“Foreign capital that has most thoroughly implemented “de-Sinicization”” belongs to the game giant Blizzard. In addition to calling for the suspension of almost all of its games in China, it will not even open e-sports competitions such as “Hearthstone” and “Overwatch” in the future to open local players to participate. This not only reflects the changes in the Chinese market in the eyes of foreign capital, but also the result of Blizzard’s “light freedom, heavy resources.”
In February this year, Blizzard announced its latest financial report. The operating profit for the full quarter of 2022 was US$625 million (approximately NT$18.8 billion), an annual decrease of more than 10%. Wonderful in the play.”
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick voluntarily cut his salary as a sign of repentance. The case of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still stuck in the regulatory authorities’ antitrust charges. Stephen Totlio, a reporter specializing in the game industry, said on Twitter that Blizzard’s recent series of incidents are “like local dramas that make people blind.” Give”.
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But the most dramatic is probably the massive withdrawal from the Chinese market. This not only caused Blizzard to terminate the contract with its partner NetEase and pay a fee of 27 million US dollars, but also caused a lot of criticism from players. On February 13, Blizzard’s “StarCraft 2” global e-sports competition was won by Chinese player Li Peinan for the first time. After the game, he said, “The national server is closed, everyone don’t buy it, and don’t pay Blizzard any more.”
Blizzard is determined to “de-Chineseize”, and it can be seen from the contract renewal terms with NetEase: 1. The price of Blizzard games in China is 20% cheaper than overseas, and Blizzard will increase the price; 2. The net profit share will be increased from 50%; 3. For China officially approves the version number, and NetEase must prepay a huge deposit to Blizzard for each game. If the official version number is not obtained in the end, the money will be confiscated as a “fine”.
These terms are like a boy chasing a girl, and the girl does not refuse on the surface, but makes a condition that “we will date you when you become the richest man in the world.” The subtext of this condition is that you don’t want to play with the other party. Therefore, NetEase criticized Blizzard’s conditions as “not in line with business logic.”
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China’s revenue only accounts for 3% of Blizzard, so it doesn’t hurt to let go
But Blizzard also has difficulties, first of all, the poor environment in China. In recent years, China’s game industry has repeatedly been punished by Beijing, from Tencent being stipulated that children under the age of 14 cannot play for more than 8 hours a day, to the unpredictable power of the authorities: The Wall Street Journal reported in August last year that the authorities stopped issuing 8 game licenses. During the month, more than 16,000 game companies went bankrupt.
This makes it difficult for foreign capital to operate. According to the South China Morning Post, the game developer Epic Games owns the most famous online shooting game “Fortress Heroes”. Although it has Tencent’s help to launch the game, it failed after several years of efforts because it has not been approved by the regulator. Now that Blizzard is withdrawing from China, it is also the result of foreign capital “voting with their feet” on the policy.
But Blizzard’s business structure is also the reason for its “de-Chineseization”. First of all, China will only account for about 3% of Blizzard’s revenue in 2021, so it can be cut or discarded.
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But more importantly, Blizzard is also in transition. In the past, it was an independent studio, and no one forced Blizzard to hand over the profit report card. Therefore, it can “sharpen a sword for ten years” and polish the game to perfection before launching it. This is the origin of the word-of-mouth reputation of “Blizzard produced, must be a boutique” in the past.
Today, it is already a member of the conglomerate “Activision Blizzard”. Compared with other members, it is the king of the evergreen mobile game “Candy Crush”. Last year, its operating profit was almost twice that of Blizzard, and its profit performance also outperformed. Blizzard’s “slow work produces meticulous work”, and the money earned in half a day is only half of that of others. Naturally, the group has opinions.
“Bloomberg News Network” reported that before the launch of “Diablo: Immortal” in June 2022, Blizzard had no new games for 6 years, which made the group’s top management dissatisfied. More senior designers, “Executives urge Blizzard to develop games more frequently and pay attention to profits.”
This means that Blizzard can no longer “sharpen a sword in ten years” like in the past. The market environment has changed, and it is difficult for it to replicate past successful models.
Game YouTuber “Mo Guyu” said that with the rise of mobile games, people now want fast-paced games that can be played at any time, and they can get happiness in a short time. People can’t sit still in front of the computer, playing a work that takes a long time to experience fun. The same is true for short videos like Douyin, which replace long-form texts on Facebook. Under this general trend of “short for the long”, the erosion of computer games by mobile games may become more serious.
Computer games have always been the main product of Blizzard, but now the market is becoming less and less friendly to such games. It is also a member of a corporate group, and it can only transform in order to survive. China, which used to monopolize computer games, has become the target of Blizzard’s abandonment. The only game Blizzard operates today is Diablo Immortal — which happens to be a mobile game.
However, Blizzard’s “de-Sinicization” reflects the trade-off between “freedom” and “resources”. In the past, as an independent studio, although the resources were limited, the creative freedom was great, so it took a long time to polish the game to perfection, and it didn’t have to pay attention to the extra-game issues that moral people care about.
After becoming a member of the group, Blizzard has more resources than before, but it does not have the freedom to focus on players and the game itself, and must meet the group’s high-level and social expectations. In the foreseeable future, more games may be launched at an accelerated pace, or more efforts will be made to promote gender and racial equality issues.
These all rely on group resources to succeed, but relativelyblizzardIt is also difficult to go back to the free years of “just make the game good”. This is the player’s loss, but it is the businessman’s victory. Perhaps this is the real meaning behind Blizzard’s “de-Sinicization”.
(Author: Yang Shaoqiang; this article is sponsored by “Business weekly“Authorized to reprint; the source of the first picture:blizzard）