Netease CEO cancels Egypt press event for Dragon Sword, tells team to focus on making a good game

Netease’s upcoming fantasy MMORPG Dragon Sword (龙剑) is a big deal for the company. In fact, it’s such a big deal that the marketing team in charge of promoting the game had planned a major press conference at the Pyramids in Egypt in advance of the game’s first internal beta in November. (Dragon Sword apparently includes elements from a number of ancient cultures including ancient Egypt, which is why the Pyramids were chosen as a location).

That plan came crashing to a halt, though, when Netease CEO Ding Lei got wind of it and sent the kind of email that makes employees want to hide under their desks. His email, which was leaked to the Chinese press, is translated in full below. Keep in mind while reading this that in Chinese business culture, it’s very rare to criticize something in public, so while this might sound gentle (depending on your own cultural background), it’s actually a pretty stinging criticism:

Dragon Sword team:

I just saw the news that we’re going to do a press event at the Pyramids in Egypt, and although game promotion is better suited for young people to strut their stuff and I shouldn’t ask about all the particulars, this time there are a few questions I’d like to discuss with everyone.

1. What is the essence of games?

2. What do the players most need?

3. What can we do for the players?

Many years ago when I was working on my first web game, I asked myself these three questions. My answer was that the essence of games is to be a kind of entertainment that brings people happiness, and what players most need is fun games.

Creativity is a good thing, but we must firmly remember that the question “What can we do for the players?” is the root of Netease Games.

Dragon Sword is a good product, we don’t need to do publicity stunts, let’s do more to give players content that actually benefits them.

I recommend that the Pyramids thing be postponed a bit so that we can put all of our resources into serving the players.

For those of you who don’t speak CEO Chinese, “I recommend the Pyramids thing be postponed a bit” actually means cancel that right the hell now, and apparently the Netease team in Egypt has already been called back to China for urgent discussions on a new plan.