Slasher explains Blizzard’s Hong Kong Hearthstone controversy on Fox News
L: Fox / R: BlizzardEsports expert Rod ‘Slasher’ Breslau appeared on Fox News on October 9 to speak about the ongoing controversy surrounding Activision Blizzard after the company punished a player for supporting the Hong Kong protests.
A Hearthstone player named Chung ‘Blitzchung’ Ng was banned by Blizzard on October 6 and had his winnings withheld after making a statement supporting the Hong Kong protests during a post-match interview.
Key community members and fans all around the world quickly rallied behind the player, dubbing the company’s decision as unfair and even started a trending #BoycottBlizzard movement, which took over the internet for some time.
Blitzchung was punished by Blizzard for supporting the Hong Kong protests on stream.Just a few days later on October 9, Slasher was invited to speak about the subject on Fox News, where the American explained the situation and compared it to the situation with the NBA Rockets GM who tweeted a meme supporting Hong Kong.
However, he stated that “Blizzards was even harsher than the NBA and went a step further in punishing this player.” The host Dana Perino then mentioned that other people had stood up and even went as far as to say that they will no longer be playing Blizzard’s games.
today I went on TV on Fox News to talk about Activision Blizzard’s awful suspension of Hearthstone Hong Kong player blitzchung over his support of protests in HK, a complete lack of
of communication from Blizzard, and all game developers kowtowing to China pic.twitter.com/fnM3ek8RDV— Rod Breslau (@Slasher) October 9, 2019
Later, Slasher drew attention to the collegiate team that were quickly removed from a livestream after they held up a Hong Kong protest sign, highlighting them as one of many examples of the community supporting Blitzchung.
He then finished by explaining that “gamers are probably one of the most digitally entrenched people in the world and they really want to protest this company for what they did, then Activision Blizzard really deserves it.”
Hearthstone legend Brian Kibler recently showed support for Blitzchung by quitting his casting role at Blizzard.Support for the banned player is still mounting as more and more influential community members begin to put out public statements, with Brian Kibler and Octavian ‘Kripparrian’ Morosan being two examples of people who have recently voiced their opinion.