Diablo Immortal is slated to launch in China next week on July 25 after a month-long delay.
According to a report by Bloomberg, Chinese gaming publisher NetEase has finally got the go-ahead to publish Diablo Immortal in China. However, the sources for Bloomberg's report, speaking anonymously, claim the date of July 25 can still be subject to any last-minute changes.
For those unfamiliar with the affair so far, Diablo Immortal was initially slated to be published under NetEase in China late last month in June. However, the mobile and PC game was pulled from launch with merely a few days to go, and no reason from either developer Blizzard or publisher NetEase was ever given as to why.
The new report from Bloomberg sheds some light on that situation as well. The initial delay of the game was due to a social media post "interpreted as criticism of Chinese President Xi Jinping" from Blizzard, and the official Diablo Immortal account on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo NetEase operates was suspended.
A report earlier this month claimed that Blizzard was losing out on potentially millions of dollars in revenue every day by delaying the launch of Diablo Immortal in China. The game's main form of revenue comes from microtransactions, which fans have been vocally critical of since the game launched last month, claiming it offered a pay-to-win scheme for players. For what it's worth, Blizzard rebuked these claims earlier this month in July, claiming most players weren't spending real-world money.
Here's why Diablo Immortal only makes us want Diablo 4 even more.
