As we all know, the nostalgic server The Wrath of the Lich King will be officially launched globally on September 27, 2022. This time, the Chinese server did not choose to update on Thursday according to previous practice, and it was actually updated simultaneously on Tuesday. I don’t know if it is intended to make up for the regrets of players. After all, the word “synchronized” of once became the eternal pain of the Wrath version of the Lich King.
This time, the editor will lead all readers through time and space, back to 13 years ago, and look at that turbulent era again.
Opening:
Perhaps TBC is considered a lot of hard work, but compared to WLK with a ill-fated fate, it seems a bit small. The Wrath of the Lich King version has undergone a series of incidents such as review, agent replacement, server closure, and re-examination. Finally, it officially met with Chinese players on August 31, 2010. However, at this time, WLK's progress has lagged behind by nearly two years compared to other regions.
During this period, the dispute between Jiucheng and NetEase was even more intense. It was revealed that Jiucheng threatened to delete information angrily, and a series of incidents such as NetEase Ding Lei denied opening the server, and Warcraft players defended their rights one after another.
The first shot of this war may have been traced back to the summer of 2007. The starting point of the story is the game giant that Chinese players are quite familiar with - EA
1, and at the beginning of the war
Here we need to trace back two major backgrounds.
First of all, with the popularity of WOW, international game giants have already smelled the unlimited business opportunities in the Asian market, so major manufacturers have opened an era of competition and tried to enter the Asian market.
Secondly, my country has clear regulations that value-added telecommunications business must be qualified to operate by domestic enterprises or joint ventures, and the foreign-invested holdings in the joint ventures cannot exceed 50%, which means that foreign-invested enterprises are not allowed to operate directly. Online games fall into the category of value-added telecommunications services. Therefore, if international giants want to enter the Chinese market, they have to choose a partner to open a joint venture.
(1) EA and Ninth City
On May 22, 2007, Ninth City announced a cooperation with international gaming giant EA ( US Electric Tech ) to sell 15% of the shares for US$167 million. At the same time, Ninth City will also obtain the exclusive agency rights of FIFA OL, a subsidiary of EA.
So why do both parties have to conduct this transaction?
For EA, this is his perfect opportunity to enter the Chinese and even Asian markets. At that time, foreign game giants had not yet returned to China, and the popularity of World of Warcraft made them see this excessive and huge market and consumption capacity, so the major giants were ready to try to enter this territory. EA has begun to make large-scale arrangements in Asia, trying to intervene in the online game market.
And for the Ninth City, this is a deviant move and a big gamble. In that era, the Ninth City ranked among the top three in China's online game overlords, but unlike Shanda, later Giant, NetEase, etc., everyone understands that the Ninth City can only rely on the "World of Warcraft" game that can sit in this position. It can be clearly seen from the financial statements disclosed by Jiucheng every year that World of Warcraft's revenue in Jiucheng has always accounted for more than 90% of the year. Therefore, Jiucheng wants to get rid of Warcraft dependence and also wants to occupy a favorable position in the next agency negotiation.
So why did the two parties choose to cooperate with each other?
For EA, the Ninth City gave them a lot of confidence in the successful operation of World of Warcraft. EA firmly believes that Ninth City can work with its masterpieces FIFA OL and Warhammer OL to recreate its glory and reshape it into the next World of Warcraft.
For the Ninth City, EA is one of the few "thigh-level" characters who can compete with Vivendi Games ( Blizzard parent company). Why doesn’t Jiucheng know that he is walking on a single-plank bridge? It is very likely to cause the wolf to swallow the tiger. But as the deformed development of itself and the gradual approaching of agency contracts, the Ninth City has no choice.
(2) Activision and Vivendi
Just one year after the Ninth City and EA joined hands, something that made Ninth City despair occurred.On July 11, 2008, Activision, two giants in the gaming industry, officially announced the merger of US$18.9 billion. The merger will be officially completed in September of the same year. The new company name is Activity Blizzard, which is well-known to Chinese players.
This merger directly pushed the Ninth City from the foot of the volcano to the crater. The two giants are recruiting soldiers and are about to do a big battle on this land of China. Jiucheng takes EA's money, but its biggest revenue comes from its competitors... This situation is conceivable.
2, the battle between international giants
, Jiucheng, even though he knew that EA and Blizzard's parent company Vivendi were competitors, why did Jiucheng introduce EA? Are you planning to give up World of Warcraft? On the contrary, its more important goal is to hold World of Warcraft firmly in its hands. This is also his efforts.
