Blizzard is Closing its Servers in China Today. China Market Future Uncertain

Blizzard is about to shut down its services in China today, as it was unable to reach a favorable partnership renewal with NetEase, the Chinese company handling Blizzard's business in the Chinese market, including local regulatory compliance, geographic localization of servers, and accepting payments. NetEase CEO William Ding said the partnership renewal negotiations fell apart due to "material differences on key terms." This means gamers in China no longer have a means to play the genre-defining MMORPG "World of Warcraft," "Starcraft," and other popular titles. A lot has changed in China's domestic gaming industry over the past two decades, and there are dozens of popular game studios with their titles in the MMORPG genre.