Why Blizzard can’t unban Blitzchung (IMO)
This isn’t just about games or free speech, it’s about the long term conundrum of a gaming company adjudicating opinion
Before we start:
Please note that this is an expanded version of something I discussed on the latest episode of my gaming show Pixels. If you’d rather listen, it’s here (first 15 min).
I’ll also say that while I’m not the greatest expert on these topic, they are at the intersection of the things I cover for a living: gaming, tech, and some amount of politics. I feel I have a solid understanding of this incident, and I think I have forged a reputation for being reasonable and measured in my assessment of complicated situations. That’s what I am attempting here.
Quick Recap
- About a month ago, a player called Ng Wai Chung (or “Blitzchung”) won a Hearthstone tournament and yelled pro-Hong Kong slogans in the post game interview.
- Blizzard immediately enacted sanctions which seemed excessively harsh, and seen by most as motivated by fear of China’s reaction.
- A few days later, and in a written statement that felt too corporate, Blizzard reduced the penalties. The earnings were returned and the ban was halved to six months.
- Finally, last week at BlizzCon, Blizzard President J Allen Brack opened the conference with a message that had two components: he first took responsibility for the mishandling of the situation (and promised to “do better”, but didn’t reverse the ban), and then encouraged people to speak up about issues that matter to them at the con.

My Take
I think the BlizzCon message was the right one. It might not have been ideal, but the substance was balanced and reasonable. I had discussed the evolving issue at length on various podcasts (I also was unhappy with the way Blizzard had handled the situation and didn’t hide my frustration), and I had ended up outlining a message that I felt would satisfy me going in to BlizzCon. What Brack said was very close to what I had envisioned.
In my own two part scenario, he would have stated that it wasn’t Blizzard’s role to decide what country was “good” or “bad” (reiterating why the ban was upheld), and then, more importantly, he would have encouraged show goers and journalists at the con to listen to the protesters which would no doubt be present there. They wouldn’t specifically call out China or Hong Kong, but the message would be there.
Again, that seemed like a reasonable compromise to me.
Well, he didn’t quite explain the first part in detail (though I think it was implied), but he certainly echoed the second part. To me, this is the key quote:
As you walk around this week end, I hope it’s clear how committed we are to everyone’s right to express themselves, in all kinds of ways, in all kinds of places.
And indeed, there were demonstrators right outside the conference (with whom I spent some time talking both days), many pro Hong Kong t-shirts and some cosplay inside, and a couple of “free Hong Kong” interruptions during a panel. I don’t think anyone would have been stopped from doing more, and at that point I think it is clear that the pro-Hong Kong message, which was core to the controversy, was being heard.
Additionally, my interpretation of the framing of Brack’s message (and his comments in the following interviews) is that players and eSports competitors are free to express their views on other platforms (Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, etc), as long as they don’t get political on Blizzard’s platform (tournaments).
This might seem like a given, but it is not: as we are figuring out this world where everyone’s voice can be heard all the time, it has been common for organizations to enact sanctions against people expressing views on outside platforms (again, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, etc). So I believe that this policy is significant.
That being said, we should remember that it cuts both ways: when we are happy that some people will be able to express controversial opinions we agree with and still compete in Blizzard events, we’ll also have to live with people standing for things we disagree with, sometime vehemently, competing in those events as well.
(And I’ll take a quick second to mention that I do believe there is a difference between a political opinion, contentious as it may be, and hate speech. Hate speech is a different topic, and I would expect it wouldn’t be tolerated, whether on a third party outlet or not. There have been suspensions enacted for that in the past, and I suspect that will continue, regardless of the policy on political opinion.)
The Other Take
I’ve seen a lot of people who are still not satisfied with this latest message. I can understand why; as is often the case in complicated matters, the topics were touched on rather than spelled out, and that can be frustrating.
But here’s the main issue:
Some people want Blitzchung to simply be unbanned.
That is indeed a remaining step they could take (short of getting out of China, which I don’t think anyone actually expects). And while I understand the feeling, I do believe that it would be a very bad idea.
It wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea for this instance specifically; most people agree that the cause is noble, Blizzard would actually score a lot of sympathy points for it, and I don’t think China would do anything about it at this point (they would have more to lose than to gain now). So I truly and honestly believe it would be a net positive on all sides. In the short term.
In the long term though, it creates a crucial precedent. It would put Blizzard in the impossible position of deciding whether to ban or allow each specific political opinion expressed on their platforms going forward. It would mean that they would need to decide which idea is acceptable and which isn’t, and make them agents of morality for the world.
And a few years ago, I might have thought this to be a great idea. But in the past few years, we have seen Facebook and Twitter and YouTube try to regulate what is being said on their platforms, and the absolute quagmire of horror this has been for them (and us). Because like it or not, this is an impossible task. Anyone who has been following tech understands that there is no way, no policy, no decision that will satisfy everyone. Or even most people. And when you don’t satisfy everyone, then then whole world ends up angry at you somehow. And the worst part is, not only does no one agree with whoever has to make those decisions, but we can’t even agree on how the decision making making should work! Who is fit to oversee this? Courts certainly don’t have the bandwidth. Facebook is a company, whose motivations are hardly moral. Community moderation? It feels like it’s never right. So who decides? You? Me? You’d agree with decisions you make, but probably not with decisions I make.
