NetEase 9-city dark battle upgrade: game World of Warcraft transfer plan

"Our current focus is to ensure a smooth transition to World of Warcraft. We have already done a lot of work, including purchasing hardware and setting up an operation team. Shanghai's customer service center is recruiting people ." On June 23, April 21, NetEase blizzard cooperation project director Li Riqiang told this reporter. Li arrived in Shanghai that night to prepare for the handover of World of Warcraft.

The World of Warcraft, which the industry has been speculating on, is finally settled. Blizzard and NetEase announced on the afternoon of the 14 th that after the expiration of the existing operation right agreement of World of Warcraft in mainland China, their exclusive operation right will be granted to NetEase's affiliates for a period of three years.

World of Warcraft is currently the most popular online game in the world, even though it has been a pillar of revenue for 9 cities for the past four years. 9 City, the loss of World of Warcraft means a sudden loss of more than 90% of revenue, how to develop in the future, how to place employees into 9 city concerns.

Zhu Jun once hinted at an internal meeting that Jiucheng still has the opportunity to roll back the disk, but industry analysts are unlikely to do so. "NetEase and Jiucheng both listed companies have published news, and the result is unlikely to change," said the people above, "But at present, the two sides are likely to play the final game on the" World of Warcraft "handover issue."

Blizzard's Chinese brand

Starting from last May, Jiucheng started a long negotiation with Blizzard on the renewal of World of Warcraft. It is reported that, in addition to NetEase, several other online game giants have been in contact with Blizzard.

However, NetEase has the greatest determination. In the Revenue Structure of NetEase online games, more than 70% still come from the traditional Fantasy Westward Journey. "NetEase has recently launched several large online games, but there are still some gaps compared with the previous series of" Westward Journey "," said J.P. Morgan's analyst Wei Di ." NetEase needs a new product line to boost revenue growth.

According to NetEase's financial report, online games have become a pillar of their revenue. In 2008, NetEase's online game service revenue was RMB 2.5 billion, contributing more than 80% to its total revenue.

However, Li stressed to reporters that "this cooperation has not considered much about financial performance, and the company mainly considers how to do a good job of operation. The development of 3D online games is a weakness of NetEase. However, 3D games will undoubtedly become the mainstream in the future ." Yi Feifan, an independent analyst, believes that "the agency that has obtained World of Warcraft and the cooperation with Blizzard will help NetEase strengthen its R & D and operation capabilities in the 3D game field ." This is also an important reason why NetEase strives for "World of Warcraft" proxy.

For NetEase's victory, Chen Xiaowei, president of Jiucheng, accused the other party of providing blizzard with more profit sharing through the establishment of a joint venture, "putting Jiucheng negotiations in a dilemma ." Therefore, the industry guessed that Netease paid a "high price" for this.

"As a matter of fact, we are not as 'paying a high price' as we have outside rumors '." On the evening of June April 16, NetEase, a person close to the negotiator, revealed that Blizzard's cooperation conditions with NetEase were "not much" compared with the previous cooperation in Jiucheng ".

In this opinion, NetEase's most important reason for obtaining the "World of Warcraft" proxy right lies in its closer cooperation with Blizzard. EA, Blizzard's biggest competitor, holds 15% of the shares in Jiucheng, which is obviously a negative factor for the relationship between blizzard and Jiucheng.

NetEase started close cooperation with Blizzard in last August, and both parties announced the establishment of a joint venture in China, at the same time, we will assign the exclusive operation right of Blizzard's StarCraft II and other games and the "war Network" platform in mainland China to NetEase's affiliated company, Shanghai Net Yi Network Technology Development Co., Ltd.

These people told reporters that Blizzard has long wanted to find a company with sufficient R & D strength: "Compared with other online gaming companies that started from agency, NetEase, certainly more advantageous." This person further revealed that the partnership between blizzard and NetEase may not be limited to game agency operations, but may even include joint development of products targeting the Chinese market in the future.