At that time, Blizzard became popular worldwide with its Warcraft IP, and its influence and scale are competing with each other (although Blizzard is famous, it cannot be compared with other giants in terms of scale). Under this premise, the Ninth City, which survives on World of Warcraft, also feels safe with Japanese dramas. At the next negotiation table, they are likely to welcome Blizzard's Lion's big talk.
In fact, for Blizzard, it doesn’t matter who the agent is, and Jiucheng’s reputation was generally poor at that time. What is important is the joint venture, which is the important key to Blizzard's layout in China.
So has Blizzard's parent company Vivendi never thought about cooperating with Jiucheng?
subsequent information (from some leaks and uncles) shows that Jiucheng negotiated a joint venture with BLZ at the beginning of its cooperation. The success of World of Warcraft has allowed both parties to establish a good foundation for cooperation, but the business world focuses on interests rather than friendship. Perhaps it was because Blizzard was not large enough, or perhaps it was because Jiucheng wanted too much (according to unreliable revelations, Jiucheng hoped to obtain multi-age agency rights in World of Warcraft at the original price), or perhaps it was because Blizzard Lion who spoke out loudly. For whatever reason, the negotiations between the two sides eventually broke down and no cooperation was reached.
If this revelation is questionable, then the actions of the Ninth City in the subsequent indirect confirm this statement. After the negotiations broke down, Blizzard has revealed that it will seek another agent after the contract expires. Faced with this dilemma, the Ninth City did not hesitate to use the review mechanism to drag down the "burning expedition" launch time, which is also the reason why TBC is "extremely late". 's move aims to show BLZ its "muscles". If you leave me in this land of China, you can't play with it! Afterwards, he even took the initiative to introduce Vivendi's biggest competitor EA to invest in a joint venture, trying to force Blizzard to sit at the negotiating table again with a tough attitude.
However, Nine City's last move has gone to the most embarrassing route with the merger of Activision and Vivendi. Activision Blizzard's magnitude once again surpassed the ninth city. Not only did Nine Cities fail to achieve their original purpose, they were also in an extremely passive position because they introduced Vivendi's mortal enemy.
So what is EA doing at this moment?
As mentioned above, the international giants at that time were doing their best to compete for the fertile land of Asia, which was not yet developed. EA and Vivendi are fighting in an inch of land. At that time, in addition to reaching cooperation with the Ninth City, EA also spent US$100 million to acquire 619% of the equity of the Korean online game company Neowizhtml. At the same time, another epic masterpiece, "Warhammer", has also begun to be launched in the Asian market. The greater significance of 's cooperation with Jiucheng is that it temporarily hinders Vivendi's pace of entering China through a joint venture.
3, the doomsday dusk of the Nine City Empire
Perhaps the moment he introduced EA from the Ninth City, he was destined to lose World of Warcraft.
Nine cities that failed to coerce the Blizzard also activated their own rescue. On April 23, 2008, one year after the merger with EA, Ninth City announced that it would invest in South Korean game developer G10 Entertainment for US$38 million.Who is
G10 Entertainment Company? The answer is just three words - Jinwu Troupe
In addition, Jiucheng has also represented Korean online games such as World of Miracle and Sword of Excellence before and after losing World of Warcraft, and independently developed famous generals Three Kingdoms.
But as we know now, in the year when Ninth City lost World of Warcraft, revenue fell by more than 90%, becoming the fastest decline in Chinese history that year and even so far. No matter what efforts they make, they will eventually be able to regain the decline.
And Jiucheng's big brother EA can only be said to be a failure in the online game industry. FIFA OL did not become popular after all, and Warhammer OL was blocked from players due to cultural differences. In addition, domestic games such as Fantasy Westward Journey , Zhengtu and other emerged, which even squeezed the survival space of "foreign culture". In the end, EA regretted to withdraw from the Chinese online game market.
This cooperation ultimately failed to bring about a win-win situation.
At the same time, at the negotiating table, the Ninth City, who was deeply in trouble, had no choice but to play the "old method" again - the review system. In November 2008, the WLK version was launched globally, but in this huge country, only Taiwan Province has achieved synchronization. All mainland players were stuck in the eternal "TBC", and WLK was nowhere to go.
