On April 10, Blizzard Entertainment, Microsoft Games and NetEase jointly announced that Blizzard Entertainment's game works will return to the Chinese Mainland market in succession since this summer according to the updated game distribution agreement.
In addition, Microsoft Games and NetEase have reached an agreement to try to bring new NetEase games to Xbox and other platforms.
It is reported that the updated game publishing agreement will cover all Chinese server games under the previous agreement: World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and other series of games based on the respective game universes of Warcraft, Vanguard, Diablo, and StarCraft.
NetEase Games posted, "We are honored to work together with Blizzard Entertainment again to bring Blizzard Games back to the national server. Players, long wait!"
Blizzard China Weibo posted that Blizzard Entertainment and NetEase are pleased to announce today that they have reached an updated game distribution agreement based on their over 15 year cooperation, in order to bring Blizzard games back to our Chinese server players.
In November 2022, the 14 year collaboration between NetEase and Blizzard suddenly changed, attracting strong attention from players and the market. At that time, Blizzard issued a statement saying that since the existing license agreement with NetEase will expire on January 23, 2023, most Blizzard game services in Chinese Mainland will be suspended. Both parties have not yet reached an agreement on renewing agreements that comply with Blizzard's operational principles and commitments to players and employees.
Subsequently, NetEase responded that after lengthy negotiations, it was still unable to reach an agreement with Activision Blizzard on some key terms of cooperation. Unfortunately, Activision Blizzard announced the cessation of cooperation first, and it will have to accept this decision.
On January 23, 2023, NetEase officially announced the discontinuation of Blizzard Games by issuing a farewell letter to Blizzard Chinese players: Thank you for being with us for 14 years. At 0:00 on January 24, 2023, all operations of the series products of World of Warcraft, Hearthstone Legend, Watchman, Diablo III, Warcraft III: Reproducing, Storm Hero and Starcraft in the Chinese Mainland market represented by Netease will officially end. Blizzard will shut down Battle.net login and all game servers, as well as client downloads.
On April 24, 2023, a reporter from the Shanghai Stock Exchange learned from insiders that Shanghai NetEase Network Technology Development Co., Ltd. has recently filed a lawsuit in Shanghai against Blizzard Entertainment Co., Ltd. for violating a series of license agreements, demanding a refund of 300 million yuan in debt. The case also involves agreements related to Chinese server proxy games such as World of Warcraft, which contain multiple unequal clauses biased towards Blizzard's unilateral rights. There is significant controversy over the legality and enforceability of these clauses. It is reported that the primary reason why NetEase sued Blizzard was because Blizzard refused to assume the obligation of refunding Chinese server players and refused to pay NetEase prepaid commission fees related to Chinese server refunds, involving an amount of nearly 100 million yuan.