To say that Activision Blizzard has entered a transitional period would be an understatement following its myriad scandals and its acquisition by Microsoft, and the challenges keep coming. Bloomberg reports that Blizzard and NetEase have canceled a mobile Warcraft MMO (codenamed “Neptune”) that was in development for three years, and NetEase has dissolved a team of more than 100 developers, many of whom were not transferred to other projects. The canceled mobile Warcraft MMO would have taken place in the same world as the venerated World of Warcraft but during a different time period.
Blizzard and NetEase reportedly could not agree on the terms that defined the project, and Bloomberg perceives the cancellation as a blow to Blizzard’s relations with the extremely lucrative Chinese market, since NetEase is the second largest video game corporation in the country behind Tencent. However, NetEase continues to be the Chinese distributor for World of Warcraft.
Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard is still invested in mobile gaming, which is part of the reason why Microsoft acquired it. Warcraft Arclight Rumble is notably available for preregistration as a mobile strategy game, and Diablo Immortal is providing a mobile Diablo experience that is apparently pretty solid if you can overlook the breadth of optional microtransactions.
Though it’s canceled now, would you have been curious to play a mobile Warcraft MMO?
