John Paul M. Joaquin Games 06.21.2022 02:Jun AM EDT

Diablo Immortal Has Been Delayed Indefinitely in China — Is NetEase's Controversial Weibo Post to Blame?

Diablo Immortal might not be coming to China anytime soon.

The controversial entry to Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo franchise was delayed in China after the game's official account on the Chinese social network Weibo was suspended, per PC Gamer.

Diablo Immortal currently has a Metacritic score of 68 and a user score of 0.4, making it one of the lowest-rated games in video game history, with Madden NFL 21 being the second lowest-rated game, according to Metacritic.

Diablo Immortal Indefinite Delay Details

Diablo Immortal was initially scheduled to release in China on June 22 as part of the Asia Pacific region, according to a blog post from Blizzard Entertainment. However, a report from the Financial Times mentioned a post made on the official Diablo Immortal account on Weibo that made critical comments about "the bear," which was apparently interpreted as a reference to Winnie the Pooh.

Winnie the Pooh has been used as a character used to criticize or mock Chinese President Xi Jinping due to their seemingly similar facial features.

The comparison allegedly bothers and rubs the Chinese president the wrong way, and as such, the Chinese government forbade anything that has to do with the character, such as the ban on the 2018 Disney film Christopher Robin and the revocation of the business license of Indieevent, the Chinese publisher of the Taiwanese video game, Devotion, per a separate PC Gamer article.

Devotion reportedly contains in-game art that featured Pooh Bear in a bad light, which was interpreted as criticism aimed at Xi Jinping.

Netease, the Chinese game developer that co-developed Diablo Immortal with Blizzard and the company managing the game's official Weibo account, received a ban from making new posts on Weibo due to the "bear" post.

Another reason Diablo Immortal could have been indefinitely delayed could be due to the game's monetization scheme, which has been very successful but at the cost of receiving strong criticism from the franchise's long-time fans.

Diablo Immortal was reported to have achieved $24 million in earnings two weeks after it was released. It was also downloaded more than five million times during the same period. However, its monetization scheme restricts people from properly progressing into the game unless they spend money to enhance their character.

In fact, a streamer who featured the game in their stream spent almost $16,000 to get a 5-star gem needed to improve a player's character, per Video Games Chronicle. However, he needed $110,000 to fully max out a post-game character with legendary gems, which didn't sit well with fans of the Diablo franchise, dubbing the game and its microtransaction scheme as "predatory."

This microtransaction scheme may have been frowned upon by China despite free-to-play games being more common and popular in China, such as Geshin Impact. Thie disapproval is due to the Chinese government cracking down on the country's tech industry by imposing measures such as time limits and streaming restrictions for minors.

Diablo Immortal's New Release Date In China

Netease has yet to give a new release date for the game in China. However, it mentioned that it wanted to make improvements to the gameplay experience and conduct "multiple optimization adjustments" to do so, per Reuters.

The company did not disclose the exact reason that caused the game's indefinite delay or its social media ban.