year after expressing support for the protesters in Hong Kong in an interview. The presenters who interviewed him have also been fired.

The tournament where the incident took place was the official Asia-Pacific Grandmasters Season 2 and the statements were made by Ng Wai Chung, also known as blitzchung, on the official Taiwanese stream of the event. The rag of the incident has been taken offline by Blizzard, but among other things on Twitter the images can still be found.

In the interview, blitzchung expresses in Chinese his support for the demonstrators in Hong Kong, who have taken to the streets daily since March this year to protest against China’s political influence. His words more or less mean “liberated Hong Kong, the revolution of our time”. The two presenters seem to give him room for comment, but do not express their explicit support for it.

In a response, Blizzard says that the rulings are a violation of the tournament rules; you are not allowed to “do any act that disgraces the player, offends any part of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard’s image.” At the same time, Blizzard states that it “supports everyone’s rights to express thoughts and opinions”, but “that the rules of the tournament must be followed”.

Speaking to Inven Global, blitzchung said he “put so much effort into the protests” that he “sometimes couldn’t concentrate on preparing for the tournament.” Although the statements could “get him in trouble, even in real life,” he felt the action was his duty.