Gaming giant Blizzard has cancelled a launch for Overwatch on the Nintendo Switch, just one week after announcing the event.
The launch was planned for Wednesday at New York’s Nintendo store but the company announced that Blizzard had cancelled it on Tuesday.
The first 150 fans to sign up were promised a meet-and-greet with the voice actors as long as they had an active Nintendo account.
In a statement on Twitter, Nintendo NY said: “Please be aware that the previously announced Overwatch launch event scheduled for Wednesday, 10/16 at NintendoNYC has been cancelled by Blizzard.
“We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.”
Although the reason for the event’s cancellation has not been revealed, it comes after the original tweet promoting the launch was inundated with comments calling on fans to boycott the event.
Twitter users flooded the original announcement with #BoycottBlizzard and #StandWithHongKong hashtags following the gaming firm’s decision to ban a Hearthstone player from the game for 12-months after he publicly supported the pro-democracy demonstrations.
Ng Wai “blitzchung” Chung vocalised his support for Hong Kong’s liberation movement and the company’s decision to punish the player was criticised by community members, pro players and industry professionals.
One Twitter user wrote underneath the notice: “We all know why they did it. The Blitzchung backlash is so huge that no-one there would actually care about the switch launch.
Another said: “I’m guessing the backlash had something to do with this. I guess it’s not fair to the actors to be honest.
"I don’t know all the details at Blizzard but this seems to be getting worst every day I check Twitter.”
Blizzard has not yet confirmed why the event was cancelled.
