After an absence of more than a year, Blizzard's biggest games will soon be returning to China. Tonight, Blizzard confirmed it did I struck a new deal with NetEase To return all games covered by the previous publishing agreement, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone “and other titles in the Warcraft, Overwatch, Diablo, and StarCraft universes,” to the Chinese market. The new deal will take effect this summer.
“We at Blizzard are thrilled to re-establish our partnership with NetEase and work together, with a deep appreciation for the collaboration between our teams, to deliver legendary gaming experiences to players in China,” Blizzard President Joanna Farris said in a statement. Extremely grateful for the passion the Chinese community has shown for Blizzard games over the years, we are focused on bringing our worlds back to players with excellence and dedication.
NetEase began publishing Blizzard games in mainland China in 2008, but that deal expired in January 2023, and was not renewed. Each company naturally pointed the finger at the other: NetEase said it had “exerted a great deal of effort and attempted with the utmost sincerity to negotiate with Activision Blizzard,” but that “material differences over fundamental terms” prevented a new deal from being reached; Blizzard said NetEase was responsible for the closure because it was not willing to extend the existing deal for another six months while Blizzard was looking for someone else to take the reins.
Rumors about the new deal were first sparked by a leaked image posted on Twitter by CN wire (via Kotaku) allegedly shows NetEase CEO Ding Lei in a meeting with new Blizzard president Joanna Farris, who took over in January 2024; The account also said that NetEase is expected to announce the return of Blizzard games to the Chinese market on April 10.
And after a short time, South China Morning Newspaper It reported the same thing, citing “a person familiar with the matter” and “local media reports.” The SCMP report echoed CN Wire in saying that the new deal will be announced on April 10, but claimed that Blizzard games will not actually return to China for at least another month.
It's now official, and it's not a completely unexpected outcome: Activision Blizzard has said multiple times since the NetEase deal ended that it remains “committed” to the Chinese market. But perhaps it was Microsoft's acquisition of the company, which was approved by the Chinese government in May 2023 before both the UK Competition and Markets Authority and the US Federal Trade Commission (which it is still fighting), that finally helped get the deal done.
“Blizzard and NetEase have done a fantastic job of renewing our commitment to gamers,” said Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Gaming. “Blizzard's worlds have been a part of gamers' lives in the region for many years. Bringing back legendary Blizzard games for players in China as they explore them.” “The ways to bring more new titles to Xbox demonstrate our commitment to bringing more games to more players around the world.”
Microsoft also has a separate deal with NetEase to “explore bringing new NetEase titles to Xbox consoles and other platforms.”
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