Blizzard and Hearthstone shutting down in China

Multiplayer Discussion
1

Financial Times:

Activision Blizzard games to go offline in China after NetEase deal falls through

Affected games include World of Warcraft, the StarCraft series, Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and Overwatch. New sales of the titles will be halted in the coming days, with the servers that support online play likely to be turned off in January when the current deal expires.

As you probably know, non-Chinese entities, like Blizzard, can not operate games in China without a Chinese partner. 50%+1 of the company distributing the game has to be Chinese.

NetEase stock is down over 9% on the news and Activision/Blizzard stock is down too in premarket. It’s the middle of the night in the US right now, but this news will rock investors when they wake up.

This news will also affect Microsoft’s supposed purchase of Activision/Blizzard, as they might reconsider the price they are willing to pay, or even cancel the deal, now that Blizzard is no longer able to operate in China.

This break-up was also not amicable as China’s NetEase made their displeasure with Activision/Blizzard known today. This could strain Microsoft’s dealings with China and turn the deal into a liability.

TechCrunch:

Is NetEase hinting at its dissatisfaction with how Blizzard operates in China? In any case, the divorce doesn’t sound like an amicable one. Indeed, Simon Zhu, president of global investment and partnership at NetEase Games, posted a bitter message on LinkedIn.

“In theory”, Blizzard could try to find a new partner in China to distribute their games, but that process could take years. Chinese regulators had stopped approving any games for months, and currently any approval of a new game franchises is down to a crawl. Especially for foreign games that have any type of gambling elements, it will be incredibly hard to get approval from Chinese regulators.

6 Likes
2

Good! Serves them right after all those moves they made kow-towing to one of the worst human rights abusers out there, to have it all come crashing down!

Down with companies who profit off human rights abusers and their selective moral outrage!

19 Likes
3

I myself love it.
I hope they break Blizzard /Activis up and sell off the pieces.
Maybe HS will wind up privately owned.

1 Like
4

This is what Blizzard gets after licking Chinese xxxxx so hard. Congrats.

The north remembers.

13 Likes
5

This is what everyone should get who sells out their own Nations’ interests while making themselves rich, irrespective of any other concern.
All Corporations blow chunks, and that isn’t an exaggeration.

8 Likes
6

There goes any support for any mode that isn’t Standard and 1/2 the Standard support. The suits need to make up that money to save their bonuses somehow so firing a bunch of people that had nothing to do with their failure is the suit move.

4 Likes
7

Maybe they’ll finally divest of tencent!

1 Like
8

Post the “bitter message” please?

4 Likes
9
10

Simon Zhu, president of global investment and partnership at NetEase Games:

“As a gamer who spent ten thousand hours in the world of Azeroth, starcraft and overwatch, I feel so heartbroken as I will not longer have the access to my account and memories next year. 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. Feel terrible for players who lived in those worlds.”*

There’s no detail on who “the jerk” is, it’s someone at Blizzard or Activision.

I noticed Eurogamer just made an article about this statement. I can’t post links.

Eurogamer

NetEase boss blames “damage” done by “a jerk” for Activision shutdown of World of Warcraft, Overwatch in China

The president of NetEase, the Chinese publisher of World of Warcraft and Overwatch, has blasted the actions of an unnamed “jerk” for the breakdown in relationship between his company and Activision Blizzard, which is run by the controversial Bobby Kotick.

3 Likes
11

arent netease and tencent competitors ?

12

I haven’t seen any news of the stock dropping. I gather Netease’s did.

13

i hope this mess isnt final and they find a way to fix whatever it happened so they can keep playing

14

Like I said: i hope it’s the beginning of the end for the corporate behemoth.
I hope We get lucky and HS gets split off and sold to a private concern.

2 Likes
15

thats only because you are a kid who find happiness on people losing their jobs and players losing a game they have fun playing

not everyone find happyness in those things

7 Likes
16

I haven’t been called kid since before you could drive I imagine.
And going private would be the healthiest thing this product has had happen in years.

4 Likes
17

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say “the jerk” is probably Bobby boy.

6 Likes
18

Oh, it’s Mallen swinging the Magic Death Knell™ over Blizzard, again…
A quote from Blizzard’s last quarter financial results:

Currently, we have licensing agreements with a third party covering the publication of several Blizzard titles in China. These agreements, which contributed approximately 3% of Activision Blizzard’s consolidated net revenues in 2021, expire in January 2023.

https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/activision-blizzard-announces-third-quarter-2022-financial

While it’s not chump change (should be around 50 mil of the 1.6 bn (quarterly) or roughly 200 mil a year), it’s not a back breaker.

I don’t think he was talking about your biological age.

I’d be more interested in what was pulled, i.e. the reason it fell through.

2 Likes
19

Wishful thinking on my part perhaps, but that’s just me:)

20

I think this was likely NetEase vs Blizzard, arguing about who gets how much $ from the pie these games make in China.

I guess Blizzard wanted a bigger piece of the pie, NetEase said no, and now Blizzard is gone from China.

5 Likes