World of Warcraft: The lights will soon go out for Chinese players

The Chinese players are currently on the verge of an MMO meltdown, because according to the current status, the Blizzard game servers there will be shut down in January and there is currently no light at the end of the tunnel.

A good three million players in China are said to be playing World of Warcraft. A joke in relation to the population, but a respectable number compared to the total number of players in WoW. However, the said three million WoW players in China are currently facing a meltdown, because according to the current status, the servers of the popular MMO will be shut down there in January.

The reason is that the sales partnership with NetEase, which has been in place for 14 years, is expiring. And such a partnership with a local publisher is absolutely necessary. All video games require a Chinese publisher and state licenses to be distributed in China, and Western titles in particular are looked at twice.

The deal with NetEase fell through at the time because they could not agree on fundamental points and NetEase allegedly distributed the games from Activision Blizzard at a loss. Another problem is the regulation introduced in 2021 that minors in China can only spend up to one hour playing online games on Fridays, weekends and public holidays – not good for a time waster like World of Warcraft.

So far, Blizzard hasn’t been able to find a new publishing partner in China, so the servers will shut down in January and players won’t be able to access the game at least until a new deal is struck — in the worst case, never again. Blizzard has already sent an open letter to Chinese players, confirming that they are looking for a new publisher and want to make sure there is a way to save characters and progress so nothing is lost goes.

Stupid for Blizzard and the players: Not only World of Warcraft is affected, other Blizzard titles such as Overwatch, Hearthstone, Diablo III or Starcraft 2 are also affected. This is going to be exciting …