Blizzard has announced that its video games are coming back to mainland China in summer season 2024 after virtually a yr and a half off the market. Additionally, Microsoft (which now owns Blizzard) and NetEase have entered one other separate settlement to deliver NetEase video games to Xbox and different platforms.
Blizzard’s video games had been taken offline in China in January 2023 after NetEase and Blizzard had been unable to attain a new publishing deal. However, each firms have now reached one. The deal will embody all of the video games that Chinese gamers had entry to from the earlier settlement, together with ones like Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft.
While each events are working to relaunch the video games, more particulars might be revealed later. Phil Spencer chimed in on Microsoft’s new partnership with NetEase, saying, “Returning Blizzard’s legendary games to players in China while exploring ways to bring more new titles to Xbox demonstrates our commitment to bringing more games to more players around the world.” However, Spencer offered no different specifics.
Thanks to the unbelievable work finished by @Blizzard_Ent and NetEase to renew our dedication to gamers, we’ll quickly welcome back thousands and thousands of neighborhood members in China to our Blizzard universes. This is thrilling for everybody at Xbox, Blizzard, and for gamers all over the place. Read more: https://t.co/JKuZAH6bLj
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) April 10, 2024
This new deal comes after Blizzard and NetEase had a bit of a falling out back in November 2022 when their oiriginal publishing contract was set to expire. Blizzard China and NetEase had been pointing fingers at one another, the place the former offered to extend services, however the latter declined it, with one NetEase executive claiming that the unique deal extension fell aside as a result of of one particular “jerk."
Either approach, Blizzard was dedicated to search for other ways to deliver its video games back to the Chinese market, however it lastly reached a new settlement with NetEase.
George Yang is a freelance author for IGN. He's been writing in regards to the industry since 2019 and has labored with different publications comparable to Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.
When not writing about video video games, George is enjoying video video games. What a shock! You can comply with him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey