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Blizzard staff protest Hearthstone pro banned over Hong Kong views

Blizzard staff protest Hearthstone pro banned over Hong Kong views

A small number of Blizzard employees staged a walkout protest earlier this week in the wake of the company banning pro-Hearthstone player Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai.

As reported by The Daily Beast, a small group of staff have taken issue with the company's actions with the walkout in the lunchtime of Tuesday, October 8th. Employees say that while China means big money for Blizzard, banning players for having views that go against that region violate its values.

Staff had already covered up the 'Think Globally' and 'Every Voice Matters' statements on the statue with Blizzard's eight core values at the games giant's headquarters.

“The action Blizzard took against the player was pretty appalling but not surprising,” one employee said.

“Blizzard makes a lot of money in China, but now the company is in this awkward position where we can’t abide by our values.”

Another added: “I’m disappointed. We want people all over the world to play our games, but no action like this can be made with political neutrality.”

There has been a wave of protests since Blitzchung's ban over the weekend, with members of the games community calling for a boycott of Blizzard. The r/Blizzard subreddit has also been closed in the wake of the broadcast.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.