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![]() ![]() The Gray Lady reports that the dispute flared up in a October 2022 Zoom call during which NetEase reps were concerned about the Chinese government’s ongoing antitrust crackdown on gaming. ![]() Thanks to new reporting in The New York Times, we’re getting a slightly clearer picture of what went wrong behind the scenes – and who the unnamed Blizzard “jerk” NetEase’s Simon Zhu referred to back in November might be. Though both companies insisted the failed partnership was of no financial signifigance, Blizzard suggested NetEase’s proposals ran contrary to its operating principles, while NetEase implied Blizzard negotiated in bad faith and blasted Blizzard for a last-minute WoW-saving proposal it said was “brash, unseemly and commercially illogical.” A NetEase exec ultimately pinned the blame on an unnamed Blizzard “jerk,” but the full details of how the partnership soured weren’t public, and the games went dark for millions of Chinese players and the Chinese staffers who worked on them. The companies’ inability to reach a new agreement at the end of their multi-year contract resulted in the closure of multiple games in China, including World of Warcraft, and created waves of drama and sniping. ![]() One of the biggest MMO and gaming stories capping off the end of 2022 and spilling over into the start of 2023 was the dissolution of the Activision-Blizzard-NetEase partnership that governed the publishing of Blizzard’s games in China. ![]()
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