After Blizzards licensing agreements with NetEase expired over a year ago, all of their games were shut down in China. Now there is hope for a comeback!
After Blizzards licensing agreements with NetEase expired over a year ago, all of their games were shut down in China. But according to their Chinese publishing partner NetEase, Blizzards games should come back this summer.
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Blizzard Games To Return To China
In case you've missed out on what happened a year ago. Here is a small recap.
Since 2008, Blizzard Entertainment had a licensing agreement with publisher NetEase for the games World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III, Reforged, Overwatch, the StarCraft series, Diablo III , and Heroes of the Storm, which gave NetEase permission to publish these games in China. Since Diablo Immortal is running under a different agreement with NetEase, it remained available in China.
Blizzard will be suspending #Overwatch2, WoW, and other game services in China early next year The company is looking for alternatives to bring their games back to players in mainland China though, with their current agreements ending January 23, 2023. pic.twitter.com/3HGWLqCvDK
— Overwatch Cavalry (@OverwatchCaval) November 17, 2022
Since Chinese law requires, that a Chinese company distributes and manages games in their country, international game developers seeking to release their game in China must first secure a licensing agreement with a Chinese company.
The licensing agreements between Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase have been a difficult issue for a long time. But when their original agreement was expiring, Blizzard and NetEase were unfortunately not able to agree on some important terms of cooperation and have therefore decided to end their partnership in January 2023.
Over a year has passed, and NetEase and Blizzard Entertainment finally gave us an update on the current situation. On Wednesday, the publishers announced that "World of Warcraft", and with it all the other Blizzard games are returning to China this summer.
“We at Blizzard are thrilled to reestablish our partnership with NetEase and to work together, with deep appreciation for the collaboration between our teams, to deliver legendary gaming experiences to players in China," ~ Johanna Faries, President of Blizzard Entertainment.