Early, Hangzhou's 2022 Asian Games officially announced that e-sports events have become the official competition event of the Asian Games for the first time. Eight games, "League of Legends", "Glory of Kings (Asian Games Edition), "Peace Elite (Asian Games Edition), "Heartstone", "Dota 2", "Dream Three Kingdoms 2", "Street Fighter 5", and "FIFA Online 4" were selected for the Asian Games event.

However, from 0:00 on January 24, 2023, all Blizzard games have been stopped. Games such as World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3: Remake, StarCraft, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, Diablo 3, and other games can no longer be logged in and played.

In this case, all Hearthstone servers set up in mainland China when Blizzard cooperated with NetEase have been shut down and the relevant management team has been disbanded. In desperation, the fifth meeting of the Hangzhou Asian Games Coordination Committee considered moving Hearthstone out of the official competition event.

Now, according to the official news of the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, the Hearthstone event has been officially cancelled, and the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports will have 7 competition events.

Original text of the announcement:

According to the requirements of the Hangzhou Asian Games project setting procedure, the Asia Olympic Council determined that the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports e-sports event will be set up in November 2021. E-sports is an emerging sports event, and its requirements for organizing competitions are different from traditional sports events. In recent years, with the close cooperation and support of all parties, the organizing committee has strictly followed relevant requirements and continuously optimized the conditions required for e-sports events.

"Heartstone" is an e-sports project produced by Blizzard Entertainment in the United States and operated by China NetEase in China. Due to the expiration of business cooperation between the two parties, no agreement was reached on renewal, resulting in the project operation team and server being terminated and no longer meeting the prerequisites for being included in the e-sports project at the Hangzhou Asian Games.

On March 16, after deliberation and decision by the Fifth Coordination Committee of the Asia-Australia Council, the "Heartstone" project setting will be cancelled, and the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports will set up 7 competition events.