diablo immortal will be a fail but not in china

Simon Zhu, the president of global investment and partnerships for NetEase, reacted to the news in a statement on LinkedIn. World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, Hearthstone: March of the Lich King, and Overwatch Season 2 will still go forward as planned later in 2022.īlizzard president Mike Ybarra said the company is exploring 'alternatives' to bring the affected games back to players in China in the future. New sales of the games mentioned above (except for Diablo Immortal) will be suspended in the coming days, and Blizzard will inform affected players about the process soon. Blizzard said it couldn't come to terms with NetEase for a deal that would be 'consistent with Blizzard's operating principles and commitments to players and employees.' Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot'sīlizzard and NetEase started their licensing deal for games in 2008, but the two companies failed to reach a deal to renew the agreement, Blizzard said in a statement. Subscribe to my free weekly content round-up newsletter, God Rolls. But it’s one more headache for Microsoft to potentially deal with now.įollow me on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Again, it’s unclear what may happen in the future, especially if Activision Blizzard is indeed bought by Microsoft, but it’s possible a new deal could be hammered out in the future.

While both companies are attempting to say this will not significantly affect their business, both NetEase and Activision stock are starting to drop in the pre-market, and we’ll see how they open.Įven if this is true, that Blizzard’s reach in China isn’t that big, it’s a huge blow for Chinese players who will simply be unable to access games they have sunk potentially thousands of hours and dollars into.

This fracturing comes in the wake of a few recent dust-ups, including a cancelled World of Warcraft mobile game that was supposed to be collaboration between NetEase and Blizzard, and other drama involving the ownership of IP and player data, according to a Bloomberg report.

The implication there is that the “jerk” in question may be Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, but he’s not named specifically. “One day, when what has happened behind the scene could be told, developers and gamers will have a whole new level understanding of how much damage a jerk can make.”

Diablo immortal will be a fail but not in china