Diablo Immortal release in China reportedly in jeopardy after Blizzard Weibo account insults Xi Jinping Blizzard EntertainmentThe Chinese release of Diablo Immortal could be in trouble after the game\u2019s official Weibo account compared Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh. While Diablo Immortal released on June 2 in the US, it still hasn\u2019t come out in China. Now, based on a Weibo post from the game\u2019s official account, it could be quite awhile before it does. According to translations of the post, the official Diablo Immortal Weibo account apparently insulted Xi Jinping, the leader of China, in a mixup of epic proportions. Diablo Immortal Weibo account mocks Xi Jinping The post reads \u201cWhy isn\u2019t (Winnie) the bear going out of office yet?\u201d and makes reference to Winnie the Pooh, which Xi has been compared to in the past. The Chinese leader isn\u2019t fond of these comparisons, which has been cause for various games and media being banned in the past. On the game\u2019s subreddit, a post about the reported ban included an excerpt from a Chinese Diablo fan who provided more context. \u201cA guy who works in Diablo Immortal\u2019s marketing team (which have access to the official social media account) did something very sensitive,\u201d they explained. \u201cNow, we don\u2019t know did he forgot to switch the account or he use DI\u2019s official account intentionally \u2013 but the result is, he used DI official account to post a thread which complains \u2018When would THE BEAR(implying Chairman Xi) fall off the seat?’\u201d The post itself only got attention when it started going viral on Weibo, which has reportedly resulted in harsh penalties for NetEase, Blizzard\u2019s distribution partner in China. \u201cThat\u2019s why DI marketing was completely shut down in China, and Netease itself was heavily affected too,\u201d they continued. \u201cRumor says Netease will not get any license for game publish in the following three whole years, but we don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s true or not.\u201d If NetEase is unable to publish games for the next three years, it could affect every Blizzard game, not just Diablo Immortal. \u201cIf that\u2019s true, it will also affect Diablo4, Overwatch 2 and WoW Dragonflight, and might even force Blizzard to change their cooperator in China mainland,\u201d the Chinese fan continued. Immortal\u2019s release being delayed in China has been known, but before Blizzard said it was to \u201cimplement quality of life changes\u201d and \u201coptimize\u201d the game. There is no official confirmation the game has been outright banned in China, but now that this Weibo post has come to light, the \u201csurprise\u201d delay isn\u2019t that much of a surprise any more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Diablo Immortal release in China reportedly in jeopardy after Blizzard Weibo account insults Xi Jinping Blizzard EntertainmentThe Chinese release of Diablo Immortal could be in trouble after the game\u2019s official Weibo account compared Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh. While Diablo Immortal released on June 2 in the US, it still hasn\u2019t come […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}