A former World of Warcraft developer has joined in the sweeping movement in the games industry that is seeing players cancel their World of Warcraft subscriptions. This is in direct response to how Blizzard has handled the situation surrounding a professional Hearthstone player supporting the plight of Hong Kong and Blizzard's subsequent ban on the player.
On Twitter, developer Mark Kern, who was a developer on World of Warcraft during Vanilla, tweeted out a screenshot of his cancelling his WoW subscription, as well as detailing why.
It's done. #BoycottBlizzard pic.twitter.com/2jMG1TNuZr
— Mark Kern (@Grummz) October 9, 2019
In a subsequent tweet, Kern mentioned he understood that Blizzard as a company is in a "difficult situation."
Blizzard is in a difficult situation. Much of their current revenue and plans for future revenue are rooted in China. I don’t think Blizzard can do anything but hope people forget. I don’t expect them to change, but I can still express my opinion amd take a stand. https://t.co/ShB3ujGdGr
— Mark Kern (@Grummz) October 10, 2019
The Blizzard subreddit is full of players who have taken a stand with their wallets by uninstalling and unsubscribing from games on Battle.net. A quick search of the #BoycottBlizzard hashtag on shows players making that stand as well.
Mark Kern isn't the only high profile figure tied to Blizzard to quit over the what Brian Kilber called Blizzard's "appeasement." According to Polygon, Hearthstone caster Brian Kibler has quit Grandmasters to protest Blizzard's move.After Blizzard banned Hearthstone pro Blitzchung over his pro-Hong Kong comments (as well as cut ties with the two casters conducting the interview), Kibler released a statement explaining why he was leaving the Grandmasters coverage.
That kind of appeasement is simply not something I can in good conscience be associated with. When I learned about the ruling, I reached out to Blizzard and informed them that I no longer feel comfortable casting the Grandmasters finals at BlizzCon. I will not be a smiling face on camera that tacitly endorses this decision. Unless something changes, I will have no involvement in Grandmasters moving forward.
Blizzard themselves, at the time of this writing, hasn't had a response to the outcry, and with Blizzcon coming up in a few weeks it will be telling how they move forward from this.
