Epic Games has spoken out in connection with the Blizzard scandal. The latter banned the esports player for political appeals. The Epics promised not to do that.
Tim Sweeney
“Epic Games supports everyone’s right to express their views on politics and human rights.
We will not ban or punish Fortnite players or content creators for raising such topics,” founder Tim Sweeney said on Twitter.
Earlier, Blizzard issued an annual ban to the player Chung Ng Wai (Chung Ng Wai) and deprived him of prize money for supporting protests in Hong Kong. Prize money, according to The New York Times, could reach $ 10 thousand.
Blizzard also broke off cooperation with streamers who allowed the incident to happen live. The recording of the broadcast from Ng Vai itself has been deleted.
Jun Ng Wai
The authors of Hearthstone explain their actions by the rules of the tournament, which Ng Vai violated.
It follows from them that such appeals are unacceptable: they harm the reputation of the organizer of the competition.
However, Blizzard was sharply condemned by many players, American politicians and even a number of its own employees. There have been calls on social networks to boycott World of Warcraft, Diablo and other products of the company. She was accused of censoring someone else’s opinion and wanting to please China in order not to lose income from the regional market.
There is a curious detail in all this. 5% of Blizzard really belongs to the Chinese giant Tencent
. She probably feared that Ng Wai’s appeal would be poorly received by shareholders.
But Tencent also owns about 40% of Epic Games. Tim Sweeney has a controlling stake. And he claims that with him, Epic Games will not ruin relations with influencers because of their views – even if a large investor does not like it.
You can read more about the situation with Blizzard in our material.