Blizzard, a huge game company known for games like StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Overwatch, recently caused an incredible controversy over remarks a Hearthstone grandmaster, Chung “blitzchung” Ng Wai, made in support of the Hong Kong protests during the recent Hearthstone e-sports match.
Blitzchung was suspended and his prize money was taken. It sparked a week-long controversy, filled with Reddit and twitter backlash. At this time, about two weeks later, Blitzchung’s punishment has been reduced to six months suspension, the prize money has been restored, and a few apologies have been made, but the issue still stands that it happened in the first place. The hosts for the game goaded the player into making “political” remarks on stage, and the player was punished by someone on the Chinese end of things. The hosts were subsequently fired as well, though their punishments have been changed to suspensions instead recently.
Political remarks are already banned in e-sports stages, so punishment according to that violation is understandable, but I think, not justifiable, specifically because preventing the players from using their platforms as a form of protest or as a way to influence others isn’t right. And in the end, it shows that e-sports are more player-generated advertising than anything else. One could make the argument that all sports are this way––I look at Colin Kaepernick and the backlash against his activism. Icons and merchandising are important for selling sports merchandise and memorabilia, and if icons should decide to affect the bottom line negatively, they will be cut. Sports are not an honorable monolith––they are organized and powerful entertainment businesses.
Coming from a company that says “every voice matters,” Blizzard has done a terrible job actually implementing and protecting that idea. They routinely ignore culturally insensitive and outright racist things and produce material of the same quality, fetishize and minimize their female characters, and subscribe fully to rainbow capitalism, dedicating more of their resources to marketing gay characters than to supporting gay players. It comes from the fact that Blizzard receives most of its revenue from China, and thusly has to get the support of the Chinese market to sustain itself and its business. The only way to access the Chinese market is to get through the Chinese government.
However, even in general, being subversive and making change isn’t really in Blizzard’s budget plan. While they need to mediate a changing American and European market alongside a Chinese one, in large part, the way Blizzard runs its games and content drives away more liberal players. There is very little incentive to appeal to progressive causes because that is not where the money lies. Allies can suffer bad representation, but those belonging to minority communities frequently will not any longer.
Thusly, this displays one of the main ways capitalism can stunt decent content and prevent it from becoming great. There is definitely a desire to push for a stake in the Chinese market. There’s also a drive to push for a stake in as many American and European markets as possible. But the company doesn’t necessarily care much at all about the individual player or the ideals that they, the company, promote. They have individuals within the company––moderators, developers, creators––that want to uphold those things. There are developers that walked out of Blizzard in protest against the ban against the grandmaster. These are individuals. However, Blizzard the company cares most about its bottom line, and it shows. All companies do, ultimately. Blizzard is not the only company that does this, and player outcry is often about issues with Blizzard and not the actual humanitarian issues occurring in Hong Kong––or anywhere else for that matter. This is an ultimate failure of understanding what and where the problem is. To emphasize this point, members of Congress have weighed in on this issue, urging Blizzard to change the measures taken against blitzchung––meaning there is a focus on human rights more than on gameplay and experience of the product and game. More than this is about politics, it will always be about people and the fact that we must all become more aware of the value of human life before it’s too late.
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