Blizzard Games Get Shut Down & Go Offline In China... How do you feel about all your shilling now Blizzard?

[Crazycrab]

Well this is frankly...  Hilarious!  The same Blizzard that shilled so hard for China, the same Blizzard that banned tournament player Ng “Blitzchung” Wai Chung for supporting the Hong Kong protesters in 2019, that same Blizzard that censored their own art for the Chinese market... Is now having most of their online games taken down in China:

 

 

As of January 23rd 2023 most of the Online games developed and published by Activision-Blizzard are inaccessible in China.  Including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and Overwatch.

 

To be fair situation seems to the result of a breakdown between Activision Blizzard and their now former Chinese Distribution partner NetEase rather than the Chinese government, but but still you can't help but laugh at the irony.  Watch YongYeh's video above for more details but I can summarise by saying, this seems to be a VERY messy "divorce" even American court TV standards!

 

NetEase and some of their employees have put out a number of scalding social media post directed at Acti-Blizzard including livestream showing them destroying Blizzard paraphernalia at their offices.  One particularly bitter LinkedIn post from a NetEase Executive Simon Zhu put the blame on "jerk" at Activision-Blizzard.  Some are speculating that is a reference to CEO Bobby Kotick who, and lets be fair, is well known to be a prick.

Blizzard are of course pinning the blame on NetEase. They stated that even after the announcement that the partnership would be end they made an offer to extend the service by another six months while they looked for another partner so that players wouldn't loose out. This offer was rejected by NetEase.

 

It seems like a lot of the information in regards to exactly what happened are still very much buried here but I would guess that Acti-Blizzard, or at least some there (possibly Kotick) did something to really upset the people at NetEase because it's them in particular that are acting out.  I would dare even they that NetEase are being a bit unprofessional but I don't know the full context to this so it might yet turn out their behaviour is justified.

 

I do feel sorry for the players in China who could loose out on weeks, or even months of game time because of what seems to be very petty behaviour on the part of these two companies.

 

So what are thoughts?  Do you think this is the fault of Activision-Blizzard, NetEase, or both?

[Shagger]

I'll reserve judgement for when (or perhaps, if) we get more precise details about why these negotiations broke down, but I suspect that both sides are to blame. A mixture of pettiness and greed. And as usual, it's the gamers that ultimately loose out. I do hope that Activision-Blizzard's customers get to play thier games again or get refunded.

[Shortie]

This is such a shame to see and it all being over something that is pretty petty as well is shocking. The gamers will definitely be the ones that suffer because of this and they were the ones that did nothing wrong. I hope that they do get some kind of reimbursement for this mess that has been caused by both sides. Doesn't seem fair that the gamers should suffer at this point. 

[Reality vs Adventure]

I'm glad we have U.S. based developers here and I'm sure other countries are glad too because if you don't, then your gaming experience can be dictated by corporate spats like all the Chinese players have to stop playing their game. There needs to be consumer rights in these cases. Even if the corporations can't agree what to do, the gaming should not be taken down. And that is part of the conflict dealing between two countries where China has its own policy to force game developers to work with China's own tech and internet companies while China's laws are cracking down on internet, gaming, and publishing rights. It is interesting for Blizzard to post on China's social media a reference to China's president as Winnie The Pooh which is usually referred to something derogatory of the president. That is ironic since Blizzard banned esports player Blitzchung for being political during the Hong Kong protests. So Blizzard was sucking off to China then in 2019, and making fun of the Chinese president in 2022. But that could have been due to the change in Blizzard's leadership and Microsoft's acquisition. Not sure, but it does seem that NetEase is specifically hating on Bobby Kotick. I think both sides are in the wrong. We all know the history of Blizzard and Kotick. But NetEase went and destroyed a bunch of Blizzard structures and posted it. That is some pretty hostile stuff. And what message is that to send being one of the largest tech giants in China. Are they engaging in hostile business practices as a reflection of their government? Or did Blizzard really botch their integrity? There is something a lot deeper going on that I'm not seeing after reading up a little about this. Everything from the Hong Kong protests, to Microsoft's acquisition, Bobby Kotick, Diablo Immortal, China's laws, fucking everything. Like a damn domino effect finally fell. 

