Blizzard Entertainment President J. Allen Brack released a statement Friday evening addressing the recent controversy over taking action against a player named blitzchung and two shoutcasters last weekend. News of the reprimands spread throughout the community even catching the attention of national news outlets and US members of Congress.
The statement lays out specific reasons as to why the actions were taken, citing that the player violated specific rules that he had acknowledged and understood. Brack also explains in the statement that Blizzard’s actions were not based on the content of blitzchung’s opinion on the Hong Kong situation but rather that it went against the sense of “shared community” expressed by Blizzard and its globally known platform.
Part of Thinking Globally, Leading Responsibly, and Every Voice Matters is recognizing that we have players and fans in almost every country in the world. Our goal is to help players connect in areas of commonality, like their passion for our games, and create a sense of shared community.
The specific views expressed by blitzchung were NOT a factor in the decision we made. I want to be clear: our relationships in China had no influence on our decision.
We have these rules to keep the focus on the game and on the tournament to the benefit of a global audience, and that was the only consideration in the actions we took.
If this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.
As you can see in the quote above, Brack explains that if the message delivered by blitzchung would have been an opposing viewpoint in the same manner, the same actions would have been taken.
This is in stark contrast to the what many believed was the oppressive action taken by Blizzard Entertainment. But while this statement does paint a clearer picture of the reasoning behind the actions, many on Twitter voiced their skepticism with some even saying that this could make things even worse for Blizzard.
As always, we will keep you updated with the latest news on this and many other stories in the video game realm. Be sure to let us know what you think about the response from Blizzard down below or join the conversation over at Facebook and Twitter.
I’m calling bs. If that was true the the AU team would have also been banned