The American gaming company Blizzard Entertainment is forced to leave the Chinese market. Local publisher NetEase refused to renew the licensing agreement with Blizzard, thus ending a partnership that had lasted 14 years. About this American company informed in the Chinese messenger Weibo. As a result, on January 23rd, the Warcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, HearthStone, and other Blizzard titles will no longer be available to Chinese players.
The companies have long been negotiating a possible extension of the license agreement, but they ended to no avail in November last year. “We’ve put in a lot of effort and tried to negotiate with Activision Blizzard with the utmost sincerity to continue our collaboration and serve the many dedicated gamers in China,” NetEase founder and CEO William Ding said at the time. The American side last week offered to extend the agreement for at least another six months, but this proposal, as Blizzard reported today, was eventually rejected.
Blizzard has been looking for new partners to sell its games in China since the end of last year. However, according to South China Morning Post, this process is being delayed, and the American developer will not have time to find a new partner in China until January 23. This means that for some time the company’s games will not be presented on the Chinese market. Blizzard itself has already offered a new service to Chinese players in order to save their game progress in the products of the American studio.
NetEase, in turn, has already effectively dissolved the Shanghai division responsible for working with Blizzard products, according to SCMP. According to the newspaper’s source, regarding 100 people worked in this unit in November. After the parties failed to agree on an extension of the agreement in November, most of the employees left the company. There are now regarding ten people working there, who stay to deal with the logistics associated with the suspension of various games, such as technical problems and customer service. But they will leave the unit in the coming months.