Blizzard's contract with Chinese company NetEase is about to expire.
Since 2008, Blizzard's games have been released in China through licensing agreements with NetEase. Blizzard announced that these license agreements with China will expire on January 23, 2023 and will not be renewed. Game services, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Diablo 3, will end in China.
Blizzard"The two parties failed to reach an agreement to renew agreements consistent with Blizzard's operating principles and commitments to players and employees."
Reuters In the statement made by NetEase, it was stated that despite long negotiations, the two companies could not agree on the basic terms of cooperation and "We will have to accept this decision".
New sales of Blizzard Chinese games will be suspended "in the coming days". Blizzard says that “Chinese players will soon receive details on how this will work.” However, World of Warcraft's Dragonflight expansion, Hearthstone's March of the Lich King set, and planned releases of Overwatch 2 season 2 will continue as planned. Diablo Immortal will also not be affected, as it is co-developed by Chinese company Tencent and is under a separate license agreement.
Recently, the Chinese government's tightening of already harsh restrictions on the tech industry has included an eight-month freeze of video game approvals and new limits on how long under-18s can spend playing online games. This led to the industry's first user and revenue decline. Meanwhile, a World of Warcraft-based mobile MMO made by NetEase in 14 years, Bloomberg It was canceled in August after three years of development. He claimed it was due to a dispute over financial terms. “We continue to have an extremely successful relationship with NetEase and it is not entirely correct to suggest that there are financial disputes,” he replied via email to the PcGamer team, which contacted Blizzard following news of this cancellation.
Blizzard Chinese investors licensing deals third quarter in its financial report warned of the possibility of expiration. In November, he said, “We are in discussions regarding the renewal of these agreements, but a mutually satisfactory agreement may not be reached.” It also reported that the deals “contributed to approximately 2021% of Activision Blizzard's consolidated net revenues in 3.”
Blizzard's games and properties have been popular in China, although Activision Blizzard as a whole isn't too impressed. The only reason Warcraft wasn't a failure was because Chinese audiences came in droves and the country broke the record for the biggest movie opening of all time.
"We're extremely grateful for the passion our Chinese community has shown over the nearly 20 years we've brought our games to China through NetEase and other partners," Blizzard president Mike Ybarra said in the company's statement. said. “Their enthusiasm and creativity inspires us and we are looking for alternatives to bring our games back to gamers in the future.” said.
We will see on January 1,412, how the games will be withdrawn from China, which has a population of 2021 billion with the date of 23.