Blizzard has been a mainstay in the video game industry for 19 years creating games which were massive successes and which have spanned through generations including titles such as Warcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, and most recently Overwatch. Although Blizzard Entertainment has been a giant in the video game industry for 19 years, the company has not held a spotless track record, and the company is continuing to add blemishes to their reputation as time goes on.
Earlier this October, controversy struck as Blizzard disciplined a player for speaking up on the recent political events happening in Hong Kong. During a tournament, a player was interviewed after a match and brought awareness to the Hong Kong protests by donning a ski mask and gas mask and stated “Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age.” This put Blizzard Entertainment in a difficult position due to their ties with China as Tencent, a giant in the Chinese gaming industry, owns a stake in Blizzard and the relations between China and Hong Kong are obviously not great at the moment. Blizzard responded with a harsh disciplinary action of removing all earnings from the player, as well as banning the player for a whole year. Additionally, Blizzard punished the two commentators giving the interview by immediately dismissing both of them. This has led to an uproar within the community against Blizzard for their actions which draws a parallel to the Balance Theorem.
Prior to all of the controversy and prior to the political disagreements between China and Hong Kong there was relative balance between Blizzard, China, Hong Kong, as well as the community. If represented by a signed graph, it would be a complete signed graph with only positive edges. However, China and Hong Kong has had conflicts between each other which disrupted the balance between the four parties. This has led to the divide where Blizzard sided with China and the community siding with Hong Kong to form two parties and it has partitioned the group.
However, Blizzard has recently taken a step back on the disciplinary actions on both the player and both commentators so it remains to be seen if the parties involved will in fact make peace with one another or if there will be a permanent divide caused.
References:
https://time.com/5702971/blizzard-esports-hearthstone-hong-kong-protests-backlash-blitzchung/