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Blizzard, NetEase partnership suspension to cut Chinese gamers off from WoW, Overwatch, more<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This could change Chinese gaming for years to come.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/business\/news\/end-of-15-year-blizzard-and-netease-partnership-may-cut-chinese-gamers-off-from-wow-overwatch-more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Blizzard, NetEase partnership suspension to cut Chinese gamers off from WoW, Overwatch, more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This could change Chinese gaming for years to come.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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{"id":735920,"date":"2022-11-16T22:56:26","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T03:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/?p=735920"},"modified":"2022-11-16T22:59:12","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T03:59:12","slug":"end-of-15-year-blizzard-and-netease-partnership-may-cut-chinese-gamers-off-from-wow-overwatch-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/business\/news\/end-of-15-year-blizzard-and-netease-partnership-may-cut-chinese-gamers-off-from-wow-overwatch-more","title":{"rendered":"Blizzard, NetEase partnership suspension to cut Chinese gamers off from WoW, Overwatch, more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gamers in China might wake up to the shock of not being able to access certain Activision Blizzard games in the coming months due to the expiration of long-standing, 15-year-old licensing agreements between the Overwatch <\/em>developers and Chinese PC and mobile gaming company, NetEase.<\/p>

Games like Overwatch<\/em>, Diablo<\/em>, Hearthstone<\/em>, the Starcraft<\/em> series, World of Warcraft<\/em>, and many more won\u2019t be accessible from Jan 23, 2023, for players from that region.<\/p>

Activision Blizzard released a blog post detailing<\/a> the license expiration and subsequent suspension of their developed games in China on Nov. 16.\u00a0<\/p>

NetEase is one of the largest video game companies around and is responsible for developing a large portion of e-commerce platforms, advertising and email services, and gaming in China.<\/p>

The Diablo <\/em>creators had been in business with NetEase since 2008, with the 15-year deal coming to an end early next year. These licensing agreements covered the publication of massive titles in China.<\/p>

\u201cThe two parties have not reached a deal to renew the agreements that is consistent with Blizzard\u2019s operating principles and commitments to players and employees, and the agreements are set to expire in January 2023,\u201d the blog post detailed.<\/p>

Blizzard announced that it\u2019d be suspending new sales for Chinese players in the coming days. Titles like Overwatch 2\u2019s<\/em> Season 2, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight<\/em>, and Hearthstone: March of the Lich King<\/em> are all on the chopping block.\u00a0<\/p>

Mike Ybarra, president at Blizzard, said \u201cWe\u2019re immensely grateful for the passion our Chinese community has shown throughout the nearly 20 years we\u2019ve been bringing our games to China through NetEase and other partners.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

There are no more announcements as to what Activision Blizzard’s next moves will be, we\u2019ll just have to wait and see what\u2019s in store for players residing in China.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This could change Chinese gaming for years to 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The Diablo creators had been in business with NetEase since 2008, with the 15-year deal coming to an end early next year. These licensing agreements covered the publication of massive titles in China. \u201cThe two parties have not reached a deal to renew the agreements that is consistent with Blizzard\u2019s operating principles and commitments to players and employees, and the agreements are set to expire in January 2023,\u201d the blog post detailed. Blizzard announced that it\u2019d be suspending new sales for Chinese players in the coming days. Titles like Overwatch 2\u2019s Season 2, World of Warcraft: Dragonflight, and Hearthstone: March of the Lich King are all on the chopping block.\u00a0 Mike Ybarra, president at Blizzard, said \u201cWe\u2019re immensely grateful for the passion our Chinese community has shown throughout the nearly 20 years we\u2019ve been bringing our games to China through NetEase and other partners.\u201d\u00a0 There are no more announcements as to what Activision Blizzard's next moves will be, we\u2019ll just have to wait and see what\u2019s in store for players residing in China.","apple_news_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/16224822\/thumbnail-home.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735920"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735920"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":735930,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735920\/revisions\/735930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735920"},{"taxonomy":"invoiceable_action","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/invoiceable_action?post=735920"},{"taxonomy":"internal-label","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/internal-label?post=735920"},{"taxonomy":"article_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article_type?post=735920"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dotesports.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=735920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

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