Yesterday we reported on the latest controversy to hit the world of gaming after Blizzard banned and took away the prize money of a professional Hearthstone player after he expressed his opinion for the Hong Kong riots during a stream leading to a boycott.
The issue has kicked off the #BoycottBlizzard campaign resulting in hundreds of gamers cancelling their World of Warcraft accounts and issuing refund requests for games and even the upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.
It seems the issue stems internally too as according to The Daily Beast, Blizzard employees walked out of work in protest to the company’s decision to ban the player.
The employees at the California offices met at the office’s iconic Orc Warrior statue and throughout the day, 30 concurrent workers joined in with the protest. One Blizzard employee took a photo and posted it on the Hearthstone Reddit which received great praise from the community.
Blizzard has come under fire from gamers, politician and even lawmakers. On Tuesday, Senator Ron Wyden stated that “Blizzard shows it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party” and that “No American company should sensor calls for freedom to make a quick buck”
According to another report, Blizzard is now blocking users from deleting their Battle.Net accounts by disabling the authentication features required in order to process the deletion of your Battle.Net account. Charlotte Mather posted an image on Twitter revealing the current issue.
So now Blizzard have disabled ALL FOUR authentication methods to actively stop people from deleting their accounts. This is beyond disgusting. Spread awareness of this. #BoycottBlizzard pic.twitter.com/AyUiABgMXD
— Charlotte Mather (@Espsilverfire2) October 9, 2019
There is no light at the end of the tunnel right now. Blizzard has yet to provide feedback other than stating why they issued the ban on the player and are still withholding his winnings.
We will keep you updated as this story evolves.
