It looks like if you are a game publisher over in China, you would need to have up to half a dozen permits before a game can even roll out in that part of the world. The more challenging thing is this – majority of such permits cannot be picked up by foreign-operated companies. Microsoft is no doubt a foreign company, and they intend to get a workaround by partnering with NetEase so that Minecraft could be published in the world’s most populous country.
It does make plenty of sense, as NetEase has a major Western-gaming reputation already courtesy of its partnership with game makers Blizzard. In fact, NetEase handles Chinese publishing duties at the moment when it comes to all of the major video games from Blizzard, and will also soon publish Overwatch. Well, if Microsoft were to work with NetEase, then we can more or less see Minecraft expand its borders, and with the Internet cafe culture being pretty big over there, who knows how much more revenue can Minecraft pull in with a new pool of gamers?
This particular move does lend credence to the ancient words that whenever there is a will, there is a way. After all, Microsoft needs to recoup some of the $2 billion plus it spent on acquiring Mojang.
Filed in . Read more about Microsoft and Minecraft. Source: arstechnica