Last week, “Hearthstone” e-sports player Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung was punished for making a pro-Hong Kong statement in a post-match interview while wearing a gas mask sympathizing with the protestors. This caused him to be given a year-long ban as well as the added punishment of refusing to give Blitzchung his monetary earnings of that “Hearthstone” e-sports season. The two casters that were interviewing him after the match were also given disciplinary action as both of them were fired without too much elaboration.
Ever since that event, Activision Blizzard has been engulfed in an internet fury of which has rarely been seen before. Viewing this as Blizzard sympathizing with the Chinese government due to economic incentives, players of their games from all over the world have united in voicing their displeasure in Blizzard’s reaction to Blitzchung. This lead to a mass boycott of their products as people began deleting their Blizzard accounts and burning their physical copies of their games. People began to photoshop and draw Mei, a character from Blizzard’s game “Overwatch” who is Chinese, as a symbol of Hong Kong liberation. Even other “Hearthstone” professionals began to express their discontent with Activision Blizzard’s actions. A “Hearthstone” team, from American University of Washington D.C., held up a sign during a match that reads, “Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz.” At the time, the university students were not punished for this at all.
It didn’t take long for Activision Blizzard to try and alleviate all the heat coming off from the community. The first thing that they said was that Blitzchung’s punishment would be lighter than before. His suspension became six months instead of the previous year. He was also given all of his prize money from this Hearthstone season that he had earned. The two casters that were interviewing Blitzchung when this happened were also now longer fired, but suspended for six months just like Blitzchung. To prevent the look of imbalance, Blizzard suspended the team of university students mentioned before for six months.
Activision made a clear attempt here to make sure that they seem impartial to either political side of this evidently political controversy. However, this wasn’t the only activity that came from Activision Blizzard at the time.
In lieu of all the actions Activision Blizzard had taken to make sure that they save public face in this complete firestorm of negativity surrounding their behavior, J. Allen Brack, the president of Activision Blizzard, decided to make a statement. In his statement he mentioned the information above surrounding Blitzchung,the casters and the lightening of their punishments. However, he also went about explaining the actions he and his company had made. In part of his statement, Brack bafflingly said, “If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.” While in a vacuum this sentence makes sense, with context this is a complete farce of a statement. With this logic, it appears that what Brack is saying is that they would have treated this the exact same way if it were the other way around. Thus, even if it were a different sort of political statement, if it were expressed as strongly as Blitzchung did in his interview, similar action would have been taken.
In Activision Blizzard’s newest game, “Overwatch,” there is a clear emphasis on the representation of as many different cultures and ethnicities as possible. With that understood, there is a clear audience that “Overwatch” is supposed to capture. In many different forms of media, Activision Blizzard has repeatedly shown different characters from their game and lore being gay, bisexual and even transgender. While this has had no effect on gameplay, the community surrounding this game has been extremely open about their opinions about gender. In multiple different Overwatch tournaments and events, it is extremely easy to spot LGBTQ pride flags being waved at multiple different points and locations. Even pro players have waved the pride flag on stage. It’s frankly quite a progressive movement and a positive step forward when it comes to LGBTQ acceptance in the gaming sphere.
That being said, does that mean that every single event that carries these sorts of iconography would be considered too controversial and players and audience alike would be dropped or suspended? The answer is no. There has been no such disciplinary action for waving a pride flag or expressing pride sentiments. Despite deliberations from J. Allen Brack, there is a clear double standard when it comes to the expression of political or social values and the line where he states that there would have been equal punishment has become a common point of mockery from across the gaming community.
For now, the dust has settled and the anger has been somewhat alleviated. This, however, does raise the question of what will happen the next time something equally controversial comes along. Only time will tell if people will forgive Activision Blizzard for their actions.
Edward Park is a second-year student majoring in English education. EP909756@wcupa.edu