Blizzard is reportedly back to working with Netease again to bring their video games to China.
As reported by Dexerto, a Chinese language website called 36Kr broke the rumor that Blizzard shopped their games around with several Chinese companies, but eventually chose to partner with NetEase.
While this should be welcome news for Chinese gamers, this comes at a time when China’s video game industry faces the harshest regulation it has ever seen. Under these circumstances, it will take at least six months, and more likely even more, for the two to finish arrangements and reopen for business.
When Blizzard first broke the news that they were leaving China, the circumstances were somewhat mysterious. They were allowing their contract with Netease to end without renewing, and even stranger, the company, under now retired CEO Bobby Kotick, were leaving a lot of money on the table.
And then, in January of last year, Netease employees made a public showing of destroying a giant World of Warcraft statue they commissioned for their partnership with Xbox. Netease aired their grievances about Blizzard being a difficult partner to work with. It later came to light that Bobby Kotick himself felt threatened by some communications Netease made. Bobby’s interpretation was that Netease made veiled threats about the Chinese government intervening in their deal, but Netease claims that this was a misunderstanding from poor translation.
Well, as heavy as this drama had been when it played out early last year, all of that is likely forgotten. Both companies are in a completely different place and situation. Activision Blizzard King, of course, has been purchased by Microsoft. Bobby Kotick has exited the publisher. Matt Booty now has jurisdiction over them, as president of game content and studios for Microsoft Gaming.
On the other hand, the Chinese government has drafted new rules further limiting video game business practices. As reported by GameRant, these laws will control things like first time spending, consecutive microtransaction rewards, and daily log-in rewards. The new rules will go so far as to control how much players can spend per game.
These rules and their effect on the industry, as well as Chinese gamers, are somewhat misunderstood in the West. Two things are true in this situation; these rules curb some of the worst predatory practices game companies use against gamers, and this is the harshest regulation of video games the industry has seen in its history.
To punctuate how potentially misleading this information is; China has a rule right now requiring that children can only play games 90 minutes a day, or 3 hours on holidays. New Scientist discovered in a study that Chinese gamers actually spent more time playing video games after the rule was implemented.
So, obviously, it was adult gamers that covered the difference with playtime. But at the same time, this should not make us ignore the harsh rules placed vs child gamers. Most major gaming markets would not implement rules this harsh, even with the opportunity for abuse.
So, these are the strange new circumstances Blizzard and Netease find themselves in. Netease is unlikely to have saved the user data they had when their initial partnership ended, so Chinese gamers will likely have a true fresh start themselves if this collaboration comes to fruition, possibly in the middle of 2024.
