Activision’s Blizzard has recently found themselves sitting in boiling water after they banned a professional player of their game Hearthstone. Chung Ng Wai was barred from participating in the competitive circuit after he made some political statements on a live stream. The statements in question were his support of the protests citizens have been taking against the country’s government. As a result of his suspension, Wai was forced to forfeit a cash prize of an alleged $10,000.
The fans backing Wai, and for that matter fans of Activision and Blizzard, has taken these actions as expressing insanely horrendous and depraved attitudes towards the citizens and protesters that reside in Hong Kong. Hashtags such as #BoycottBlizzard, #BlitzChung, have found themselves at the same level of viralirty as #FreeHongKong on Twitter.
Fans have taken to voting with their wallets and began to delete their Blizzard actions in masses. Blizzard games require a dedicated game launcher and Blizzard account in order to run, and it’s these very log ins that the protests decided that they no longer needed.
On October 9th, 2019, Twitter account @Espsilverfire2 published a post that said,
“So now Blizzard has disabled all FOUR authentication methods to actively stop people from deleting their accounts. This is beyond disgusting. Spread awareness of this. #BoycottBlizzard”.
Currently standing at 24k retweets, many users sent in their own difficulties with shutting down their accounts. Though many people chimed in with their own difficulties, including the company requesting a photocopy of a government issued ID for verification, online news reporter Polygon stated that they were able to submit a user customer support request, a “ticket” to Blizzard for the purpose of deleting their account.
That being said, it’s unclear if the queue for users to delete their account is currently being worked through, as it’s entirely possible that the surge of users attempting to delete their accounts in the same short period of time put far too much stress onto the company servers, resulting in fail safes being implemented, such as verification and denial for the time being.
Another form of activism was the defacement of Blizzard intellectual property. One of Activision Blizzard’s most popular games, Overwatch, features a playable hero that hails from Xi’an, China. Fans have taken to reclaiming her as a symbol for Activision Blizzard to make things right. As such, fan edits have quickly spread depicting Mei in a surgical mask with text that reads “Fight for FREEDOM Stand with HONG KONG”, as well as other posters that show her in front of a wall that reads “Liberate Hong Kong”.
The Hong Kong protests were sparked when city leader Carrie Lam signed a bill that would “[allow] for criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China under certain circumstances”. Hong Kong citizens felt this bill would allow for an increase in unfair trials, as well as allow mainland China to hold a stronger grasp on Hong Kong, who operates under their own judiciary and legal system.
Activision’s Blizzard has recently found themselves sitting in boiling water after they banned a professional player of their game Hearthstone.
Chung Ng Wai was barred from participating in the competitive circuit after he made some political statements on a live stream. The statements in question were his support of the protests citizens have been taking against the country’s government.
As a result of his suspension, Wai was forced to forfeit a cash prize of an alleged $10,000.
The fans backing Wai, and for that matter fans of Activision and Blizzard, has taken these actions as expressing insanely horrendous and depraved attitudes towards the citizens and protesters that reside in Hong Kong.Hashtags such as #BoycottBlizzard, #BlitzChung, have found themselves at the same level of viralirty as #FreeHongKong on Twitter.
Fans have taken to voting with their wallets and began to delete their Blizzard actions in masses.
Blizzard games require a dedicated game launcher and Blizzard account in order to run, and it’s these very log ins that the protests decided that they no longer needed.
On October 9th, 2019, Twitter account @Espsilverfire2 published a post that said, “So now Blizzard has disabled all FOUR authentication methods to actively stop people from deleting their accounts. This is beyond disgusting.
“Spread awareness of this. #BoycottBlizzard”.
Currently standing at 24k retweets, many users sent in their own difficulties with shutting down their accounts.
Though many people chimed in with their own difficulties, including the company requesting a photocopy of a government issued ID for verification, online news reporter Polygon stated that they were able to submit a user customer support request, a “ticket” to Blizzard for the purpose of deleting their account.
That being said, it’s unclear if the queue for users to delete their account is currently being worked through, as it’s entirely possible that the surge of users attempting to delete their accounts in the same short period of time put far too much stress onto the company servers, resulting in fail safes being implemented, such as verification and denial for the time being.
Another form of activism was the defacement of Blizzard intellectual property. One of Activision Blizzard’s most popular games, Overwatch, features a playable hero that hails from Xi’an, China.
Fans have taken to reclaiming her as a symbol for Activision Blizzard to make things right.
As such, fan edits have quickly spread depicting Mei in a surgical mask with text that reads “Fight for FREEDOM Stand with HONG KONG”, as well as other posters that show her in front of a wall that reads “Liberate Hong Kong”.
The Hong Kong protests were sparked when city leader Carrie Lam signed a bill that would “[allow] for criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China under certain circumstances”.
Hong Kong citizens felt this bill would allow for an increase in unfair trials, as well as allow mainland China to hold a stronger grasp on Hong Kong, who operates under their own judiciary and legal system.
As a fan of Overwatch, it’s quite disappointing to see companies I support with all my pride and joy and, especially money, not do what’s right. IF this was an attempt to separate themselves from political controversy.
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