The Hong Kong protests against the Chinese government became a hot topic in the gaming community earlier today after Blizzard banned Hearthstone pro Chung “Blitzchung” Ng Wai for saying “liberate Hong Kong” during a post-game interview on stream. The player base reacted, with some players even considering boycotting Hearthstone. But the situation has also caught the attention of more than just the Hearthstone community.
World of Warcraft Classic streamer Asmongold also reacted to Blizzard’s decision. During his livestream today, he started to talk about how China censored discussions on the subject among the players in WoW Classic, claiming that players who talked about it in chat were automatically silenced.
“The People’s Republic of China has censored yet another person,” Asmongold said. “One more person has had their voice silenced.”
He then jokingly called for a revolution against China with his chat. “Can we please get a 1 in chat if you want a revolution and speak…” He didn’t finish his sentence because at that moment, he was disconnected from the game after receiving an error message.
This is simply a well-known bug in WoW Classic, but the timing was funny because it made it look like Asmongold was kicked from the server by Blizzard.
But more generally, this highlights that the gaming community—even outside of the Blizzard or Hearthstone player base—is talking about Blitzchung’s ban. A few hours after Blizzard’s statement, League of Legends team Hong Kong Attitude competed in the Worlds 2019 play-in knockout stage. During the match, Twitch chat was filled with messages like “Free HK from China.”
Asmongold was so heavily spammed by viewers who wanted to hear his take on the controversy that he banned several of them. He was then able to reconnect to the server and kept streaming WoW Classic.
