World Of Warcraft: Most Seminal Online Games Are Set To Go Offline Today
World of Warcraft is a multiplayer online game, which was released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2004. Millions of players are officially part of this game and after the breakdown of news of World of warcraft going offline millions of people have to say an emotional goodbye to their online world. The deal which happened between developer Blizzard and publisher NetEase 14 years back is about to end.
In 2005, Warcraft was given permission to launch in the notably restrictive Chinese gaming market.
Since 2008, NetEase managing the massively multiplayer title of Blizzard in China, which also operates the bespoke versions of some other popular Western games like Minecraft.
The gaming giant, Activision Blizzard announced the termination of its deal with NetEase last November. The termination of this deal not just affected Warcraft but also Blizzard’s other hits like multiplayer shooter overwatch, card game heart stone, and the Sci-Fi strategy title StarCraft.
The game which was affected mostly because of the ending of this deal is warcraft which has estimated three million players in China.
When the break up happened between Blizzard and NetEase. Simon Zhou, who is the President of global investment, gave the condemning statement that he had spent “10,000 hours” playing those games.
On LinkedIn also, Simon Zhou wrote:
“One day, when what has happened behind the scene could be told, developers and gamers will have a whole new level of understanding of how much damage a jerk can make”
Just to extend the deal by six months NetEase rejected the deal earlier this month and accused Blizzard by saying “seeking a divorce but still sticking around”. He even described the offer as “commercially illogical”.
Many news agencies reported that this argument between NetEase and Blizzard is because NetEase wants structural changes that would impact the US firm’s control over its intellectual property.
Throughout the 14 years of the agreement, NetEase stands firm that “any usage and licensing of Blizzard’s IP were done in accordance with contract terms and Blizzard’s consent and approval”.
The deal which was previously made in 2008 between companies was recreated in 2019.
Before the end of the deal between companies, Blizzard took the very unexpected step of giving a permit to Chinese Warcraft players to download their characters and progress.
There is only one option to get the Warcraft player’s data back into the game if Blizzard finds a new distribution partner in China, as China is one of the world’s most profitable markets even with the restrictions and rules of the government.
The partnership between Blizzard and NetEase helped NetEase to rise and become China’s second-largest gaming company, but now at this time, NetEase has its own titles which account for more than 60% of its income.
If we conclude this news, we can say that in the whole 6 years of their deal, Blizzard and NetEase were not on good terms with each other. And this can be the reason for breaking up the deal between two companies. The ending of World of Warcraft caused many online games to end. The termination of this deal caused many issues in the gaming world.