Blizzard ‘Bends the Knee’ [OPINION]

On Oct. 8 professional Hearthstone player Chung “blitzchung” Ng Wai was suspended for a year and lost his earnings. Blizzard accused Chung of violating its terms because Chung had the audacity of voicing a positive pro-Hong Kong protests opinion. This was a very bad move by Blizzard because it shows gaming consumers in the U.S. that Blizzard is willing to “bend the knee” to China’s demands. This is not a good thing because it allows China to control the actions of foreign companies and people because of its economic prowess.

During a post-match stream on Oct. 6 Chung made a quick statement.

“Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time,” said Chung.

Oh, the horror! Such a statement is easily accepted in the United States, but not in China. And China is where Blizzard makes a lot of money. See, 31 percent of all Hearthstone’s mobile spending came from China in 2018. $51 million in China compared to $31.3 million in the U.S.

Not only that, but Tencent, the largest video game company in China, owns 5 percent of Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Blizzard. See, in China a foreign corporation has to go through a Chinese company in order to release their game in China. This gives China a lot of upper hand and allows the country to censor whatever it wants and that bottlenecks foreign companies.

I think you can see where I’m getting at here. Blizzard was afraid of the backlash from China and acted with its wallet by, not only, suspending Chung, but also relinquishing his winnings from the tournament. Hold on to your butts because the plot gets even thicker.

After extreme backlash, Blizzard backed up. At least for a little bit. Blizzard reduced Chung’s suspension from one year to six months. Not only that, but Blizzard gave him his prize money back. Blizzard had an interesting statement on the issue that essentially was a bunch of corporate malarkey.  

Although Blizzard backed out of their initial statement, which was clearly because it was afraid its gaming licenses would be pulled from China and they would lose a lot of money, they set a poor precedent for the future. We’re already seeing it with the NBA bending the knee to China. That’s a completely different story and shows the power China has over these corporations. Essentially China can control freedom of speech. For example, if a citizen of the U.S. says something that China doesn’t like and that citizen represents a company with a foothold in China, China could then prevent that company from having that foothold within its borders. Basically, controlling what people in other countries can and cannot say.

No country should be allowed to dictate the freedoms granted by another by using their economic power. China’s economic power has grown far too strong to the point it’s even able to create such a phobia from U.S. corporations.

If I shift back to Blizzard, this situation has been a public relations nightmare for them. Not only did the backlash force the company to reduce Chung’s suspension, but it likely was the cause behind the cancellation of an Overwatch even at Nintendo New York City. Overwatch recently launched on Nintendo Switch, so the event was an obvious one to promote one of Blizzards biggest games on the current best-selling console. I have to believe that this cancellation is correlated with Chung’s suspension as it came just days afterwards.

With Blizzard reeling from backlash, I see no reason it will stop. They made the wrong decision. It wouldn’t surprise me if protests happen at their biggest event, Blizzcon. In fact, I’d be completely shocked. The community was in uproar over a Diablo mobile game. This is of far greater importance. I suppose that doesn’t necessarily mean people will care more, but I’d like to believe there is still faith in humanity and that Blizzard will receive its due backlash at Blizzcon.

To be fair Blizzard has been pummeled on the internet. YouTube, twitter, Facebook and online gaming media websites have been covering the situation extensively and have put forth their opinions against Blizzard’s actions.

Despite Chung receiving his due winnings and having his suspension reduced, Blizzard was and still is in the wrong. I don’t think he should be suspended at all. Hopefully the U.S. video game consumer puts their money where their mouth is and hits Blizzard right in the pocketbook.