The Nintendo store in New York City was supposed to play host to a launch event for Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch on the Nintendo Switch. However, at the last minute, Blizzard cancelled the event.
Eurogamer picked up the news from a tweet made by the official Nintendo Twitter account, which originally started a thread on October 8th promoting the launch event for Overwatch that was scheduled to take place on October 15th, 2019. However, on October 14th, 2019, Nintendo made a follow-up tweet in the thread indicating that the event had been cancelled.
The first 150 fans to sign up will get to meet voice actors from #Overwatch from 5:30pm-7pm.
Sign up begins Wednesday, 10/9 12PM EDT: https://t.co/FBEmpxR2U6
Present your Warp Pipe Pass at your reserved time upon arrival. You must have a Nintendo Account to make a reservation
— Nintendo NY (@NintendoNYC) October 8, 2019
Please be aware that the previously announced Overwatch launch event scheduled for Wednesday, 10/16 at NintendoNYC has been cancelled by Blizzard. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
— Nintendo NY (@NintendoNYC) October 15, 2019
The highlight of the tweet is how the official Nintendo account blatantly throws Blizzard under the bus in the tweet, making it known that the event was canceled by Blizzard and not them.
Almost everyone and their mother sees the writing on the wall as to why Blizzard canceled the event.
Protestors have been making their presence known at any China/Hong Kong related social events, even in America to raise awareness about the plight that Hong Kong residents are suffering under the totalitarian arm of mainland China, even going so far as to picket outside of NBA games.
Given that Hong Kong protestors have been adopting Blizzard’s paraphernalia and characters as symbols of freedom – such as Mei being co-opted to represent oppressed Hong Kong protestors, and Blizzard removing a Mei statue from the storefront – it’s not hard to see why the company is trying to avoid large crowds of people where a lot of media coverage would have been present.
Could you imagine cameras on the crowds outside of the Nintendo NYC store where hundreds of people show up to voice their support for Hong Kong donning Mei gear and figurines outfitted to represent Hong Kong protestors?
Blizzard is continuing to work overtime to downplay and squelch the news about the protests as much as possible, but it only seems to be making people who champion freedom that much more driven.
(Thanks for the news tip dk max)
