Controversy has raged for two days now over Blizzard's decision to ban Heartshtone player Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung for political statements supporting Hong Kong in a Grandmasters post-victory interview.
After the player appeared in a post-match interview wearing a gas mask to show his support for the demonstrations currently taking place in Hong Kong, Blizzard felt that this highly politicized intervention could damage its image or "offend a portion or group of the public".
Debates ignited social networks as to the positioning that a publisher should have towards politics. In an statement given to American technology website The Verge, a spokesman for the publisher of Fortnite — 40% of which belongs to Chinese corporation Tencent — said that "Epic supports everyone’s right to express their views on politics and human rights. We wouldn’t ban or punish a Fortnite player or content creator for speaking on these topics."
Epic Games intends to be an example to follow regarding freedom of speech in video games — while Blizzard is facing a major media storm for their perceived overly firm stance.
Epic has not previously had to deal with an event of this kind. Moreover, the company's spokesman — whose name is not mentioned in the Verge article — refrains from specifying whether this would apply to an official live event, as was the case for Blizzard.
Congratulating your community and its streamers for their political plurality — and congratulating yourself for promoting freedom of speech at the same time — is one thing. Having to deal with a live political intervention from a player is another thing.
Believing that the punishment Blizzard meted out to Blitzchung was harsh is perfectlty legitimate — he was banned from Hearthstone competitions for a whole year and his earnings for Season 2 withdrawn — and it must be said that Epic Games saw a perfect opportunity to jump in and give its point of view on the matter. This was backed up in a series of tweets and replies by Epic Games' founder and controlling shareholder Tim Sweeney.
Either way, the situation is a delicate one, with the argument likely to rage for some time yet.
Between giants of the video game industry, there is no mercy!
Following events that transpired during Grandmasters at the weekend, Blitzchung has been banned from the circuit. The Chinese player showed his support for Hong Kong during the official Blizzard broadcast.
