Activision Blizzard has released the latest Call of Duty video game amidst calls to boycott products from the publisher due to the China controversy.
Activision released Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, the sixteenth major title in the video game series, despite calls to boycott the company for bowing to China after it penalized an e-sports player who voiced support for the Hong Kong protests at another game's event.
According to some fans, they have canceled their pre-orders of Call of Duty after the incident.
However, industry analysts still expect the game to be one of the year's biggest sellers. Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst at the IHS Markit consultancy, said: "Call of Duty remains Activision's biggest AAA [large budget] game franchise and is key to the company's annual performance and overall commercial targets."
Chinese professional gamer Ng Wai Chung staged his protest on October 8 while participating at the Hearthstone Grandmasters tournament organized/ by the company's Blizzard division. During a livestreamed interview, Chung, also known as Blitzchung, put on a gas mask and shouted: Â "Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age."
Activition drew criticism after it announced that it would ban Blitzchung for 12 months and will not give him his prize money for breaking tournament rules, which states that players must not offend people or damage its image. After the initial backlash, the company decided to grant the gamer his prize money and reduce the ban duration to 6 months.
The issue also drew the attention of a bi-partisan group of US politicians who wrote to Activision Blizzard's chief executive expressing their "deep concern" about what happened. They wrote: "Because your company is such a pillar of the gaming industry, your disappointing decision could have a chilling effect on gamers who seek to use their platform to promote human rights and basic freedoms."
