10 Major Controversies That Killed Great Video Games
2. The Blitzchung Controversy - Overwatch
Lauded as one of the best first person shooters ever released when it dropped in 2016, with over ten million players flocking in for the open beta version of the Blizzard title alone, Overwatch was well on its way to establishing a dominant legacy in the FPS world, but suddenly found itself in the middle of a messy political controversy in October 2019.
The controversy kicked off when a professional Hearthstone player known as Blitzchung from Hong Kong was banned by Blizzard for openly supporting the pro-Democracy protests in his homeland at an official event. Overwatch was suddenly pulled into the controversy when gamers began posting memes online using one of the game's heroes, the Chinese native Mei, to voice their sympathy to Blitzchung and their frustration at Blizzard's ruling.
Though Overwatch's director, Jeff Kaplan, did openly express that he thought the ban on Blitzchung should have been taken back, it didn't stop the world from continuing to see the game as a part of Blizzard's repressive set up. AccessNow.org, a human rights advocacy group, urged Blizzard to rethink the ban, but Blizzard's immediate response was to continue censoring events and broadcasts for their games, including the Overwatch League, and shut down the subreddits for all of their properties going forward.