Gods Unchained supports banned Hearthstone player
Gods Unchained developer Immutable has vowed to support a gamer that’s banned from a Hearthstone tournament by Blizzard Entertainment. The studio behind collectible card game Gods Unchained will do this by giving Chung Ng Wai a.k.a. Blitzchung the price money that Blizzard took away. In addition the blockchain gaming startup invited the gamer to the first esports tournament for Gods Unchained.
Blizzard Entertainment banned Chung Ng Wai from its Hearthstone tournament after the player made a political statement in a live interview. Because of this Gods Unchained developer Immutable tweeted their support for Chung Ng Wai on Tuesday morning. “No player should be punished for their beliefs”, the studio stated.
In the live video interview Blitzchung was wearing a mask, while he said: “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age!”. Blizzard makes a lot of money in China, and is afraid that the country will block its services. As a result Blizzard banned the player from its Hearthstone tournament. They referred to the tournament rules. According to these rules players are not allowed to make statements that might offend people or hurt Blizzard’s reputation.
“Today, Blizzard proved that centralized games companies will censor and exploit their players if it is in their immediate financial interest. We have built uncensorable items with an open economy and market: even if we disagree with your views, we can’t take away your cards.”
Immutable on the GodsUnchained Twitter account
Gods Unchained gains lots of new fans
The move by CEO James Ferguson to support the Blitzchung has caused a lot of interest from new players. As a result many gamers that used to play Hearthstone, now vowed to download Gods Unchained. Ferguson’s first tweet on the topic got 4000 retweets and over 11 thousand likes.
In addition the servers couldn’t handle the traffic today. On a regular day 150 to 200 gamers play Gods Unchained. With the newly acquired media attention and influx of Hearthstone players, more gamers might move to Gods Unchained in the coming days.
Blockchain card game goes mainstream
Game studio Immutable now works with a couple of hundred gamers per day, but it needs to grow towards millions of gamers. Blockchain enthusiasts and early investors are the only ones playing the game at the moment. Last month investors pumped 15 million dollars into the game studio.
The studio recently hired Chris Clay, the former director of the popular video game Magic The Gathering: Arena. Clay oversees development and contributes to design improvements and the optimization of the overall community experience. The Gods Unchained developer will now add 30 more people to its team, bringing the total up to 80.
Originally published at NEDEROB.