Competition behind "Warcraft"

After the news of the World of Warcraft agent privilege is sent out, the most important question for players is whether user data and other information can be retained. Can the smooth transition from 9cheng to NetEase be achieved?

In the past, the legend of Shanda agent and the dance troupe of Jiuyou agent, the change of agency power is a continuation of the competition. Even if a dispute arises, it does not involve the transfer of original user data. The transfer of World of Warcraft is different. We need to transfer all the game data and the information of nearly 5 million gamers from the Jiucheng server to NetEase, which is a huge project.

According to the reporter's understanding, NetEase and Jiucheng have started to have frequent contact with the World of Warcraft handover issue.

In an internal email to employees in Jiucheng, Chen Xiaowei said that Netease submitted a "transfer" request to Jiucheng through Blizzard, "Nine cities can transfer US $73 million worth of servers and other hardware devices to them for $22 million, while all the staff running World of Warcraft, especially customer service personnel of nine cities, transfer at $1 million to the company." Chen Xiaowei said this practice was unacceptable.

However, NetEase said it would purchase a brand new server. "The specifications of the machines we are purchasing are not only based on the current game content and number of people," Li Riqiang said. "We have communicated with Blizzard about the future direction of the game, the purchased servers must meet the needs of future upgrades and resizing."

For operators, NetEase Game Shanghai customer service center has started large-scale recruitment, including GM, customer service specialists, training specialists, quality control specialists, and so on, covering almost all operations. NetEase specifically stated in the recruitment conditions that "priority will be given to those who have relevant work experience and are familiar with World of Warcraft and are willing to take root in the game industry ".

9 City also noticed the competitor's dash. It is reported that 9 city has signed a non-compete agreement with its employees. Another news said that Zhu Jun revealed at an internal meeting that the team would use new options and other means to stabilize the team and retain the core staff responsible for the World of Warcraft business. There are indications that Netease and Jiucheng have begun to fight over World of Warcraft.

Blizzard, Jiucheng and NetEase all expressed silence on the key question "whether user data belongs to Blizzard or Jiucheng. On June 19, April 21, Blizzard China told reporters that it is currently balancing various solutions and making every effort to minimize the impact of the transition ."

Although the user's role information is owned by Blizzard, the corresponding login account and role are in the hands of 9cheng, without the user data of this relationship, it cannot match the player. An online gaming company's top executives said, "This is an angry saying that as long as it is a commercial thing, there will eventually be a solution. Both companies are listed companies and will choose their preferred practices ."

Difficulties in data sheet approval

Who is the most direct beneficiary of the World of Warcraft agency competition, Zhi Fandi, a carrier in Taiwan, is undoubtedly one of them.

According to World of Warcraft players, a large number of Chinese players have recently switched to the server, resulting in a sudden increase in queuing. In April 17, in response to the surge in the number of players, Zhi Fandi has decided to limit the creation of new characters on some servers, it also promises to enable new servers as soon as possible so that players can enter the game in the shortest time.

"The WLK (World of Warcraft New Data Sheet) approval has been dragging on for so long. Now we have to wait for another proxy and re-approve it. I don't know when the Chinese server will be ready to play ." A gamer told reporters that if NetEase cannot launch new data sheets as soon as possible after taking over, the users of World of Warcraft will be further lost.

Li Riqiang said that he hoped to ensure the global version of World of Warcraft on the premise of complying with national laws and regulations. "according to our experience, he would communicate with regulatory authorities, provides reference data and game design concepts, and strives to launch new data sheets as soon as possible."

In addition to NetEase, Jiucheng also needs to race against time. After losing 90% of revenue, how can we try to make up for this loss through other products as soon as possible.

According to the reporter's understanding, in addition to World of Warcraft, the sword of excellence and the miracle of the world can also contribute part of the income to 9 cities. The recent release of FIFA online2 and the continuation of Audition2, which has won the release number, were also highly expected by Jiucheng.

"What should we do in the current status?" a 9-City insider said, "too many resources inside 9-City were focusing on World of Warcraft. in the future, you may have more energy to play other games."