Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Xie Silin
Image courtesy of Pixabay
The return of Blizzard's national server has finally come out definitely. Not surprisingly, the final receiver is still an "old friend" NetEase (09999. HK）。
On April 10, Blizzard China announced on Weibo that after continuous discussions over the past year, the company officially updated the game publishing agreement with NetEase to bring Blizzard games back to Chinese players. Currently, Blizzard and NetEase are working on a return plan, and more details will be announced in the future. Blizzard's family bucket series games such as World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and Overwatch are expected to return to the Chinese mainland market starting this summer.
In addition, Microsoft games are also an important third-party force for NetEase Blizzard's compound. In the announcement, Microsoft Games also announced that it had reached an agreement with NetEase to try and bring new NetEase games to Xbox and other platforms.
Source: Blizzard China's official Weibo
NetEase Games then posted on Weibo that it was honored to join hands with Blizzard Entertainment again to bring Blizzard games back to the national server.
NetEase and Blizzard had previously worked closely together for 15 years, but that all came to an end on November 17, 2022. At that time, Blizzard suddenly unilaterally announced the expiration of its cooperation with NetEase and was not ready to continue to renew the contract, causing NetEase's stock price to fluctuate. The two sides immediately launched several rounds of public response and tugging, but none of them could change the final outcome.
At 0:00 on January 24, 2023, the national servers of Blizzard games such as "World of Warcraft", "Hearthstone" and "Overwatch" were all suspended, and a generation of players had to temporarily bid farewell to their youth.
Since then, rumors have spread about the agency of Blizzard's national server, and Tencent, Alibaba, Byte, Bilibili, and miHoYo have all been rumored to take over, but they were all denied one by one.
With the official completion of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October last year, and the resignation of Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who is regarded as the "culprit" of NetEase Blizzard's breakup, the events ushered in a turnaround. NetEase, which has multiple advantages such as version numbers, servers, and technical talent reserves, has once again become the object of rumors, and the news of the reunion of the two parties has come out from time to time, but it has not been able to land.
Until today, with the official announcement of NetEase and Blizzard's reunion, Blizzard's national server games are finally expected to return. However, the market generally believes that NetEase's "drunkard's intention is not to drink", and the combination of the two is a cost-effective economic account.
Previously, Activision Blizzard mentioned in its financial report for the third quarter of 2022 that the Blizzard works jointly launched with NetEase in Chinese mainland contributed about 3% of Activision Blizzard's total revenue in 2021, which is calculated as less than 2 billion yuan.
According to a financial magazine, the last time the two sides cooperated, NetEase gave a 55% share ratio, and NetEase earned around 2 billion yuan from Blizzard's national server games. This is a very low proportion for NetEase, which has an annual revenue of more than 80 billion yuan in the game business.
In contrast, the mobile game adaptation of Blizzard's IP is more profitable. According to the monitoring of the mobile data platform data.ai, as of June 2023, the global turnover of NetEase Blizzard's IP mobile game "Diablo Immortal" has reached 525 million US dollars, or about 3.8 billion yuan, less than a year after its launch.
The mobile game adaptation of a single game of "Diablo" can explode such an astonishing revenue flow, and if NetEase can also move well-known IPs such as "World of Warcraft" and "StarCraft" to mobile phones, the benefits behind it are immeasurable.
And this may be the ultimate goal of NetEase to hold hands with Blizzard again, regardless of its previous suspicions.
A win-win abacus for NetEase and Microsoft
According to the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, compared with before, the cooperation between NetEase Blizzard and NetEase Blizzard has undergone some changes. The NetEase team that took over Blizzard's national service is NetEase Thunderfire Business Group, and the new operation team is in Guangzhou. Previously, the main operating body of "Blizzard Family Bucket" was Shanghai NetEase, but with the breakdown of the cooperation between Blizzard and NetEase two years ago, NetEase was dissolved, and employees were also dismissed.
Times Finance used this to verify NetEase, but did not receive a positive answer.
According to public information, Leihuo was established in 2007 on the shore of West Lake and is NetEase's first game studio in Hangzhou. After more than 10 years of development, Leihuo has become a business group with more than 3,000 employees, with first-class R&D, operation and marketing strength in China, and has successively developed many IP games such as "A Chinese Ghost Story", "Against the Cold" and "Naraka".
However, Jing Yi, a former employee of NetEase, revealed to Times Finance that unlike the outside world's assumptions, NetEase Blizzard did not recall the employees of the previous NetEase Blizzard Cooperation Department on a large scale after resuming cooperation, and only a very small number of positions received invitations.
From this point of view, NetEase will rebuild the operation and distribution department of Blizzard's national server. In Jing Yi's view, this move may be a plan for the development of Blizzard's IP mobile game in advance. Previously, NetEase undertook functions mainly for agency operations, and lacked game research and development capabilities, which may be difficult to meet NetEase's future needs.
"For the prospect of the return of Blizzard's national server, NetEase and Microsoft should not care so much. What's more important is that the players and the IP are in their own hands. Jing Yi said.
Zhang Shule, a game industry analyst, also pointed out to Times Finance that in China, the core players of Blizzard games have entered middle age and lack time and energy. "If Blizzard does not return to the Chinese market, its popularity will decline exponentially. At present, it is still the old game in the short term, and the users will continue to decline, and the income will not be optimistic. ”
In addition, Zhang Shule believes that the focus of the two sides getting back together this time is no longer NetEase and Blizzard, but NetEase and Microsoft. "Blizzard's role is more like a bridge between the two giants. ”
For NetEase, the addition of Blizzard games will not have much impact on its entire game pattern, but based on Microsoft's idea of wanting to enter mobile games, NetEase will develop domestic and overseas markets together with Microsoft through possible Blizzard IP mobile game research and development in the future, and may cooperate with Microsoft in multi-terminal interoperability to jointly tackle technical problems and global strategies.
