Blizzard will be allowing World of Warcraft players in China to download their character data for safekeeping as the game's servers prepare to shut down in the world's biggest gaming market. Although it may be far in the future, this unusual move will preserve players' hard-earned years of progress in the event that World of Warcraft returns to China at a later date.
Late in November, it was announced that Blizzard would be suspending services in China due to a failure to reach an amicable publishing agreement with longtime Chinese publishing partner NetEase. Although it's uncertain what specific details fell through, Bloomberg reported through an anonymous source that "the problems weren't just the financial terms of the deal -- who owned the intellectual property and player data were also in dispute." As a result, most of Blizzard's services including World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Starcraft 2, and Hearthstone will cease to operate in China.
In an announcement on Wowhead, Warcraft franchise general manager John Hight reassured players that Blizzard is looking for a new distribution partner in China and that "We expect that the transition to the new partner for the World of Warcraft CN service will go smoothly." Until then, Chinese World of Warcraft players will be able to take their character data into their own hands by downloading their data onto their personal devices to be used whenever Blizzard services return to the region. It can be devastating to lose potentially decades of progress and memories in a game like World of Warcraft, and many players likely would never return to the game if they lost their data.
There may be more behind this failed deal than financial terms and intellectual property disputes, however, as NetEase Global Investment president Simon Zhu stated on LinkedIn that "One day, when what has happened behind the scene could be told, developers and gamers will have a whole new level of understanding of how much damage a jerk can make." Simon Zhu himself is an avid gamer who has admitted to spending "ten thousand hours" on World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and Overwatch. It's troubling that a massive international deal could have fallen through because of one individual.
Blizzard has gone to great lengths in the past to make World of Warcraft accessible in China, altering many character models and textures to fit China's strict censorship policies from the skulls lining the road to Icecrown Citadel to the visible bones of Undead characters. Hopefully, Blizzard finds a new publishing agreement soon so that Chinese players rejoin their characters in Azeroth.
World of Warcraft is available on PC.