The event of Blizzard Entertainment.

20 10 12 After the owner of Warcraft changed hands for more than a year, Blizzard China, which has always been low-key, was once again pushed to the forefront of industry public opinion.

Weilun Ye, the former general manager who led Blizzard China for two and a half years, has left. He was replaced by Dai Jinhe, who was the business department director of Nokia China. More exciting news is that Blizzard China is said to have a serious leak, which has aroused strong dissatisfaction from the company headquarters and has started a thorough investigation. It is said that this may trigger a wave of internal blood exchange and cleaning.

The news of the coaching change was not revealed until several months later.

It was not until several months later that the news of Weilun Ye's departure was revealed.

This message was first published by Uncle Lao Dao, a well-known person in the game industry, on his Weibo. "I just feel strange. Ye has been gone for several months and no one mentioned it, so I said it." Lao Dao told reporters.

About half a year ago, Weilun Ye began to fade out of Blizzard China, and officially left his post more than two months ago.

An obvious example is that during his visit to China in 20 10, Mohan, CEO of Blizzard, met with Liu Binjie, Director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, on September 10. At that time, Dai Jinhe attended as the executive director and general manager of Blizzard International Division, but Weilun Ye did not attend.

As early as three or four months ago, Dai Jinhe began to intervene in specific management affairs, during which he had several meetings with relevant departments of Netease.

Blizzard obviously didn't intend to announce these news, and the reason for Ye's departure is unknown.

"Weilun Ye seems to be a transitional figure in an extraordinary period," said an online game industry executive who did not want to be named. Weilun Ye originally came from Trend Micro. Shortly after he joined Blizzard China, the "Warcraft agency change incident" broke out and the approval storm that was delayed for half a year later.

For Weilun Ye's departure, some industry observers believe that there may be Blizzard's thinking on China's strategic transformation behind the coaching change.

It has been reported that although the World of Warcraft National Service is nominally operated by Netease and Blizzard only provides technical support, in fact, Blizzard has a greater say in it and has been deeply involved in many affairs at the operation and maintenance level.

Although Netease has firmly denied this rumor for many times, many people in the industry still believe that Blizzard will seek its own independent operation if the policy allows, even after the cooperation with Netease expires in the future. It is worth noting that Blizzard set up a research and development center in Shanghai on 20 10 and recruited a considerable number of engineers.

According to the analysis of the above-mentioned online game executives, the choice of the new coach may also be revealed-Dai Jinhe's previous market operation experience in Nokia may be what Blizzard values. However, two people close to Blizzard said that Weilun Ye's departure was mainly based on his personal career plan. At least six months ago, Weilun Ye expressed his intention to leave Blizzard. "Ye's departure is said to be to return to the IT field, and he doesn't seem to want to continue to develop in the game industry." An online game executive familiar with Blizzard said.

Perhaps many people didn't notice that after Li Riqiang and Chen Xiaowei, Weilun Ye's departure made Netease, Ninetowns and Blizzard leave the online game industry in the "Warcraft Storm" of 20 10, and that thrilling battle for agency rights gradually sank into the industry history.

The leak triggered an internal investigation.

If it is not a serious leak, perhaps the news of Blizzard's coaching change will still not be concerned.

165438+ Starting from129 October, a series of product plan promotion documents about Blizzard in China and around the world spread on the Internet. Some media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the information was leaked from inside Blizzard China.

Yao Yang, a well-known "uncle" among World of Warcraft players (player's terminology refers to an insider who has special channels to receive version updates and other information), also wrote an article on the Internet and disclosed that he had consulted relevant people of Blizzard about the leaked product plan, and the other party said that it was indeed Blizzard's expected plan, but there may be discrepancies in the specific implementation, and Blizzard did not intend to make it public on 20 10.

In addition, the more frightening rumor is that, in addition to the published screenshots of product planning, it is reported that the internal documents that flowed out this time also contain sensitive information such as the detailed number of users, income, advertising budget and media plan of Blizzard Global Games.

For this news, the National Business Daily reporter failed to verify the authenticity. If these documents are really disclosed, it will undoubtedly cause huge losses to Blizzard. According to informed sources, some online game companies in China are planning to buy these documents. The leak also made Blizzard headquarters furious and expressed strong dissatisfaction with the China branch. Blizzard China is conducting an internal investigation into this incident.

There is speculation that Blizzard China may face a "change of blood". However, some insiders of Blizzard China revealed to the National Business Daily that there was no obvious movement inside the company, and even though it was under investigation, there were not many key suspected departments. "The outside world is very lively, but the situation is not so exaggerated. As for Weilun Ye's departure, it has nothing to do with it. " According to the reporter's comprehensive information, at least there is no visible large-scale "exchange of blood" in Blizzard China.

People familiar with the matter believe that there are contradictions between different departments in Blizzard China, and it is not excluded that Blizzard Headquarters intends to take the opportunity to "exchange blood" with Blizzard China. It is reported that Paul Sams, global CEO of Blizzard, will go to Shanghai to inspect Blizzard China Company next week and participate in relevant forums on game development. "Sam is here to inspect. There may be articles in it. " The person said.

Blizzard China did not respond positively to this series of rumors. Blizzard China only said in his reply to the verification letter of this newspaper, "As always, we thank you for your concern about the existing and future games of Blizzard Entertainment, but as always, we will not comment on all kinds of rumors and speculations. We have no new news to disclose. " 20 13 On April 9th, the announcement from Blizzard Entertainment official website announced that Blizzard Entertainment had acquired IPL from IGN. The original IPL employees have joined Blizzard and set up a new team in San Francisco, focusing on providing high-quality web pages and mobile content support for Blizzard Entertainment's games. At the same time, some former IPL employees also joined Blizzard's existing e-sports team.