Online Competitive Card Game Gods Unchained suffered a cyber attack which prevented players from logging in to the game for several hours last Wednesday. The attack comes as the latest fallout from the Hearthstone Grand Masters debacle.

For those not following this particular hot mess, on October 6, Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai won a match in the Hearthstone Grand Masters tournament and was then, as often happens, interviewed by commentators. The Hong Kong-based pro Hearthstone player appeared for the interview wearing goggles and a gas mask and repeated a slogan used by pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. The Goggles and mask were also a way of showing support as they are worn by Hong Kong protesters to combat teargas and facial recognition systems used by police to disrupt their activities. The local Taiwanese broadcast quickly cut away from the interview and the attempted protest did not make it to the US broadcast.

Image Via the Guardian

In response to Chung’s actions Blizzard Entertainment, developer of Hearthstone and administrators of the tournament, removed Chung from the tournament, revoked his winnings and banned him from competitive Hearthstone play for a year. According to Blizzard, Chung violated the tournament rule that prohibits and action that, “brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard’s image.”

Related: Blizzard Responds To Hong Kong Controversy, Will Award Hearthstone Player Prize Money And Reduce Suspension

Blizzard has since agreed to award Chung his winnings and reduced the suspension to six months. In the time between the initial punishment and the reduction is when Immutable, developer of Gods Unchained, responded to the punishment by offering to pay Chung the $10,000 winnings revoked by Blizzard. According to Immutable, the move is about preserving freedom of speech as a human right. It should be noted, however, that Immutable uses cryptocurrency for in-game transactions in Gods Unchained and cryptocurrency is currently banned by the Chinese Government who are, of course, the target of the Hong Kong Protesters. This gives Immutable a business motive, in addition to competition with Blizzard, to support Chung and Hong Kong protesters in addition to the stated altruistic impetus.

Following the announcement of Immutable’s support for Chung, players of Gods Unchained began experiencing problems logging into their games as a result of a cyber-attack. The attack is still under investigation but the proximity of the attack to the announcement of support for Chung does point to that as a motivation for the hack.

In response to the attack, Immutable began a fundraising initiative in support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), an organization dedicated to the protection of online civil liberties. According to the Gods Unchained Twitter account, $1 will be donated to the EFF for each average viewer of Gods Unchained on Twitch up to $100,000.

Given the popularity of esports in China we can expect to have more and more incidents like this one as the Hong Kong protests drag on and tensions between the US and China continue.

Source: The Syndey Morning Herald

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