And for Microsoft, using Blizzard games to open the Chinese market is a good way to tackle it. On the one hand, Blizzard has a base of millions of players, which can pave the way for the subsequent exploration of the integration of console games and mobile games in the Chinese market. But more importantly, NetEase can help Microsoft tap into the huge gold mine of the global mobile game market.
Previously, some industry insiders told Times Finance that a large part of Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard was due to its desire to enter the mobile game market. Activision Blizzard's King is already the world's top casual mobile game manufacturer, and its Candy Crush Sage has surpassed $20 billion in cumulative revenue since its launch in 2012.
But that may not be enough for Microsoft. Microsoft, which spent $68.7 billion to buy Activision Blizzard, must maximize its remaining value.
"Activision Blizzard's greatest value is its globally influential IPs, which are even expected to be the best games in the mobile gaming space. Zhang Shule analyzed.
As mentioned above, Diablo Immortal alone can contribute more than 500 million yuan in revenue a year, and if all Blizzard's IPs can be turned into mobile games, the benefits behind it are incalculable.
But neither Microsoft nor Activision Blizzard has the strength to port a medium-heavy game like World of Warcraft to mobile. NetEase, which has teamed up with Blizzard to create "Diablo Immortal", has strong mobile game research and development strength, and has the game version number of Blizzard's Family Bucket series, has become the best choice for cooperation.
"NetEase wants IP, Microsoft wants mobile games, once the cooperation is effective, it will first act on China, the world's largest game market, and it can make Blizzard's game IP explode again. Zhang Shule said.
Is player trust hard to rebuild?
But behind the complex trade-offs of business, it's always the players who hurt the most. After being "backstabbed" by Blizzard once, it is more difficult to rebuild player trust.
For example, Huang Jie, an 8-year veteran player of "Hearthstone", admitted to Times Finance that it is difficult for him to believe in Blizzard again, and he will not return to the national server in the future. "For the sake of their own interests, the next family announced that it would stop cooperating with NetEase without looking for a good one, and in the end, no one took over and the service was suspended, when did Blizzard consider players?" Huang Jie said angrily.
In fact, some of Huang Jie's game needs have been replaced by other "replacements". Since the suspension of Blizzard's national server games in January 2023, a number of domestic game manufacturers have been eyeing this huge market, developing various flat versions for "meal replacement", and even various games "crossover" to grab people.
For example, against "Hearthstone", NetEase alone has a number of games such as "Shadow Verse", "Secret Showdown", "Yu-Gi-Oh: Duel Link", and the popular two-dimensional game "Genshin Impact" developed by miHoYo has also launched a card gameplay called "Call of the Seven Saints". And "Full Moon Night" under Giant Network is a core member of the Chinese publishing team of "Hearthstone", which is regarded as an important competitor by the market and is also Huang Jie's main Hearthstone "meal replacement" at present.
"World of Warcraft" not to mention, Ledong excellent research and development, Tencent Games' "World of Taris" is generally highly similar to "World of Warcraft", and the game has obtained a version number and will be launched soon.
The games that have been launched such as "World of Warcraft 3", "Against the Cold" and "Swordsman Romance 3" have all been advertised in the "World of Warcraft" bar, and "Against the Cold" has launched a limited theme server "World of Warcraft Veteran Uniform", which has been streamlined and themed based on the game habits of "Warcraft Veterans".
But not all players are satisfied with the quality of domestic meal replacements.
As a "hardcore" Blizzard player who has played "World of Warcraft" for more than 3 years and the "Diablo" series of games for more than 13 years, Li Yong has more mixed emotions about Blizzard's return today. In Li Yong's view, several mainstream games under Blizzard still have obvious advantages in skill design and gameplay strategies, and similar competing products launched by domestic manufacturers are difficult to replace for the time being.
Source: Screenshot of player reservation
The problem is that during the suspension of the server, Li Yong and his players have already migrated to the Asian server to continue playing in order to solve their own game needs, and have accumulated a certain amount of equipment, mounts, and achievements, and the sunk cost of migrating back to the Chinese server is not low.
"Players also have tempers. Most of the people who play Warcraft are old players, and many people will no longer regard Warcraft as the most important game after being out of service for so long, and there is no enough attractive compensation, so why come back. Li Yong said.
And this has also become the focus of Blizzard's national server game operation in the future. At the same time that NetEase Blizzard officially announced its "remarriage", the official release of "World of Warcraft" on Weibo told players that when the server is opened, we will ensure that the account data is kept intact. At the same time, the official has also prepared a return commemorative gift and operation event to compensate players for the many benefits and activities missed during the period of absence from the national server.
Image source: Screenshot of Boss Zhipin
Subsequently, some players found that NetEase had released the recruitment demand for "senior/senior World of Warcraft operation planning" on the recruitment platform, with a salary of between 25,000 yuan and 50,000 yuan per month, and a salary of 16 yuan. The main responsibilities of this position are to be responsible for the growth of the game business, develop an operational plan that is in line with Chinese players, and arrange sincere compensation content for server restarts.
On April 10, NetEase's share price rose as much as 2.38% to close at HK$158.8 per share.
(At the request of the interviewee, Jing Yi, Huang Jie, and Li Yong are pseudonyms in the article)