On June 6th, according to the official Weibo account of World of Warcraft, the Chinese server's file deletion technology test will start on June 11th. After this test, the Wrath of the Lich King may officially open within June. The Beijing Business Daily reporter noticed that players can now pre download "Wrath of the Lich King" in World of Warcraft after downloading the Warcraft client.
World of Warcraft also stated that this technical test will be open to all players, with no account limit, and players can experience the game content of Wrath of the Lich King at levels 1 to 20. During the testing period, a dedicated testing server will be set up, which will be open from 11:00 to 23:00 every day. After the testing is completed, all testing roles will be deleted.
Regarding the return trend of other games under Blizzard, Beijing Business Daily contacted Blizzard Game Service Center, but as of the time of publication, no response has been received. According to a previous joint article by NetEase and Blizzard, the updated game publishing agreement will cover players in various national server games under the previous agreement, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and other series of games based on the respective game universes of Warcraft, Guardians, Diablo, and StarCraft.
Since Blizzard and NetEase announced the resumption of cooperation in April this year, the return of domestic Blizzard games has always been a concern for players. Player Chen Ge told Beijing Business Daily reporters that as a loyal player, he is definitely happy about the return, but he is more concerned about whether there will be a significant improvement in the player's gaming experience after this return; Some veteran players have also shown a relatively lackluster performance. Player Wang Dong mentioned that they have also found some alternative games after the server was shut down, so this return may only restore their account data as a commemoration, and the launch will not be too frequent.
The collaboration restarted, the game reopened, and the player community became lively again. Everything seemed to have returned to its original point, but it was different.
In November 2022, Blizzard announced that it would not renew its contract with NetEase after it expired. In January 2023, Blizzard games such as World of Warcraft and Hearthstone were discontinued in China. In October of the same year, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Blizzard.
From the quarterly financial report data, NetEase's net revenue from games and related value-added services reached 21.5 billion yuan in the first quarter of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 7%, benefiting from "Egg Party" and several newly launched games. Microsoft's 2024 fiscal year third quarter report shows that the revenue of Microsoft's Xbox gaming division increased significantly by 51% year-on-year, with 55% of the growth coming from Activision Blizzard.
It is worth noting that NetEase disclosed in its Q3 2022 financial report that its games, represented by Blizzard, contributed lower single digit percentages to NetEase's revenue and net profit for 2021 and the first nine months of 2022.
In addition, when NetEase and Blizzard announced their "merger" earlier, they also announced that Microsoft Games and NetEase had reached an agreement to try to bring new NetEase games to Microsoft Xbox and other platforms. This means that NetEase will no longer be just a game agent for Microsoft subsidiary Blizzard, but also has the opportunity to become an important part of Microsoft's gaming ecosystem.
Game industry analyst Wei Mingye pointed out that to some extent, Blizzard played a bridging role between NetEase and Microsoft in the restart of this collaboration. By leveraging the return of Blizzard's IP, we aim to establish a closer partnership between NetEase and Microsoft.
"Microsoft has the ambition to enter the mobile game market and its influence in overseas markets. NetEase is familiar with the mobile game industry and the Chinese market, while maintaining a positive attitude towards going global. The cooperation between the two sides can provide new possibilities for opening up greater market space for their own products." Wei Mingye said.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Lu Yang and Han Xinyuan