Servers closing, lawsuits firing. Blizzard might be sued by NetEase!
With the server closure in January of last year, former Chinese publishing partner NetEase launched a lawsuit against Blizzard Entertainment, demanding 300 million Yuan (about $43.5 million USD) in compensation for stopped games and services.
January’s server downtime caused some trouble
Thanks to Wowhead’s post, we can see what the issue is. Any international media corporation wishing to conduct business in China must do so through an intermediary approved by the government due to the country’s stringent regulations. Since the two parties could not reach an understanding, Blizzard had to stop all business activities and services in China.
The discussion was not really professional, with both parties accusing and openly mocking each other. According to the most recent information in this story, NetEase plans to sue Blizzard for $43.5 million. Refunds for the cancelled games are the motivation for this.
According to Sina Technology’s official post:
“Shanghai NetEase Network Technology Development Co. Ltd. filed a lawsuit in Shanghai against Blizzard Entertainment Ltd. for breach of the series license agreement, seeking a refund of 300 million RMB. The amount includes full refunds paid by NetEase in connection with discontinued games such as World of Warcraft, prepayments for the inventory of unsold games, and prepayment deposits for several undeveloped games. The case also involves World of Warcraft and other CN region game-related agreements: contains a number of unequal terms and conditions in favour of Blizzard’s unilateral rights, the legality and enforceability of the relevant provisions of the huge dispute.”
Millions of Chinese players from games including Warcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, Overwatch, StarCraft, and Heroes of the Storm have been unable to log into their old accounts since servers were effectively shut down on January 23. While some people chose to create new accounts in other areas, upsetting the people who already lived there, many people opted for reimbursements that Blizzard had promised and that NetEase had already paid for.
The most shocking thing is that NetEase tore down a World of Warcraft statue outside its headquarters, giving the argument the appearance of a public separation. Additionally, the business broadcast the entire procedure live on the Naraka Bladepoint channel. Check out the video below on the CN Wire channel:
Netease dismantled the Warcraft Gorehowl statue in its park and set up a live stream. $NTES rejected Blizzard $ATVI's proposal about extending their 14-year partnership for six months to look for a new partner, saying that was non-reciprocal and unfair.https://t.co/Z35BaWer2B pic.twitter.com/lLUb3QsT4W
— CN Wire (@Sino_Market) January 18, 2023
However, there is a comment from redditor @Jaeger_Kej saying that the statue is not being torn down because of the disagreement, but to be replaced by something else that was previously planned. Check out below:
This is not fully covering the story, they are tearing down the statue so they can replace it with a weapon in NARAKA: BLADEPOINT, which is a game that they published, this is not malicious because without the license I doubt they can keep the statue up anyway.
— Jaeger (@Jaeger_Kej) February 1, 2023
The entire situation should be carefully handled as China has a lot of players that use Blizzard and the only company that might have to gain something from that could be themselves. Not to think about the players’ years of progress and grinding being lost like that. That must hurt and we really feel compassionate about them.
