A brand new report in Bloomberg (opens in new tab) says that Blizzard and NetEase have cancelled a World of Warcraft spinoff after three years of improvement. The sport was being developed by NetEase, China’s second-largest video games firm after Tencent, which co-developed Diablo Immortal
In keeping with the report, the spinoff was internally known as Neptune, and was meant to be a cell World of Warcraft MMO set in a distinct time interval to the primary sport. NetEase apparently had a crew of over 100 folks engaged on the title. It has reportedly been disbanded, with solely a few of these retaining roles on the firm.
Bloomberg’s report places the cancellation all the way down to a dispute between Blizzard and NetEase over phrases, curiously sufficient, slightly than issues over the product’s high quality.
Neither NetEase nor Activision Blizzard have commented on the report.
Blizzard is constructing cell momentum proper now due to Diablo Immortal, which has been vastly profitable regardless of controversies over its microtransactions (opens in new tab), whereas it additionally has Warcraft Arclight Rumble developing.
Blizzard additionally canceled a Warcraft cell sport based mostly on geolocation a la Pokemon Go, Bloomberg earlier reported. That sport, code-named Orbis, had been in improvement for 4+ years. Cellular video games are usually made in a lot much less timeAugust 3, 2022
The partnership between Blizzard and NetEase goes method again to 2008: The Chinese language firm has, for instance, been working WoW in China since 2009. NetEase has printed all the Blizzard video games launched in China, has partnered with it on improvement, and is closely concerned in stuff just like the Overwatch League (it even has a stake within the present champs).
Given such a longstanding and intertwined relationship, the obvious cancellation of Neptune appears unlikely to be the start of a serious rift, not least as a result of Blizzard arguably wants NetEase extra now than ever: The Chinese language authorities is in the midst of a giant tech crackdown, with gaming firmly within the CCP’s sights. Even the titans like Tencent are being delivered to heel (opens in new tab) so, if Blizzard desires to maintain raking within the Renminbi, it has to maintain its Chinese language mates on-side.
