Blizzard’s popular games such as WOW and Overwatch will no longer be available in China starting from January 2023. The reason is that the market issues with China’s second largest game company, NetEase, are not good. World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III: Reforged, Overwatch, the StarCraft series, Diablo III, and Heroes of the Storm will all be closed.
In a situation where Blizzard and NetEase can’t adjust in any way, neither the players nor the players. NetEase has announced that it is regrettable to inform the employees and stop. The CEO of NetEase Company himself has reported that he would like to inform the Chinese players with regret that no agreement could be reached at the end.
But the new Diablo Immortal will be released under a separate agreement, and Chinese players will be warned in more detail about it. World of Warcraft: Dragonfight, Hearthstone: March of the Lich King, and season 2 of Overwatch 2 will also be announced at the end of next year.
I don’t think it’s a velvet split to be like 2 companies. Because in a post on LinkedIn, NetEase said, “If you can tell why 2 companies have problems in one day, I want to tell you that a lot of people died because of one blanket.” Of course, there are problems behind the 2 companies.