Official announcement! Blizzard’s national service returns, and the partner is Netease!

The rumor that Netease and Blizzard are reunited has finally settled after half a year.

At 9: 00 am on April 10th, Blizzard China official Weibo announced that Blizzard Entertainment and Netease were pleased to announce today that they had reached an updated game distribution agreement on the basis of cooperation over the past 15 years, so as to bring Blizzard games back to national service players.

Netease Blizzard officially announced its return.

At 9: 00 am on April 10th, Blizzard China took the lead in announcing the return of the national costume through the official Weibo.

Blizzard China said that Blizzard Entertainment’s game works, which are loved by millions of local players, will return to the Chinese mainland market one after another from this summer according to the updated game distribution agreement.

Blizzard China said that after continuous discussions in the past year, Blizzard Entertainment and Netease were very happy to reach an agreement to continue to provide services for national service players in the future, and solemnly reiterated their commitment to providing excellent gaming experience. Blizzard and Netease are working hard to make a return plan on the basis of their cooperation over fifteen years in the past, and more details will be announced in the future.

In addition, Microsoft Games and Netease also reached an agreement to try to bring new Netease games to Xbox and other platforms.

Johanna Faries, president of Blizzard Entertainment, said, "Blizzard’s colleagues are very happy to form a partnership with Netease again to bring excellent gaming experience to China players. We are very grateful to the player community in China for their enthusiasm for Blizzard games over the years. We will focus on bringing our game world back to players with excellent quality and dedication. "

Ding Lei, CEO and director of Netease, said, "To celebrate our cooperation, we are very happy to open the next chapter on the basis of trust and mutual respect, and provide services to our users in this unique community we have established together. We will continue to be unswervingly committed to providing more exciting and creative entertainment experiences. We are very happy to see that the two sides can actively cooperate, encourage and strengthen cooperation, and bring happiness to the community. "

Phil Spencer, CEO of Microsoft Games, said: "Blizzard and Netease have done excellent work to fulfill our commitment to players. Blizzard’s game world has been a part of the life of local players for many years. Let Blizzard’s legendary games return to China and explore how to bring more new games to Xbox, all of which demonstrate our aim of bringing more games to more players around the world. "

Netease and Microsoft have worked closely together before.

Netease and Blizzard have been rumored for a long time, especially since the end of 2023, and there are similar rumors almost every other month. This aspect highlights the concern of the outside world about the cooperation between the two parties, and also highlights the expectations of Blizzard national service players for the return of game products.

Looking back, a major driving force for the two sides to reach cooperation again may lie in Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

In October 2023, Microsoft completed the acquisition of $68.7 billion for Activision Blizzard, making it the largest acquisition in the history of the game industry. After the acquisition of Microsoft, Activision Blizzard CEO Codick left at the end of 2023. Players expect further improvement in the cooperation between Netease and Blizzard.

In fact, Netease and Microsoft have long cooperated closely in the game business. As early as May 2016, Netease signed an exclusive agreement with Microsoft. Microsoft agreed to grant Netease the right to operate the mobile game and end-game of My World until 2022.

In May 2019, both parties extended the agency life of My World by one year to August 2023. Netease launched the "My World" mobile game and end-game in China in 2017, and this game has also become an important game product of Netease.

Netease, as a leading enterprise in the domestic game field, has a large number of self-developed game products, such as A Chinese Odyssey, Yin and Yang Teacher, Egg Party, etc. These self-developed games constitute the main source of income for Netease.

Over the years, Netease has also represented the game products of a large number of international enterprises, including Blizzard and Microsoft. Although these game products are well-known, the proportion of agent games in Netease’s income has not been high, and their share is relatively stable. According to Netease’s financial report, from 2019 to 2022, the company’s revenue from agent games accounted for 7.5%, 9.1%, 9.5% and 9.5% of the total revenue respectively.

After breaking up with Blizzard, Netease’s revenue scale has not been significantly affected. The 2023 annual report shows that the company’s revenue is 103.5 billion yuan, an increase of about 7% compared with 96.5 billion yuan in 2022.

Among them, the revenue from games and related value-added services increased from 74.57 billion yuan in 2022 to 81.57 billion yuan. The announcement shows that Netease’s net income from mobile games such as "Egg Party" and "Going Against the Water" increased significantly in 2023.

Blizzard Netease "On-Off" Timeline

The cooperation between Blizzard and Netease can be traced back to 2008. In the following ten years, Netease successively acted as an agent for the operation of famous blizzard games such as World of Warcraft, Hearthstone Legend, Watching Pioneer and StarCraft in Chinese mainland.

On November 17th, 2022, Blizzard issued a statement saying that due to the expiration of the existing license agreement with Netease on January 23rd, 2023, most Blizzard game services in Chinese mainland will be suspended, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone Legend, Watching Pioneer and StarCraft.

Netease then voiced: It is "very regrettable" that Activision Blizzard first announced to stop cooperation, indicating that it will have to accept this decision and will start to arrange refunds after Blizzard’s game products stop operating.

The statement pointed out that the two sides did not reach a renewal agreement in line with Blizzard’s operating principles and commitments to players and employees, and these agreements will expire in January 2023.

December 13, 2022: Blizzard China issued a document saying that it is currently negotiating with new potential distribution partners in some national service areas.

January 17, 2023: Blizzard China issued a document saying that it had contacted Netease and discussed extending the agreement for six months based on the established terms of the previous agreement between the two parties, but it was not accepted by Netease.

0: 00 on January 24th, 2023: After the original agreement between the two parties expired, the series products of World of Warcraft, Hearthstone Legend, Watching Pioneer, Diablo III and StarCraft, which were represented by Netease, officially stopped in the Chinese mainland market.

Netease sent an open letter to users, saying, "I look forward to the day when all Blizzard players return to the national service."

October 2023: Microsoft completes the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The former CEO of Activision Blizzard, Codick, left at the end of the year.

December, 2023: After discussing the "return of national service" with many domestic game manufacturers, Netcom Blizzard chose to cooperate with Netease again, but Netease Blizzard did not respond.

January 18, 2024: The case of the dispute over the license contract of blizzard computer software works sued by NetEasy, which was originally scheduled to open on the same day, showed that the court session had been cancelled. The court said that the reason for the cancellation was that the plaintiff withdrew the lawsuit.

April 2024: Netease and Blizzard officially announced "recombination".