when they had to choose between greater profits
Well right there you're showing that you're very biased in how you're looking at things. Companies aren't just magic money machines, cutting back means huge layoffs, the same employee layoffs you've probably railed against in other posts. Lost revenue also means a big drop in the number of employees needed to support that revenue.
In actual fact, making video games isn't the huge profit-spinner people think it is, the profits reported on video game companies aren't all that great compared to other companies. You make much bigger markups and more reliable revenues pouring cups of coffee than making games, and people expect a lot less from their coffee provider.
It is ludicrous to expect that consumers should be understanding and empathetic to a multibillion dollar company for ruining the life of one of its own pro-players
how did they "ruin his life" exactly? he got a one-year ban from a commercial game. That's hyperbole. Being blocked from a game for one year is "ruining his life". His life is ruined because he can't video game for cash now, in one specific game, for a whole 12 months, and may have to get a regular job like the rest of us? Taking big risky stances like Blizzard could have that hit profits also mean you have to
fire a lot of people. When you're the decision-maker, you need to take that into account, how many other peoples lives would
actually be ruined if they went the other way?
But what if ... China had instead blocked ALL players in China from participating like I said. You haven't addressed that. They could have
permanently blocked all other Chinese players. If a one year ban is "ruining his life" then what would you call a permanent ban of hundreds if not thousands of other players? If that was the case, they'd effectively be "ruining the life" of hundreds of other current players, and theoretically ruined the life of millions of other potential Chinese players, by your own argument, if they took the other stance.