Cover news reporter Fu Wenchao
On January 23, NetEase released the announcement “NetEase’s Farewell Letter to Blizzard National Server Players: Thank You for 14 Years”, officially announcing the suspension of Blizzard games. At 0:00 on January 24, 2023, “World of Warcraft”, “Hearthstone”, “Watching Pioneer”, “Diablo III”, “Warcraft III: Remastered Edition”, “Heroes of the Storm” and “StarCraft” represented by NetEase series of products, all operations in the Chinese mainland market will be officially terminated. Blizzard will close the Battle.net login and all game servers, and close the client download at the same time.
At the same time, Netease also stated that for players and all Netease staff, the player’s role, account number, equipment and friend list are not just a string of codes, but each My own youth, passion and life. NetEase will not forget its commitment to players, and will do its best to serve Blizzard national server players until the last moment, and walk the last mile with players. The company expects to officially announce the refund arrangements for Blizzard game products after the suspension of the service. Players are requested to pay close attention to the official account of the “Blizzard Game Service Center” to obtain refund-related information in a timely manner.
In addition, Netease recalled the 14 years with the players in the farewell letter. For this beautiful memory of mutual choice and co-creation, Netease said that it will not disappear because of the suspension of the server. A shining presence in ordinary days. At the end of the farewell letter, Netease once again reiterated that it hopes that the suspension of the server is not the end of the national server players, but just a helpless suspension. NetEase sincerely expects that all Blizzard players can return to the national server one day.
On November 17, 2022, Blizzard first announced the termination of cooperation with NetEase. The 14-year cooperation between the two parties parted ways, which aroused great attention from national server players and the media. NetEase subsequently issued a statement stating that it “has to accept Blizzard’s decision” and that the two parties “could not reach an agreement on some key cooperation terms involving sustainable operations, the Chinese market and the core interests of players.”
On January 17, 2023, Blizzard issued another announcement, attributing the termination of the transitional agreement cooperation negotiations to Netease, and then Netease refuted the rumors in the Blizzard announcement about “Netease refused Blizzard to postpone the service for six months”, “wanted IP control”, etc. False news that caused criticism.
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