But this time, BLZ, after joining forces with Activision, is no longer the limit of this move. They are afraid of dragging, but they can already dragging it. Over the years of waiting and watching, they quickly selected new partners.
4, re-open
On August 13, 2008, NetEase announced the introduction of StarCraft 2 and Battle Network systems. The heavy information of undoubtedly sent a signal to the outside world: Blizzard has found a new collaborator.
More importantly, NetEase and Blizzard also established a joint venture to provide technical support and other services for game operations. Blizzard, who was eager to enter the Chinese market, finally got his wish on this day.
Perhaps the end of the ninth city has long been destined, but the real conclusion will undoubtedly start from this day.
On April 16, 2009, NetEase officially announced that it would exclusively represent World of Warcraft under Blizzard.
is also a domestic enterprise and a game giant. What you can do in the ninth city, can I, NetEase? Obviously impossible.
So, it is the same agent and the same joint venture, what is the difference between NetEase and Ninth City? Unlike the ninth city where revenue is basically entirely dependent on World of Warcraft, NetEase has popular independent research and development games, such as World of the World and Fantasy Westward Journey, among which Fantasy Westward Journey’s popularity has established its position as a giant. Unlike Nine Cities who rely on World of Warcraft to live, NetEase and Blizzard are more like an equal cooperation.
Ding Sanshi , which had not started raising pigs at that time, completed the deep binding with Blizzard with great courage.
5, server discontinuation
In June 2009, World of Warcraft officially discontinued the server. This server discontinuation aims to complete the transfer of World of Warcraft data. According to multiple media reports, the handover will be completed within about two weeks. However, everything has not been progressed as the media expected. Two weeks have passed, and Warcraft is still in a state of shutdown. At this time, both players and the media began to rumor that in a letter to players on May 17, Ding Lei promised that World of Warcraft would be launched on June 30. However, it was July soon, but the Warcraft was still not open. Angry players began to accuse and protect their rights, and Ding Lei had to stand up and deny that there had been such a letter.
Starting from June 29, players broke out in large-scale rights protection incidents, and 315 has repeatedly received complaint letters about World of Warcraft, and major media have also begun to criticize this situation.
So, why can't World of Warcraft be opened for a long time?
The reason is that on April 27, the General Office of the Ministry of Culture, issued the "Announcement on Standardizing the Review and Application of Content of Imported Online Games Products", which clearly stated that it would strictly abide by the "Interim Provisions on Internet Culture Management " issued on May 10, 2003, and the content review of imported and operated online games will be carried out by the Ministry of Culture, among which "the batch number must be re-declared after the operation rights change." Therefore, World of Warcraft has been unable to get the version number and cannot open the server.The issue of
version number has also become a pain for World of Warcraft now and in the future (the official server is still 6.0 version number).
Of course, we all know the end of the story. After 41 days of server suspension, World of Warcraft finally opened. The Wrath of the Lich King was also launched in 2010 with the efforts of NetEase. Since then, major version updates have never fallen into such a dilemma again and are basically in sync with the international community.
As for what role does Jiucheng play? It's hard to say, it's hard to say.
6, ending
Since then, the ninth city has been in a slump, and has gradually transformed and withdrawn from the online game market.
NetEase is deeply tied to Blizzard, and this cooperation has reached today. But NetEase was not immersed in the glory of "Blizzard" games. It used its own influence and huge funds to invest in a lot of game research and development, and became the only two overlord in the current Chinese game market.
Blizzard has gained the opportunity to enter the Chinese market. However, due to the lag in game development, there have been successive defeats on the battlefield. Although World of Warcraft is still strong today, Blizzard cannot create a second hit. Finally, it was acquired by Microsoft after a feminist storm. Although
EA has not entered the Chinese market, it still has many well-known IPs, such as the Battlefield Series, EA sport sports series, APEX heroes, etc., and is still the overlord on the game field.
The smoke of this war finally dissipated. It has nothing to do with justice and light, it is just a competition for interests. The shopping mall is like a battlefield. This is the wisdom of the ancients and the eternal truth. If you really want to choose an innocent person in this war, there will be only one million Chinese players. Some of the above text contents are original by me and cannot be reproduced without permission or used for other commercial purposes.
newcomers are not easy to write. Thank you for watching. I hope you can give you a free like. Next, the editor will continue to talk about some things about the Blizzard game. Interested friends can also pay attention. Thanks!
