Ex Blizzard Employee Explains Why He's Boycotting Blizzard

The ongoing protests in Hong Kong started off as a fairly localized fight for democracy and freedom, but quickly grew into a full-blown battle between people, companies, and governments. First, there was Daryl Morey who posted a pro-democratic tweet in support for Hong Kong, getting the Houston Rockets practically deleted and having NBA games canceled in China. Then there was South Park with their “Band in China” episode, criticizing the country for its ludicrous censorship laws. This in turn got all of South Park’s episodes deleted in the Chinese Internet.

Now we have Blizzard Entertainment in the news, a AAA gaming company that banned a Hong Kong based gamer Ng Wai Chung from the Hearthstone Tournament, suspending him for a year from Blizzard’s esports, and taking away his prize. This was a reaction to Chung’s exclamation “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times” in Mandarin during Blizzard’s livestream interview with him. Even though this violated their terms of service, gamers were still not happy about such a harsh decision with notable members of the community stepping up and boycotting Blizzard. A tweet posted by Mark Kern, a game developer and former Blizzard Entertainment employee, has surfaced in recent days, supporting the now-banned Hearthstone eSports Tournament participant, Ng Wai Chung.

In his tweet, he went on to say that unless Blizzard reverses their decision, he will no longer be playing Classic World of Warcraft and gave a detailed account of why he is joining the #BoycottBlizzard movement.

Kern expressed his struggle as a game developer in the industry, how he was booted out of his own company for not wanting to take a 2 million dollar bribe, and how other companies subsidized by the Chinese regime were trying to put Kern out of business using planted press stories.

“Of all the companies in the world, Blizzard is the LAST company I ever expected to give in to China’s demands.” said Kern in his tweet. “It’s one thing to keep politics out of games, which I am still a proponent of doing. It’s another to unfairly and harshly punish voices that speak out against corruption, against abuses of human rights, and freedom.”

Mark Kern concluded by saying he is running a huge risk by expressing his opinion, but this was the last straw. “I stand with Hong Kong, and I oppose Blizzard’s obvious and laughably transparent fear of China. It’s time for Blizzard to grow the spine it used to have, and to do what’s right for gamers once again.”

It is not to say Blizzard itself is fully on board with this decision. Several of its employees have covered the “Think Globally” and “Every Voice Matters” plaques on the Orc Statue found in Blizzard’s Irvine, CA campus. Some days later, around 30 employees came out of the office to actively protest the decision during work hours.

Among all of this chaos, a group of Internauts have gathered with the intention of getting Blizzard Entertainment banned in China the same way Winnie the Pooh was—using Blizzard’s intellectual properties for anti-China memes. This gave rise to Hong Kong Mei, a meme depicting the Chinese character Mei (or Mei-Ling Zhou) from Overwatch supporting Hong Kong’s fight for freedom.