Blizzard and NetEase renew partnership bringing games back to China

Blizzard has made a new deal to bring its games back to China a year and a half after NetEase and the Microsoft-owned developer parted ways.

Blizzard confirmed that all the games covered by the previous publishing agreement, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, “and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and StarCraft universes,” will return to the Chinese market by summer 2024.

According to a statement on Blizzard’s website, Microsoft Gaming and NetEase have also entered into a separate agreement to explore bringing new NetEase titles to Xbox consoles and other platforms.

“We at Blizzard are thrilled to reestablish our partnership with NetEase and to work together, with a deep appreciation for the collaboration between our teams, to deliver legendary gaming experiences to players in China,” said Johanna Faries, president of Blizzard Entertainment. “We are immensely grateful for the passion the Chinese community has shown for Blizzard games throughout the years, and we are focused on bringing our universes back to players with excellence and dedication.”

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer agreed, saying: “Returning Blizzard’s legendary games to players in China while exploring ways to bring more new titles to Xbox demonstrates our commitment to bringing more games to more players around the world.”

Since 2008, NetEase had been the publisher for Blizzard’s games in mainland China. However, this partnership came to an end when their agreement expired in January 2023 and was not renewed. NetEase, which is based in Hangzhou, previously said Blizzard games only contributed a low-single-digit percentage of its revenue and profit. According to Rest of World, World of Warcraft had over three million registered users in China at that time. The Chinese gaming industry is the largest in the world and includes industry behemoth Tencent Holdings.

“We have put in a great deal of effort and tried with our utmost sincerity to negotiate with Activision Blizzard so that we could continue our collaboration and serve the many dedicated players in China,” NetEase founder and chief executive officer William Ding said at the time. He added that “material differences on key terms” prevented a new deal from being reached. However, Ding has since stated that “we are thrilled to embark on the next chapter”.

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