It is estimated that in January about 100,000 players in China lost access to their favorite MMORPG World of Warcraft when Blizzard’s agreement with the local partner NetEase expired. For many, this is a huge disruption in their lives.
This is the situation:
- In 2008, World of Warcraft came to China. To market a product in China, Western companies need a local partner. That’s how the party that controls everything in China wants it. This practice is criticized by Western companies.
- For 15 years, there was such a deal between Blizzard and NetEase. However, on January 23, 2023, the deal expired. Apparently, Activision Blizzard no longer wanted to be tied to NetEase for the long term, as they plan to sell the company to Microsoft. Therefore, all Blizzard games went offline in China – except Diablo Immortal.
- A Chinese site estimates that WoW still had about 100,000 daily players in China.
The MMORPG lost many “casual players” since making a change in the payment model in 2018: Previously, Chinese players could play for 4,000 minutes for about €4 – since then they had to pay €10 for one month. For many Chinese, it was no longer worth it, and they quit.
How are the players dealing with their loss? The site “The World of Chinese” spoke with a WoW player who had been playing WoW for 15 years and had to stop abruptly.
28-year-old office worker Hu from Beijing says: “When the servers were shut down and you couldn’t even log in with all your characters, at that moment I was a bit sad.”
The man didn’t even take screenshots of the last moments. He said he didn’t want to feel that sadness again when he looked at the pictures.
The player estimates that he spent about 10,000 hours playing WoW. It all started when his cousin became enthusiastic about WoW in 2008. But when his cousin quit in 2010, the now 28-year-old took over his account, and then it really took off.
What remains as a memory are rather the little things: He says that when he took a break from the game around 2008, a friend made him a pink T-shirt and sent it to him via in-game mail. The player says: He kept the shirt until the servers went down:
“Of course, there is the feeling of having lost something… so many memories and experiences.”
What do other players say? Another player, born after 2000, only started playing WoW 5 years ago. He says:
On the last night, I had already saved my character through the “Digital Urn” system and created a new character to say goodbye to the world and my friends. How sad, in that moment it felt like my youth, which I spent in the game, came to an end.
Many Chinese blame Blizzard
How do the Chinese see it? As the site “The World of Chinese” writes, people are mainly angry at Blizzard and not at the government. In particular, the fact that Diablo Immortal continues seems to upset people towards Blizzard.
People believe that Blizzard is intentionally neglecting the PC and is keen on the booming and lucrative mobile market in China.
Can’t they just continue playing elsewhere? Yes, they can. The site states that Chinese forums are full of tips on how to start anew with WoW on other servers, such as in Japan or Korea. You need to set up a PayPal account, get a phone number in Hong Kong, and purchase “boosters” for the internet connection.
Some Chinese take this on and then say they feel at home again on a new server.
Others, however, write: They cannot overcome the feeling of having lost everything in WoW. To start again at 0 on a foreign Asia server and find new friends, to do all the quests again – and to do it all alone. That is too much.
Skyrim: Son honors dead mother in her favorite games – ‘This way she is with me on every adventure’
The title image is a symbolic photo: Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
The 28-year-old with 10,000 hours says:
When it’s over, it’s over for me. What I value the most are the memories that WoW gave me and the friends.
In gaming, there are always moving stories:
Skyrim: Son honors dead mother in her favorite games – ‘This way she is with me on every adventure’
The title image is a symbolic photo: Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