So it’s all well and good to say “the issue of Hong Kong is a matter of free speech”. Sure, I agree that it probably is. But what happens when someone has strong ideas about Crimea? What happens when someone criticizes Saudi Arabia? When someone comes out against abortion? Or the death penalty? And I’m not even talking about Trump, or Brexit. Imagine how things would turn during elections. Even if you personally believe that would be fine and acceptable, that is the difficulty of this situation: everyone is different, and a lot of people would be quite upset at least half the time.
And please keep in mind that Facebook and Twitter’s core activity is communication. This is the essence of what they do, and still they are not able to find solutions to this. Just last week, Twitter announced they would disallow ads from political candidates, something which many people had been calling for from Facebook. And immediately, they were criticized for creating issues and reducing the visibility of smaller candidates and less known causes, which are also a valid concern to have! As I said, this is an impossible circle to square, even for companies, journalists and thinkers who’s core mission is to figure these issues out.
So I don’t know that it is reasonable to expect Blizzard, who’s core is not centered around how to handle communication between people and opinion, to dive head first into that nightmare pool…
I’m sorry, I understand this is something that we want to be right on. We want this to be easy: just unban Blitzchung, it’s the right thing to do. I would love for it to be that simple, it would be better for everyone. But I believe that doing it would most likely be a direct road to all of the issues I mentioned above. It’s a recipe for disaster. Not that the alternative is all rainbows and ponies, but at least they have a consistent policy going forward. Will there still be challenges? Sure. But I think it’s the least worst solution they can implement.
And remember that following the revised penalty, Blitzchung, who’s Twitter bio reads “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” will be back in the Hearthstone circuit in a few months. I believe that could be a powerful moment and a symbol that might bring people on both side of this issue together. That’s the silver lining: the story doesn’t quite end here.
Final Notes
Again, I would like to talk about hate speech for a second. I know some people will say that Blizzard (and others) are creating double standards since they have in the past and likely will in the future enact sanctions against people expressing racist, misogynistic or homophobic opinions. I know that it would be more comfortable to fit everything in the same category: political opinion is hate speech is political opinion. Except it isn’t. Hate speech is not quite political opinion, but Hong Kong is. I’m sorry, again, it’s not simple and it doesn’t fit in a nice box, but I really believe that’s the case. Calling someone the N word or a faggot or a cunt is charged hate speech, and that is the line I think we have decided as a society we shouldn’t cross. China and Hong Kong, or Russia, or Turkey, as much as we want them to be simple issues we can rule on, are not. They are complex matters that different people actually do have different opinions on throughout the world, even if we feel they are open and shut cases and we can’t imagine seeing things otherwise. Even if I, personally, have strong opinions on these (which I do) and can’t imagine seeing things otherwise. I won’t get into why (it’s a wider conversation), but the point is that I don’t think we can use this as a kind of “gotcha!”, parading hate speech as an exemple of “political speech being treated differently”.
Sometimes political opinion gets dangerously close to hate speech, and sometimes hate speech mascarades as political opinion. And in those case, I guess there will be decisions to be made, which won’t be easy either. But I don’t think that one blurry line is a good enough reason to throw out an entire policy, especially when the alternative to that policy is simply more chaos.
Another point to note is that J Allen Brack addressed the message that was posted on Weibo (Chinese equivalent of Twitter), which talked about “safeguarding the dignity of China” (reference). He said that the message was posted by Blizzard’s Chinese partner NetEase, and that Blizzard would not have approved it had they been consulted (reference). I don’t know how much latitude they have in these instances, but I have a feeling that part of the message at BlizzCon meant that they would not allow this to happen again. I cannot be certain, but the tone felt quite severe towards NetEase.
And finally, I will say one thing about the frustration towards Blizzard. If you are angry about this, but have not sought out information about Hong Kong, please allow me to say that I think your energy might be misplaced. Be angry at Blizzard, sure, but at this stage I don’t know how productive it is to just do that. Instead, I would encourage you to at least educate yourself on the matter. Seek out a local organization. Look for reputable sources and learn more. Because in the end, this incident is a symptom, not the cause. And the best thing that can come out of it is to get to the cause of it. So if you haven’t, and you’re just content tweeting and reading angry gaming subreddits, then I’m not sure what you’re doing is as valid as you think.
[EDIT - Nov 9] I thought this was pretty clear from my tone, but after thinking about it a bit more I thought I’d clarify, for clarity’s (!) sake: I personally would love for Blizzard to take a stand and revoke the ban. That would be a courageous move I would applaud. They could even quietly reduce it further without much negative consequences (other than seeming even more undecided, which admittedly isn’t what they need right now).
Still, the point of this article is to show why that would be unreasonable to expect given the long term consequences, which I stand by.
Disclaimer: As most people likely to read this already know, I used to work for Blizzard (perfect excuse to disregard everything I said!) It was a while ago though, and I have been quite independent from gaming and tech companies I cover since I started my professional podcasting career. As an exemple, I pay for all my games and hardware myself, and I did pay for my own trip to BlizzCon (though I did receive a press pass).
