Zhenxin Town Xiaomao | wen
Yes, kids, I'm back.
On the morning of April 10, Beijing time, Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Games and NetEase jointly announced that they had re-entered into a cooperation to bring Blizzard games back to China. In other words, the repechage was won.
The official announcement said that after continuous discussions in the past year, Blizzard and NetEase have updated their cooperation agreement, and Blizzard Entertainment's game works will return to the Chinese mainland market from this summer according to the updated game publishing agreement. In addition, Microsoft Games will also deepen its cooperation with NetEase, "by forming a strategic partnership to try to bring NetEase's new games to Xbox consoles and other platforms."
This incident is undoubtedly the biggest game news of the day, and it has detonated social media all of a sudden, and I believe that the specific details BB Ji does not need to be introduced, and the most important one is that the player's data will be kept intact. Of course, the ensuing memes and jokes have also been flying all over the sky.
However, for those who often follow the news of the game industry, they must not be surprised when they see this news today.
Last month, the media "Competition" issued an article saying that NetEase and Blizzard have negotiated and will officially announce the return of the national service in March and April. Because quite a lot of internal details are disclosed in the manuscript, the credibility is actually relatively high compared to the previous "Blizzard return rumors".
And yesterday, the media "bad reviews" once again swore that the official announcement of Blizzard's national server would be confirmed within this week. When it comes to this, it is actually a disguised warm-up announcement. So NetEase responded quickly yesterday, saying, "The return of Blizzard's national server will definitely be officially announced on April 10, but the announcement of the cooperation is mainly responsible for the NetEase Thunderfire Business Group, and the confidentiality is extremely high." ”
Well, the level of secrecy is extremely high, so high that the whole network already knows about it.
To describe the NetEase Blizzard turmoil in a paragraph: the breakup was confusing, and no one knew the specific inside story;
Back on November 16, 2022, Blizzard suddenly issued a statement saying that the existing licensing agreement with NetEase will expire on January 23, 2023, after which it will stop gaming services in Chinese mainland.
The news of the breakup came quite suddenly, and no player expected it in advance at the time, and it was very unseemly. This day happened to be the day of NetEase's earnings announcement, and after Blizzard's announcement, NetEase's stock price fell by more than 10% at the open, and as of the close, the decline narrowed slightly to 9.05%. NetEase responded, "I have been doing my best to negotiate with Activision Blizzard, but it is very regrettable that Activision Blizzard announced the cessation of cooperation first." “
For this matter, domestic players rarely stand on the position of sympathy for NetEase. The next day, NetEase Cafe launched a new product "Blizzard Green Tea", which is ironic, no, it is a clear satire of Activision Blizzard.
On January 18, 2023, five days before Blizzard officially closed the national server, the official live broadcast room of NetEase's "Naraka: Bladepoint" dismantled the Warcraft Tomahawk "Blood Roar" in the NetEase park, which was originally a symbol of the "friendship" between NetEase and Blizzard.
The two parties did not disclose the reason for the breakup, but according to the revelations of a number of media and insider sources, the more credible reason seems to be that Blizzard opened his mouth about the renewal terms, and some of the terms were unacceptable to NetEase. In particular, two aspects are most obvious:
1. Blizzard asked to increase the share ratio on the basis of 50% of the revenue and net profit of the original contract;2. Blizzard asked NetEase to help Blizzard develop other IP mobile games and distribute them globally in accordance with the "Diablo Immortal" model, but NetEase only enjoyed the revenue share of the Chinese market.
When Blizzard and Nine Cities broke up, there were similar rumors
Actually, I can't be sure of the authenticity of these news, but in the context of the national condemnation of Activision Blizzard's former CEO Caldecott at the time, everyone assumed that these were true.
And now Calderick is out of the way, and Microsoft will take over Activision Blizzard. It is worth noting that some media broke the news that NetEase and Blizzard are holding hands again this time, and the main partner behind it is actually Microsoft, and Blizzard is just a bridge used to connect the two giants. For NetEase, Blizzard's game revenue will not have much impact on its overall pattern. However, based on Microsoft's desire to enter mobile games and NetEase's exploration of console and PC games, both sides may be able to get more possibilities.
From left to right, the three people in the picture are Ding Lei, the CEO of NetEase, Johanna Faris, the new president of Blizzard, and Phil Spencer, the head of Microsoft's games
As a result, the blood roar that symbolized the friendship between NetEase and Blizzard, which was smashed at the beginning of last year, has been confirmed to be recast today. "We're going to collect the hearts and memories of our players and incorporate them into the design to engrave them into the new Bloodroar. We're making the new Blood Roar a new token for players, NetEase, and Blizzard. This time it falls, it will never wear out. ”
Business only talks about business, and can never escape the sentence "the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit, and the hustle and bustle of the world is for profit". But for the average player, it's just an extremely simple thing: Blizzard games are finally back, and it's a good thing after all.
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