Yesterday Blizzard Taiwan deleted the VOD from their channel in which blitzchungHS wore a mask symbolizing the Hong Kong Protest and playfully called for the "Liberation of Hong Kong." Blizzard further went on to enact 2019 Hearthstone Grandmaster's official competition rule v1.4 section 6.1 (o) which states:
Engaging in any act, in Blizzard's sole discretion, brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard image will result in removal from Grandmasters and reduction of the player's prize total to $0 USD, in addition to other remedies which may be provided for under the Handbook and Blizzard's Website Terms.
Beyond simply deleting the video they have also gone on to ban him from tournaments for a year, strip his eligibility for Grand Masters series events, and strip his winnings to date.
Gods Unchained was quick to respond and we stand in solidarity with our fellow crypto game: free people all over the world have the right to speak truth to power.
Simply put, all people on this planet regardless of where they live or where they were born have the creator given right to express themselves. Governments and corporations at times attempt to limit that right to protect themselves, their profits, and their power. Here's hoping the Striesand effect spreads blitzchung's message of liberty far beyond that one simple VOD.
@blitzchungHS, feel free to contact (yabapmatt or aggroed) on Discord. We'd like to give you free cards from our upcoming UNTAMED series to help make up for the losses you incurred from Blizzard for speaking your mind.
Pioneering esports property rights and freedom
At Splinterlands, we have not only chosen to put game assets on a free, opensource, transparent blockchain (Steem), but we have taken the additional step to put all of the gameplay and market transactions on that blockchain as well. In light of Blizzard's decision to remove rewards, limit play, remove speech, and cater to an oppressive government it's a little easier to see why a decision as simple as "should we put our assets and our game on a public database (blockchain) or private database" is so meaningful today.
Make no mistake the Steem blockchain is a tool powering the game, but it's also the backbone of "dangerous liberty" and "security of property" for players in the game. Two things that don't seem all that critical until the private companies with their private databases strip you of your freedom of speech and rightful property.
Keys = Rights
If you don't own the keys you don't own the property. If all you have is a password you're always at the whim of someone else who actually controls the account. You're allowing a third party to act as custodian. Here, we allow the blockchain to operate as custodian and trust that the nodes operating the blockchain will continue to post our key-signed transactions with blissful indifference to our political views.
We stand in solidarity with , blitzchungHS, Gods Unchained, and free people the world over. We invite people interested in gaming, asset ownership, and freedom of speech to come explore what crypto games have to offer at splinterlands.io.
In proud solidarity
Stay blessed, stay safe, and stay free!