Millions of Chinese gamers have lost access to World of Warcraft after a furious dispute between US title owner Activision Blizzard Inc and NetEase Inc (網易), its longtime local partner in the world’s biggest gaming market.
Devotees of the popular game took to social media networks to bemoan the loss, with one posting an image of a failed connection message accompanied by crying emojis.
“It really hurts my heart,” one wrote. “It hurts, it hurts too much,” another said.
Photo: AP
Massively popular worldwide, particularly in the 2000s, World of Warcraft — often abbreviated as WoW — is an online multiplayer role-playing game set in a fantasy Medieval world where good battles evil.
It is known for its immersive and addicting gameplay, and players can rack up hundreds of hours of game time.
Blizzard’s games have been available in China since 2008, through collaboration with NetEase — under local law, foreign developers are required to partner with Chinese firms to enter the market.
The 14-year partnership had brought significant benefits to both sides, helping NetEase become China’s second-biggest games distributor after Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and giving Blizzard a way into an enormous Asian market.
However, the two companies broke off talks late last year on a new licensing agreement to make Blizzard franchises like Diablo, Warcraft and Overwatch available in China.
The acrimony escalated this month when NetEase accused its longtime partner of being “rude and inappropriate.” Blizzard had offered to extend their licensing agreement another six months while they work out new terms, but NetEase described the idea as “proposing a divorce while still engaging with the same partner.”
Beyond financial terms, the key sticking points in the dispute included ownership of intellectual property and control of the data of millions of players across China, Bloomberg News previously reported. In its January statement, NetEase said it never sought to control IP rights in its tie-up with Blizzard, whose gaming assets it only used upon mutual agreement.
Servers hosting Blizzard’s games shut down in China at midnight on Monday. The company has promised to let World of Warcraft players save their progress with a new service. NetEase warned that it cannot guarantee the safety of that service, saying it may pose a security risk.
Rather than taking sides in the corporate dispute, for ex-players the dominant sentiment expressed on social media was disappointment.
“It is truly a sad day for World of Warcraft players and Blizzard Entertainment fans everywhere,” one wrote online. “The sudden shutdown is a stark reminder of impermanence, displacing millions of players.”
This time was supposed to be different. The memorychip sector, famous for its boom-and-bust cycles, had changed its ways. A combination of more disciplined management and new markets for its products — including 5G technology and cloud services — would ensure that companies delivered more predictable earnings. Yet, less than a year after memory companies made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion industry is suffering one of its worst routs ever. There is a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, customers are cutting orders and product prices have plunged. “The chip industry thought that suppliers were going to have better control,” said
Enimmune Corp (安特羅生技) has obtained marketing approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its EnVAX-A71 vaccine for enterovirus 71 (EV-71), becoming the nation’s first enterovirus vaccine completely made in Taiwan, it said yesterday. After spending 13 years and NT$1.5 billion (US$49.77 million) on the research and development of the vaccine, Enimmune plans to start manufacturing and marketing it by the end of March, the company said in a statement, without disclosing customer order figures. “It is possible that the vaccine would not be included in a national vaccination program initially, and consumers would need to pay for it themselves,” parent
Hon Hai Technology Group (鴻海科技集團), also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) internationally, yesterday said it was confident that its performance would improve in the second half of this year. Investment plans related to electric vehicles (EVs) in different parts of the world are expected to gradually start coming to fruition, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told reporters after leading a new year’s prayer at the company’s headquarters in New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城). Major challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war continue to affect the global economy. However, Liu said that he expects a turnaround in
Singapore is seeing an influx of ultra-wealthy families from China looking to protect their wealth from a government that increasingly views them with suspicion. The Chinese Communist Party’s recent crackdowns on tech billionaires and tax-shy celebrities, as well as three years of “zero COVID” policies, have led many rich Chinese to look for a safe haven. Nervous over the fate of their fortunes, some of the country’s mega-rich have since booked tickets to Singapore, insiders said. The key Asian financial hub ticks all the boxes for relocating tycoons. Singapore has been ruled by one party for the past six decades, and labor strikes and