Most Blizzard games are no longer available in China as of today. Blizzard has shut down most of its games in China, including World of Warcraft, Overwatch 2, and Diablo, because it couldn’t reach a deal with its publishing partner NetEase. (Diablo Immortal is still available because it was published through a separate deal with NetEase.)
Reports say that Blizzard tried to extend the current deal by six months so that players could keep playing games while the company looked for a new publishing partner.
This is why the deal is coming to an end. The company said NetEase turned down the extension deal in a post on its Weibo account. This is what the post on the World of Warcraft site Wowhead said in English:
We approached NetEase again last week for assistance in exploring a six-month extension of our existing agreement, which is based on terms NetEase has agreed to in 2019, to allow everyone to continue playing without disruption and for Blizzard to continue exploring a reasonable and long-term path forward in the China region.
Unfortunately, NetEase did not accept our proposal to extend the existing game service agreement following last week’s extension negotiations.
This seems to have irritated NetEase a lot because the company replied with a post that, according to a translation from Wowhead, said:
For unknowable reasons, last week Blizzard re-sought NetEase with an offer of a so-called six-month extension of the game service and other conditions, and made it clear that it would not stop continuing negotiations with other potential partners during the contract extension.
And as far as we know, Blizzard’s negotiations with other companies during the same period were all based on a three-year contract period. Considering the non-reciprocity, unfairness and other conditions attached to the cooperation, therefore, the parties could not reach an agreement in the end.
In its statement, NetEase said that Blizzard was trying to take advantage of NetEase and doing something similar to “divorce but still try to live together behavior,” which was pretty funny.
Here are some more updates from our gaming section-
The word “divorce” fits because the whole thing sounds like a pretty nasty breakup. Over the weekend, a video surfaced of NetEase employees taking down its huge Gorehowl statue while handing out drinks with a name that is said to be a misogynistic slur for a person who looks good but is actually a manipulator.
Blizzard and NetEase had been putting out games in China together for 14 years. Players were surprised to hear that they were no longer working together after a long time.
One of the teams in Blizzard’s Overwatch League, the Chengdu Hunters, posted a sad goodbye to a game that the team and regular players may no longer be able to play (at least legally, anyway). Post Given Below–
Goodbye and see you again. pic.twitter.com/rNzukKbYBU
— Chengdu Hunters (@ChengduHunters) January 23, 2023
According to The Verge, Blizzard spokesperson Joe Christinat said, “Activision Blizzard is grateful to our Chinese player community for the passion and creativity over the past two decades. Our commitment to players on mainland China remains strong as we continue to work with Tencent to distribute Call of Duty Mobile as well as [continue] active talks with potential partners to resume gameplay for Activision Blizzard’s iconic franchises.”