A new report has shined new light on Activision-Blizzard’s falling out with Chinese gaming company NetEase which resulted in its gaming being taken offline in the communist country.
On January 23, Overwatch 2, World of Warcraft, Diablo, Hearthstone, and Starcraft were taken down in China following failed renegotiations with a local publisher, NetEase.
The breakup was a nasty one. Amid the drama, NetEase destroyed its World of Warcraft Orc statue and smashed it with sledgehammers.
As it turns out, according to a report by New York Times, NetEase had a very poor relationship with Activision’s chief executive Bobby Kotick and it even factored in with Destiny content.
Bobby Kotick worried $100M investment would “distract” from Destiny content
The NYP reports that NetEase felt Kotick had made “unreasonable demands” over the years and used an incident in 2018 was an example.
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According to the report, when NetEase made a $100 million investment in Bungie, the company Activision worked with to help produce Destiny, Kotick was unhappy with the decision.
His reasoning was that Bungie was already behind schedule in developing Destiny content and worried that the company would be “distracted” from its Destiny obligations.
Of course, in the time since, Destiny 2 has grown to become a mega hit with players, but it’s quite interesting to see how this feud between Activision and NetEase expands to other game studios as well.
Whether or not Activision will return to China remains to be seen, but the company is in talks with other companies and could work with Tencent or ByteDance in the future.