[Empire]

I think it's really interesting that Blizzard made the decision to let players store their data locally, by the sound of it. If thats the case, they've opened themselves up to players modifying the data to give themselves an advantage when WoW comes back. I imagine Blizz encoded and/or encrypted the data, but even still, someone dedicated enough can figure it out.

Not to mention hasty measures such as these are notoriously insecure and relatively easy to crack.

[Crazycrab]

15 minutes ago, Empire said:

I think it's really interesting that Blizzard made the decision to let players store their data locally, by the sound of it. If thats the case, they've opened themselves up to players modifying the data to give themselves an advantage when WoW comes back. I imagine Blizz encoded and/or encrypted the data, but even still, someone dedicated enough can figure it out.

Not to mention hasty measures such as these are notoriously insecure and relatively easy to crack.

 

There's plenty of other games, offline and online that are able to store saved data locally without any issue.  In online games I think it's some kind of verification system where if the locally stored data doesn't match the the online profile then the local data is overwritten or something.  The online games right now are inaccessible in China but they and their associated data not gone!  I'm certain cracking is possible but that's an issue either way.

[killamch89]

That absolutely get what they deserve - I'm happy it's happening to them. Their own greed screwing them over after all the pandering they did to the Chinese government.

[Kane99]

What's funny about this, is that China has to be one of their biggest markets, and now they're going to lose a TON of money because of this. I bet Blizzard is scrambling to figure out a way to remedy this situation as fast as possible. Maybe work something out with NetEase, but I doubt they'll make things work. 

How much do you think they stand to lose if they can't get their games back into China markets? 

 

[Crazycrab]

8 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

What's funny about this, is that China has to be one of their biggest markets, and now they're going to lose a TON of money because of this. I bet Blizzard is scrambling to figure out a way to remedy this situation as fast as possible. Maybe work something out with NetEase, but I doubt they'll make things work. 

How much do you think they stand to lose if they can't get their games back into China markets? 

 

 

I think the NetEase bridge is truly burned.  By Chinese Law they need a Chinese Distributer to publish any games there, that was the whole point of the NetEase partnership in the first place.  I'm sure they are looking for another partner and I'm certain they will make a deal with someone, Tencent maybe?

[Kane99]

36 minutes ago, Crazycrab said:

 

I think the NetEase bridge is truly burned.  By Chinese Law they need a Chinese Distributer to publish any games there, that was the whole point of the NetEase partnership in the first place.  I'm sure they are looking for another partner and I'm certain they will make a deal with someone, Tencent maybe?

Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up. So they'd essentially need to find a partner over in China in order to sell over there again. I could see them going Tencent next, but who's to say they will agree to a deal. Tencent to me, looks and sounds corrupt, but I think they have to work with them or some other place in China. 

[Crazycrab]

2 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up. So they'd essentially need to find a partner over in China in order to sell over there again. I could see them going Tencent next, but who's to say they will agree to a deal. Tencent to me, looks and sounds corrupt, but I think they have to work with them or some other place in China. 

 

I agree with you about Tencent.  But given how much NetEase has been smearing them, and I'm sure the Chinese public would side with the home team, I don't think Blizzard can afford to be picky.

[killamch89]

41 minutes ago, Crazycrab said:

I think the NetEase bridge is truly burned.  By Chinese Law they need a Chinese Distributer to publish any games there, that was the whole point of the NetEase partnership in the first place.  I'm sure they are looking for another partner and I'm certain they will make a deal with someone, Tencent maybe?

You can just sense they're desperate so Tencent is definitely not out of the question. The only thing I think that could be hindrance is how much Tencent are going to charge them and the terms of the agreement.

4 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up. So they'd essentially need to find a partner over in China in order to sell over there again. I could see them going Tencent next, but who's to say they will agree to a deal. Tencent to me, looks and sounds corrupt, but I think they have to work with them or some other place in China. 

Correct! Tencent is major player in the gaming industry both inside and outside of China so they it's possible Blizzard would be open to striking a deal with Tencent. I agree that a deal could be complicated as Chinese companies have some sort of pact where they may blackball certain foreign companies if relationships turn sour with one.