Basically, the player (during an interview after a league match had been completed), expressed a pro-Hong Kong democracy statement while wearing a gas mask (which many protestors are wearing due to the increased use of tear gas by the police) to disperse the growing violent protests that have been happening. The ban removes him (Ng Wai Chung aka blitzchung) from the league, prevents him from being able to compete in Hearthstone league play for an year and also denies him any Grandmasters Season 2 prize money. The two casters were also summarily cut loose (for goading Chung to make his statement before they ducked their heads down while also laughing – Chung was also initially struggling not to laugh when he blurted out the statement). Blizzards rationale is based on their competition rules:
2019 HEARTHSTONE® GRANDMASTERS OFFICIAL COMPETITION RULES v1.4
p.12, Section 6.1 (o)
Engaging in any act that, in Blizzard’s sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player’s prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard’s Website Terms.
This isn’t much different than the terms of service that all of us agree to when playing these online games where there is always that clause where the publisher reserves the right to deny you further service based on their sole discretion if you run afoul of anything else (including terms that may be vague).
There really is no simple solution when you are talking about how these corporations deal with geo-political issues. Look at the Houston Rockets (NBA) situation where the GM tweeted out support for the pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. The backlash from mainland China was swift when it came to shunning everything Houston Rockets. The NBA initially tried to placate China with a more apologetic tone (specifically messaged to China while the US version wasn’t) but the NBA commissioner later backtracked and showed public support for the GM having the right to freedom of expression.
This is the price to pay when doing business with/in China. Outside (of China) companies have long had to tow the line with bending to the governments demands. Game companies like Blizzard have long had to create modified versions that would pass the cultural ministries strict content guidelines. They’ve long had to partner with Chinese government approved businesses when it came to the business operations (in Blizzards case, their partner is NetEase). eSports complicates matters where players competing, need to watch their messaging.
Cutting to the chase, the bottomline for these companies is money. I’ll be even more blunt; a lot of these companies have sold out everything for money. And to be even more blunt, politics (corporate and governmental) are a big part of the problem (since there are many politicians who end up becoming corrupted by money and power, and end up giving in to special interest groups and big money lobbyists that represent these corporations). A lot of US manufacturing companies did exactly that decades ago in order to maximize profits where today, they are dependent on cheap foreign labor (which China still has a large rural population to draw on) where these Chinese companies have developed economies of scale in their manufacturing capabilities (something which the US cannot retool for without new capital investments).
In the case of gaming companies, they are looking at the large Chinese market not only in just publishing and monetizing games (to be played by the regular populace), but also eSports. And that is where these companies struggle when it comes to being able to control their competitive players (whether it be toxic behavior, unethical ones including cheating, or in this case, utilizing the platform to send out a political message). While Blizzard has long created this narrative about their community (thus BlizzCon) when it comes to the worlds and experiences they’ve created across all of their titles, Blizzard is a corporation. Corporations aren’t your friends even though they try to put on this facade with their marketing. Their bottomline is making money while being cognizant of the societal impact they have.
I do get the optics (a western company suppressing an individuals right of free speech). It looks like they are caving. It’s even more touchy when a lot of us in the west, are naturally in support of pro-democracy actions including the ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong. I’m also actually tired of major corporations giving up way too much (where it also usually only benefits the ones at the top). So when the NBA commissioner came out and said they support the GM’s right to freedom expression (backtracking on their initial tepid statement to China), I actually clapped. Placing the people over money is what is priceless. Realistically, extracting oneself from China is difficult because so much of our goods and products are tied to that country; that good old “built in America” car has a lot of components originating from China (and other countries). Welcome to the global economy.
As for Blizzard, I do get why they did it (since they could easily be denied access to publishing all of their games in China and by extension, barred from anything to do with eSports in China). Such a move would have huge ramifications on their earnings (thus affecting parent Activision Blizzard in the process). That’s the bane of being a publicly traded corporation (fiduciary responsibilities to the board of directors and their shareholders). As I’ve noted before, I happen to own shares of ATVI. It doesn’t mean I am in agreement with a lot of their decisions. But just as I am with my investments in other companies, I’m one of those shareholders who doesn’t expect companies to squeeze out as much margins as possible to make the biggest year over year profits or revenue growth. I also expect these companies to have some morals and ethics when it comes to their global responsibilities, treating their own employees well, and providing the best products and service to their customers. You can clearly see where there is a symbiotic relationship between all of these points of reference.
In this case, I believe Blizzard went too far with punishing the player (whose home is Hong Kong and was showing support for an important cause). Maybe the gas mask was over the top and when you watch the clip, had a feel of being staged given the amount of giggling of both casters and Chung). Again, I get that Blizzard’s terms allows them to do whatever they want. But there is a right and wrong way to handle these sort of situations though and in this case, it is like they hit the panic button and lopped off the hands of the perpetrator. They could’ve warned the player (instead of making him a sacrificial lamb), they could’ve put out carefully crafted PR that they would be working with all of their eSports participants to establish the ground rules of how they conduct themselves while on camera/live streaming, and rather than just using a PDF with drafted up regulations, that they need to do a better job communicating when it comes to how their eSports leagues and teams are represented period.
It is therefore no surprise that there is a movement by some in the gaming community to eschew Blizzard Entertainment products. As I’ve always stated here in this blog, the best way to enact action, is to vote with your wallet. It should be noted though that Blizzard is only one company out of many that has to work carefully with China. Holding only Blizzard to account while ignoring all of the other companies (and products) who look the other way with China in their own dealings, would normally be hypocritical. The big difference in this case is that like the Houston Rockets GM tweet, it was public laundry. Optics….
Looking at the Battle.net forums, some are trying to make a statement by having their accounts removed (and running into roadblocks trying to accomplish this since Blizzard has a security policy in place where they ask for a photo ID) and deleting the software. Realistically, you need to have over 50% of all registered user accounts deleted to cause concerns with that metric (since registered users tends to be used for marketing spiel as well as financial reports). Just uninstalling Battle.net and all the Blizzard games means little (they already have your money for pay to play titles). What it means going forward is not giving companies you have a personal issue with, ZERO revenues in the future until you feel that the issues that drove you away, have been addressed. This is why I am having this battle with myself with regards to ArcheAge Unchained given Gamigo’s business practices from before they acquired Trion’s assets.
I myself voted with my wallet back in 2015 when it came to Blizzard. The reason I remain a shareholder is that is the other way to attempt to enact change. Yes, I know it seems odd or nonsensical (where the usual objective is to make a decent return on investment; that part is still an objective and knowing the unmovable portion of Blizzard’s community who remain very committed in their unwavering patronage, means I also can’t ignore that part even with all of these recent blips dating back to last years BlizzCon). I would personally need to see actual impact (based on several quarters of SEC filings to make a decision if this boycott, will actually have material impact far into the future). My take is that this again is only a small vocal minority of people who play Blizzard’s games. Blizzard really couldn’t have picked a worse time though with BlizzCon only a few weeks away.
