Chinese gamers say goodbye to “World of Warcraft” after disagreement between Blizzard and NetEase

Chinese gamers of “World of Warcraft” regretted this Monday that the successful online role-playing game is no longer available in the Asian giant, due to a commercial disagreement between the American company Blizzard and its local partner.

After disagreeing with the Chinese NetEaseBlizzard had already announced in November that Chinese users would no longer be able to play “World of Warcraft”, as well as other star titles of the company, such as “Overwatch”, “Diablo III” either “hearthstone”.

The servers for these games will go down in China on Tuesday at 00:00 (17:00 GMT on Monday).

“Is the end”wrote a user of the Weibo social network (the equivalent of Twitter in China), who accompanied his message with the crying face emoji.

“It was not just a game, but the youthful memories of an entire generation,” said another user.

This online role-playing game, set in a medieval fantasy universe, was a worldwide phenomenon, especially during the first decade of the 2000s.

Blizzard launched “World of Warcraft” in China in 2008 thanks to a collaboration agreement with Chinese internet giant NetEase.

Foreign video game companies are required to partner with a local company to penetrate the Chinese market.

Blizzard Y NetEase They put an end to their collaboration in November, after failing to reach an agreement in their discussions to renew the exploitation contracts.

“The two companies take the players hostageWu, a 32-year-old doctoral student and user of “World of Warcraft” for ten years, lamented in statements to AFP.

But this gamer, who spent three hours a day playing role-playing games, prefers to see the glass half full before the servers close.

“I didn’t spend enough time with my wife. Now that ‘World of Warcraft’ is gone, I can make myself forgiven“, it states.

Source: AFP