The release of Diablo Immortal in China has been postponed a few days before its launch. The official view is that the development team will need more time to optimize the game, but it has been delayed due to the ban on Blizzard’s Chinese social media accounts.
New on the weekend China Blizzard Website Press Release The Diablo Immortal development team explained that many optimization adjustments need to be made, including support for a wide range of devices, improved rendering quality, and other network and performance improvements. No new release date is provided. The only news is that Diablo Immortal will not be released on June 23rd.
NetEase, a Chinese game giant and co-developer of Diablo Immortal, reported that its share price fell 10% the morning after the announcement was delayed. South China Morning Post..
Further development work is the official reason for the delay from NetEase and Blizzard, but we haven’t stopped speculating that the recent social media ban is the actual reason behind the changed launch plans. Recently, Diablo Immortal’s official Blizzard Weibo account (China’s most prominent social network) allegedly posted a reference to Winnie the Pooh. After posting, the Weibo account was reportedly banned due to “violations of relevant laws and regulations”. SCMP..
Fictitious bears are often used as a way to criticize Chinese leader Xi Jinping and are often intervened. A recent example is the video game Devotion, which was pulled from Steam after the discovery of Winnie the Pooh’s meme in the game.
The Financial Times NetEase shares also reportedly fell in response to a backlash against Winnie the Pooh’s post, but it is currently impossible to know if the social media ban itself was the reason for Diablo Immortal’s delay in China. Is.
This is not the first time Diablo Immortal has been in hot water. Despite having $ 24 million in microtransactions since the main launch, players are very dissatisfied with Blizzard’s approach to monetization. The game has collected reasonable reviews, but Diablo Immortal has been facing a backlash since its announcement in 2018.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Features Editor.
