Activision/Blizzard have been getting more and more flak recently with their emphasis on trying to maximise profits at the cost of game design and employee happiness which is nothing new to the gaming sector unfortunately. This is equally so with what is generally the trend among big corporations that want to get as much of the market share as possible; they try to appeal to the Chinese population.
Activision/Blizzard have done so pretty well due to a contract with NetEase which gave them a license to sell their games within the country due to specific laws from the Chinese Government that prohibit game sales in China. As such this deal is pretty important to Activision/Blizzard but now it seems that the renewal ofthis deal has fallen through and as such their games will no longer be playable or purchasable within the country leading to a massive loss in both revenue and players.
Now we don’t know exactly why this deal fell through and we do know that some games like Diablo Immortal won’t be affected by this as they run on a seperate license deal however considering this is a big AAA company we can probably deduce that this has something to do with money and NetEase asking too much from them. Ultimately it’s a funny move as if you cast your minds back to some years ago the Heathstone player ban controversy was based entirely on Activision/Blizzard sucking up to the Chinese Government and now it would seem that they are getting no special treatment anymore. Looks like they backed the wrong corner. We don’t know at the moment if any new deal will come up to get the games back to Chinese audiences however it can be assumed that this won’t be the case and that their profits are going to nosedive quite soon. Looks like bad days are ahead for them.
That’s all for now, and as always. It’s not just a game, It’s a Life.