A school Hearthstone group that raised a “Free Hong Kong, Boycott Blizz” signal on-stream throughout their Collegiate Championship game final week has lastly been suspended by Blizzard. With their very own finals going down shortly after Hearthstone Grand Champion Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai’s now-famous protest and subsequent punishment, the American University Collegiate group jumped in to assist their fellow professional.
It took solely two days for Blitzchung to lose his prize cash (now reinstated) and be hit with a year-long ban from Hearthstone (now six months). But for a full week, it appeared unsure whether or not the US group would face related penalties. Yesterday, the e-mail lastly got here in – AU are barred from match play for the following six months.
That information was shared by a relieved Casey Chambers, one in all AU’s match participant, through Twitter final evening.
Happy to announce the AU Hearthstone group obtained a six month ban from competitors. While delayed I recognize all gamers being handled equally and nobody being above the foundations. pic.twitter.com/mZStoF0e0t
— Casey Chambers (@Xcelsior_hs) October 16, 2019
The official suspension seems to come back as a reduction for the group. They declare Blizzard acted hypocritically in slamming harsh punishments on Blitzchung, whereas seemingly ignoring AU’s protest. Further down the thread, Chambers clarified:
“This one was pretty cut and dry. We knew what we were doing and expected the punishment. The problem was Blizzard ignoring our protest for PR reasons but going after Blitzchung.”
The six-month ban echoes Blitzchung’s revised sentence, decreased from a 12 months in Blizzard president J Allen Brack’s wholly unconvincing official statement. The discover to AU even echoes a few of the pithy language round encouraging everybody to “share their viewpoints” and “express themselves”, however oh no not like that.
American University had truly deliberate a much more vocal protest alongside the strains of Blitzchung’s uproar. The group informed Vice that they’d deliberate to flood their post-game interview with pro-Hong Kong sentiments, ought to they’ve gained.
“Obviously, we were the first thing on Blizzard’s stream after they made the decision,” mentioned AU participant Corwin Dark. “If we did nothing, we were missing a pretty big opportunity.”
While they didn’t get the possibility to vocalise their protest, AU had an indication on-hand in case of defeat. Regardless of suspension, they informed USGamer that they’ve already pulled out of their remaining Hearthstone obligations, and are dropping Blizzard games completely.
