Blitzchung reveals in an interview that he skipped a semester of university due to the stress of his Hearthstone ban.

Last year, protests erupted in Hong Kong after a proposed law would have extradited those arrested in Hong Kong to mainland China. It was widely condemned as a power grab by Chinese authorities and an attack on the “one country, two systems” compromise that saw Hong Kong return to China in 1997.

Those protests would involve millions of people that would paralyze the city. Those protests are still ongoing even months after the proposed law was rescinded.

Even gamers got involved. Ng Wai “Blitzchung” Chung, a Hong Kong native, took the opportunity to protest during a Hearthstone tournament last October. Wearing a pair of goggles, Blitchung repeated a familiar protest call, “liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” during a post-match interview.

Following the interview, Blitzchung had his winnings from the tournament withheld and was banned from Hearthstone competition for 12 months. The two casters that interviewed him were also banned from casting.

The move was wildly condemned by the wider gamer community. Former fans felt that Blizzard had betrayed its ideals in order to sell out to China, and the #BoycottBlizzard hashtag trended from the day of Blitzchung’s banning all the way to BlizzCon 2019. US Senators even got involved.

Blizzard eventually gave back Blitzchung’s tournament winnings and shortened the ban to 6 months, but they never apologized.

In an interview with People Make Games, Blitzchung revealed that the whole ordeal was so stressful that he had to take a semester off from his university studies.

“Way too much going on,” Blitzchung said, referring to the media frenzy that followed his suspension. “I couldn’t handle that much and I decided to skip my school for a semester. I think it was more about me being under the spotlight. That was really stressful to me and also there are two casters involved in the incident and I was really worried about them as well.”

Blitzchung revealed that he actually traveled to Taiwan last November to apologize in person and was totally forgiven. “One of the casters was worried more about me than himself. He just told me that everything is OK and ‘you just need to worry about yourself’.”

With the ban up in April, Blitzchung is looking forward to returning to competitive Hearthstone. However, he’ll keep his political comments to his Twitter profile instead this time.

Source: People Make Games