The Chinese market is essential for all Western developers, but to settle in the country, it is better to go through a publishing partner. This is howActivision-Blizzard worked hand in hand with NetEase to distribute and publish its games in China.
But this partnership will end after 14 years. Blizzard China announced that NetEase did not accept his six-month renewal offer, and is looking for a new partner to publish its games in China. Waiting for, World of Warcraft, Warcraft III: Reforged, Hearthstone, Diablo III, Diablo: Immortal, StarCraft, Overwatch 2 or Heroes of the Storm will be inaccessible from January 23rd.date on which NetEase going to shut down the servers.
NetEase has already started disbanding its teams which were in charge of taking care of the games of Blizzard in China and wanted to defend himself against the discontent of the players by specifying that Blizzard generally negotiates its partnership contracts for three years. The Chinese publisher did not appreciate having only a proposal for six monthsthe two studios failed to reach an agreement, so their relationship is over.
This is a blow for all Chinese players, who will not be able to enjoy the titles of Blizzard until a new publisher for this market has been found. And this raises a lot of questions about the e-sports scenemany professional players are Chinese or located in China.
As a reminder, the partnership between Blizzard and NetEase gave rise to the mobile game Diablo Immortal, but another project for smartphones was reportedly abandoned last summer. At the time, there was already water in the gas, and a few weeks ago, the president of NetEase Simon Zhu reportedly even treated an executive member of Blizzard of “moron”. Good atmosphere.
You can find the box World of Warcraft: Discovering Azeroth (Eastern Kingdoms + Kalimdor) at 60 € on Amazon.
| Clint008 Writer – Tester |
