Text 丨 Sina Technology Zhou Wenmeng
After 443 days since Blizzard's national server was suspended, players have finally ushered in the dawn.
For the "remarriage" of NetEase and Blizzard, the leaders of both sides showed their expectations for future cooperation. But for players, they have lost their expectations for Blizzard.
In a poll of 34,000 people on Weibo, 40% of players said that they no longer play Blizzard games, and only 29% of users expect it.
After all, after experiencing the original "violent" breakup, the two have already broken the hearts of players.
For Blizzard, which is returning again, the market environment it faces has changed greatly, and the cooperation with NetEase has also been mixed with Microsoft. In the view of game industry analyst Zhang Shule, the cooperation between NetEase and Blizzard is essentially just a cooperation between NetEase and Microsoft, and "Blizzard is just a bridge to connect the two giants." In this "remarriage" ceremony, "Blizzard is just a dowry maid, and Microsoft, who has the heart to attack the mobile game, is the wife." ”
The scumbag CEO is gone, and Blizzard is back
In the breakup plot staged by NetEase and Blizzard, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotik (Bobby Kotik) was regarded by the outside world as the "culprit" that prompted the two to break up.
According to previous reports, in the breakup case between Blizzard and NetEase, Blizzard once asked NetEase to pay a one-time $500 million renewal condition at the instigation of Caldecott, not only the revenue and net profit sharing will be further increased by more than 50% compared with the contract period from 2019 to 2022, but also Blizzard's game pricing will also adopt a global synchronization strategy - the previous national server pricing is generally about 20% lower than that of the rest of the world. In addition, Caldeco also asked NetEase to develop Blizzard's other IP mobile games for global distribution according to the "Diablo Immortal" model, but NetEase only enjoys a revenue share in the Chinese market.
The proposal of this series of "unequal" treaties made NetEase, which had no intention of meeting this requirement, finally give up the renewal of the contract.
On November 17, 2022, Blizzard Entertainment, a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, announced that it had not reached a renewal agreement with NetEase that was in line with Blizzard's operating principles and commitments to players and employees, and these agreements would expire in January 2023. Subsequently, Blizzard's national server finally ended the 14-year cooperation between the two sides in a scolding voice, and officially closed at the end of January 2023.
Now, 443 days after the two sides broke up, NetEase and Blizzard have "remarried", and Blizzard's national server is expected to meet everyone again this summer. It's just that after returning again, Blizzard and NetEase are no longer the same selves they once were.
In the year since Blizzard and NetEase broke up, Blizzard went through the entire process of the $68.7 billion acquisition, followed by a storm of layoffs of more than 1,900 people. In this storm, Caldecott, the "scumbag" who prompted NetEase Blizzard to break up, has also been replaced.
For NetEase, although it also experienced the pain of large-scale layoffs after the breakup, fortunately, the company's "Egg Boy Party" quickly went out of the circle, with more than 500 million registered users and a peak DAU of more than 40 million, and finally found a new performance growth engine. Regarding the NetEase Blizzard compound, some industry insiders commented, "All the games in Blizzard China combined, may not be as big as NetEase's "Egg Boy Party" and other single head products, and it may not urgently need Blizzard's return to support its product line." ”
Polls show that 40% of players no longer play Blizzard
On April 10, under the witness of Microsoft Games, Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase announced their "remarriage". However, for Blizzard China, the official announcement of the return of the national server did not usher in too much "enthusiasm" from players in China. In the comment area of Blizzard China's official announcement blog post, the content with the most likes from players is "Treat players as monkeys", and similarly, in the comment area of NetEase Games' official announcement blog post, the content with the most comments and likes is "How cheap it is to play me again".
Outside of their own positions, most netizens are also indifferent to the return of Blizzard's national server.
In the previous poll launched by the Morning News, the results of the 34,000 votes showed that 40% of the players said that they no longer played Blizzard games, only 29% of users looked forward to it, and 25% of users stayed on the sidelines. A poll conducted by Sina Games also showed that 70% of the 13,000 people who participated in the poll said that they had never played a Blizzard game ten years ago or at all, and only 3% of users played it for the first time this year.
"Despite the popularity of the game, in China, the core players of Blizzard games have entered middle age, lack of time, energy, and enthusiasm. Zhang Shule said that at present, Blizzard's national server is back, "It is still an old game in the short term, buy feelings, and users will continue to decline in the future." ”
It is worth noting that this time Blizzard returns to the national server, there is a new character in the middle - Microsoft Games.
On October 13, 2023, after a 21-month game with antitrust authorities, Microsoft finally bagged Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. Since then, after experiencing large-scale layoffs in the gaming business and CEO replacement, Microsoft has included Activision-Blizzard results in the Xbox business unit for the first time in its Q2 2024 earnings report, making the unit also the third largest business unit of Microsoft.
Microsoft's increased emphasis on the game business has also accelerated the return of Blizzard's national server. According to Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft's gaming business, which currently oversees Activision Blizzard within Microsoft, "The biggest reason for Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard is that it is determined to be the biggest player in the mobile game space. If Microsoft does not succeed in entering the mobile gaming market, the company's importance in the gaming market will decline. ”
Therefore, for Microsoft, NetEase, which is second only to Tencent in terms of revenue in the field of mobile games worldwide, has also become the reason why Microsoft chose to cooperate with it. "Due to the cooperation between Nintendo and Tencent, Microsoft and NetEase, the two old alliances, also need to cooperate more with each other, especially in multi-terminal interoperability to break down the barriers between game consoles and mobile games. Zhang Shule said.
In his opinion, the cooperation between NetEase and Blizzard is "essentially just a cooperation between NetEase and Microsoft, and Blizzard is just a bridge to connect the two giants." In this "remarriage", "Blizzard is just a dowry girl, which is the key to trial and error, and Microsoft, who has the heart to attack the mobile game, is the wife." ”
"Activision Blizzard's biggest value is its global influence of IP, which can become the best game in the field of mobile games, Microsoft lacks experience in mobile game development, but NetEase has, this is the foundation of this cooperation, learn from each other's strengths. After holding hands again, Blizzard Games, which once turned arrogantly, has become a pawn in the cooperation between NetEase and Microsoft.