Blizzard Entertainment officially announced today (17th) through an official press release that the cooperation with NetEase in mainland China will officially end on January 23, 2023. Almost all games under Blizzard Entertainment’s “World of Warcraft “, “Diablo”, “Hearthstone War Chronicle , Overwatch, StarCraft, and Blizzard Heroes are all suspending operations. Only the mobile game “Diablo Immortal” will continue to operate due to its independent contract.
After the news broke, Sina Technology interviewed Netease, and Netease issued the following statement:
NetEase has been doing its best to negotiate with Activision Blizzard, hoping to move the contract renewal forward. After long discussions, we are still unable to agree on some key cooperation terms with Activision Blizzard. We are very sorry that Activision Blizzard announced the termination of cooperation in advance today, and we will have to accept this decision. NetEase will continue to perform its duties and serve our players until the last moment.
Regarding Blizzard’s statement, you can read our previous article: Blizzard and NetEase have decided to break up, and all Blizzard games will be suspended in China. Overall, Blizzard said it is still trying to find other ways to bring the game back to China.
The news of the breakup of the two parties immediately affected NetEase’s stock price. After the news broke, NetEase’s stock price fell by almost 15%. As of the writing of this article, it has rebounded slightly, but the drop is still more than 10%.
However, it may not be that simple for Blizzard to bring the game back to China. According to the “Notice on Further Strengthening of the Control of Online Games” the three departments of the State Council of China: online games that have pre-approved or imported by the General Ministry of Press and Publication change the operating unit It is necessary to go through the pre-approval or import approval procedures again. From the date of the change of operating unit to the re-approval period, the online game should stop all operating services.
That is, even if Blizzard finds the next agent, they will still have to reapply for the license, but from time to time, China’s censorship of foreign games is very strict, and it will be very difficult to get a license.
In fact, in recent years, NetEase has adopted the method of stealing the version number of the expansion pack of “World of Warcraft”. According to the records of the National Press and Publication Administration of China, the version number of the last version released” World of Warcraft” is still in the “World Army” “Expansion packs, but in fact, the progress of the game of Chinese players is the same like that in the world, because after the policy was tightened later, the expansion packs were all in the name of “updates” to avoid the censorship that should have been repeated.
All in all, it looks like Chinese gamers won’t be able to play Blizzard games for a while.
