New World Notes

Blizzard Employees Strongly Support Company's Punishment of Hong Kong Advocate & Player Censorship of Sensitive Chinese Topics - Blind Survey

Blizzard HQ photo by Heather Newman

Blizzard has been under tremendous backlash since its October 8 decision to punish Chung “blitzchung” Ng Wai, a Hong Kong-based Hearthstone champion, after he advocated for the city's pro-democracy movement during a live post-game interview. Anti-Blizzard memes have spread through the gaming world, along with calls to boycott the company's games, and protest at its conventions; unsurprisingly, Blizzard just cancelled an upcoming Overwatch launch event in New York.

However, aside from a small walk-out protest and other ripples of dissatisfaction, one point remains unclear: What do Blizzard employees think of punishing its players for expressing opinions considered taboo by the Chinese government on their gaming platforms?

According to a survey recently launched by the development team of Blind, an anonymous messaging app for tech company staffers, a strong majority of Blizzard employees actually support the punishment of Chung -- and in general, strongly support censorship of players criticizing China's government.

About 500 Blizzard employees are members of Blind's community for the company, Blind co-founder Kyum Kim tells me. Of that 500, fifty to seventy Blizzard employees took the two question survey, along with hundreds of staffers from many other tech companies -- raw data on the right.

Asked, "Should Blizzard reverse its banning of the Hearthstone player?", only 36% of Blizzard employees surveyed responded Yes. However, a solid majority of 64% opposed the reversal. This greatly contrasts with answers from employees across the tech industry, which supported a reversal at ranges from 67 to 92%. (With the notable exception being Riot Games -- like Blizzard, a game company that's heavily dependent on the Chinese market, with opinion split 50/50.)

Blind launched this survey last Thursday, just before Blizzard softened (but did not completely reverse) Chung's punishment. However, when asked a more general question about sensitive Chinese political topics, Blizzard employees were about as adamant in their support of player censorship :

China Could Really Use That Oculus Rift+Treadmill Deal

So I was exercising in my Beijing hotel and the view from the gym looked like this:

So later on, it hit me: While I doubt many out-of-shape Western gamers really want it, a country like China would probably embrace this Oculus Rift merged to a 3D treadmill technology. Because the thing is, Beijing is hardly the only epicly polluted city in China -- there are many more. In Beijing, even on nice days (and there are many of those, actually), you rarely see people jogging or otherwise exercising outside, probably because most city dwellers don't associate the outdoors with health. At the same time, since the Chinese government has banned videogame consoles, PC gaming is extremely popular in China, and there's several successful local PC manufacturers like Lenovo... so, put the pieces together.