The Blitzchung decision was entirely internal at Blizzard

You might remember back in 2019 when pro Hearthstone player Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung called for the liberation of Hong Kong on an official Taiwanese Hearthstone stream. Blizzard responded to this by suspending him and the casters who were conducting the interview, This led to protests inside and outside of BlizzCon that year. Many speculated this came from pressures in Chinese markets and its partnership with Chinese company NetEase to release its games in the territory, but Schreier says it was entirely a Blizzard decision

“Yes, and I can tell you with full confidence that the decision to suspend Blitzchung was made by a Blizzard executive who wouldn’t have even interacted with NetEase, let alone felt any obligations to them,” he wrote. “Chinese pressures had nothing to do with it. It was entirely Blizzard people feeling like he had hijacked their platform for a political message.”

These days, Blizzard is working on Overwatch 2’s seasonal content, is about to launch Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred expansion, and just released World of Warcraft’s The War Within expansion. While each of these games are trucking along, there’s been a cloud hanging over the company for those who have been tuned into Blizzard and its projects over the years as all this news has trickled out. Perhaps when Play Nice comes out next week we’ll have a better picture of how it all ended up like this.