Diablo Immortal was set to release on June 23 in China, but a few days before this, a post on social media delayed the whole thing. It turns out that Winnie the Pooh post somehow mocked Chinese President Xi Jinping. In China, censors regularly remove references to Winnie the Pooh, whose likeness is used in memes and jokes to reference the country's president.
"The development team is making several optimization adjustments to the game," NetEase claimed last month. This included "support for a broader range of models and devices, the highest quality rendering on more models, a lot of experience, network and performance optimizations, and more.
This was the report from Chinese developer and publisher NetEase in June, which initially stated that the title’s launch had been moved due to "content enhancement." According to Bloomberg changed the game by finding out the real reason behind this. And how real this was? The social media post found (as well as the account where it was found) were blocked:
“In reality, the delay was due to a deleted social media post interpreted as criticism of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to other people familiar with the situation. As a result, the official Diablo Immortal account that NetEase operates on the Chinese microblogging site Weibo has been blocked from posting for “violating relevant laws and regulations,” according to a banner notice affixed to the feed.
The game is now expected to launch in the country next week on 25th July.
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