All Blizzard games aside from Diablo Immortal, which runs under a separate agreement, had to shut down their services in China on January 23, 2023, due to the partnership between Blizzard and NetEase running out. Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills.
Things have turned into a bit of an ugly divorce, so reconciliation seems very unlikely for now. Blizzard is said to look for a new distribution partner in China, but it's impossible to know how long that will take.
The good news for SC2 is that the SCBOY community is still determined to not only finish the ongoing season of WTL, but to hold a Spring 2023 Season as well – though without the financial support of NetEase.
Best of luck to our Chinese friends in their new adventures on the Asia server, and let's hope for a somewhat swift return of StarCraft and Warcraft there – all your achievements and rankings might have been deleted, but you still have your memories and you're still a part of this community.
The server situation on the player side is not nearly big of a problem as anyone that is remotely serious about competitive StarCraft already have a non-Chinese account. The real kicker is how coop and arcade players lost the entirety of their progress with no means to transfer, and of course the potential financial support of WTL from NetEase.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
Not sure China is even at fault here. It largely stems from the breakup between NetEase and Blizzard, right?
That's right. But what's the "NetEase" of Korea? Of Finland? Of France? Of anywhere else? Umm, it should be no problem because there's no "NetEase" in any other country, right? They could just open the client and play the game in China too. Why is this big news?
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
Imagine being a company essentially gaslighting their playerbase in favor of making big China dollars with mobile games and now that business decision kinda seems to have backfired...
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Yeah, makes me wonder how they thought it would be a good idea to put up with this bullshit for some ez cash grab money.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Yeah, makes me wonder how they thought it would be a good idea to put up with this bullshit for some ez cash grab money.
It's not limited to Blizz or even the videogames industry. Other companies doing business in China are affected as well. The US and EU, among others, have been complaining about unfair trade practices for years now but nobody is willing to do anything about it.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Makes me wonder what will happen if China invades Taiwan. Chinese gamers need to demand some homegrown games if they want to play in the future I'm thinking to prevent situations like this from affecting them.
Hopefully NetEase can make something other than pay-to-win games.
So the last part of this article would suggest that the chinese players will be playing on the Asia server. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Do they still have access to other servers?
On January 26 2023 11:23 ProTech wrote: So the last part of this article would suggest that the chinese players will be playing on the Asia server. Does anyone know if that's really the case? Do they still have access to other servers?
Yeah, as digmouse said in this thread and others have elsewhere, they can still connect to the other servers.
I'd also be kind of interested in the nitty gritty details, though. Is the Battle.net app defunct? How exactly are updates delivered now? How do you get a new copy of the game for your new PC? I assume the answer to most of that is setting sail to the high seas.
On January 25 2023 09:32 qcHanHan wrote: Goddamnit China.
This is entirely on the greed of Activision.
Yeah probably all Activision and nothing about how the Chinese state is isolating itself from the world by making it difficult for certain types of foreign businesses to operate there.
"Foreign developers need to be partnered up with a Chinese company to publish games in the country, a condition Blizzard no longer fulfills."
This doesn't make you wonder?
Makes me wonder what will happen if China invades Taiwan. Chinese gamers need to demand some homegrown games if they want to play in the future I'm thinking to prevent situations like this from affecting them.
Hopefully NetEase can make something other than pay-to-win games.
So there are plenty of homegrown gacha hells, making much better profit.
But in terms of games, it is not that easy to find something like Starcraft now, is it? Most of the words come from other blzz games but not SC. That's where the big money is.
Years ago, blizzard saw the end of Korean SC Kespa. That was even before their company scandals revealed. And news said there were some bad negotiations, even though it didnt touch the availability of games. I wouldn't say it was all good before Activision takes control. But now the "Blizzard" of present is killing all legacy from the real SC developers, in the game and around the game.
EPT
