Chinanews.com, November 18th (China News Finance Wu Tao Song Yusheng Ge Cheng) On the 17th, Netease announced that the national server of games such as "World of Warcraft" will stop operating, which means that the cooperation between Netease and Activision Blizzard is temporarily suspended. a paragraph.
After the news was released, the fans couldn't stop sighing. Is this the end of many legendary game works or the rebirth of Nirvana?
Who will "take over" in the future?
up to date! These games will cease to operate
On the 17th, the official website of Blizzard Battle.net released an important announcement from Netease about the expiration of the operation of Blizzard game products. "World of Warcraft", "Hearthstone", "Overwatch", "Diablo III", "StarCraft II", "Warcraft III: Remastered Edition" and "Heroes of the Storm" operated by the limited company will be released on January 24, 2023. cease operation.
Blizzard Battle.net screenshot.
However, a reporter from China New Finance and Economics learned from NetEase that the "Diablo Immortal" mobile game launched in the middle of this year will not be affected.
It is understood that the game is jointly developed and published by the two companies and has a separate agreement.
Activision Blizzard also said in its latest earnings report that co-developed and published Diablo Immortal is covered by a separate long-term agreement.
Why did they part ways?
There are different opinions on the reasons why NetEase and Activision Blizzard parted ways. NetEase told Zhongxin Finance and Economics that NetEase has been doing its best to negotiate with Activision Blizzard, hoping to advance the contract renewal.
After lengthy negotiations, Activision and Blizzard were still unable to agree on some key terms of cooperation.
Screenshot of Blizzard China Weibo.
Activision Blizzard blamed the contract expiration for this reason.
Blizzard China posted on Weibo on the 17th, "With the expiration of our existing licensing agreement with NetEase, from 0:00 on January 24, 2023, all "World of Warcraft" and "Warcraft III: Reforged Edition" The "StarCraft" series, "Hearthstone", "Heroes of the Storm", "Overwatch" and "Diablo III" national server games will stop operating."
Activision Blizzard’s third quarter 2022 financial report released in November showed, “Currently, we have signed licensing agreements with third parties involving the distribution of multiple Blizzard works in China. About 3%, which expires in January 2023. We are having discussions about extending these agreements, but we may not reach a mutually satisfactory agreement."
There are market rumors that Activision Blizzard is dissatisfied with NetEase's profitability and the percentage of share it gives to Activision Blizzard, and requires NetEase to develop Blizzard's other IP mobile games globally in accordance with the previous cooperation model, but NetEase only enjoys the revenue share of the Chinese market.
The above rumors have not been confirmed by both Netease and Activision Blizzard.
The reporter observed that the proportion of NetEase's agency game revenue has increased year by year.
NetEase’s 2021 financial report shows that in 2019, 2020 and 2021, revenue from agency games (such as Blizzard and Microsoft) accounted for 7.5%, 9.1% and 9.5% of NetEase’s total revenue, respectively.
At the same time, the prepaid license fees and revenue sharing costs (referring to the prepaid license fees and revenue sharing related to the operation of agent terminal games and mobile games) in 2020 and 2021 are 2.372 billion yuan and 2.636 billion yuan, respectively.
Screenshot of Netease financial report.
There are also analysts who believe that most of NetEase’s online game revenue comes from mobile games. Since 2019, mobile games have accounted for more than 70% of NetEase’s total online game revenue for three consecutive years.
Most of the Activision Blizzard games it represents are end-games, which gave NetEase the courage to part ways.
Who will take over? Netizens are hotly discussing Tencent and Perfect World
As a classic Blizzard game, "World of Warcraft" has a large number of fans in China; "Hearthstone" also has countless fans.
For Chinese players, these games are not only memories of youth, but also gave birth to countless Internet hot spots.
"Jia Junpeng, your mother is calling you home for dinner" is from the World of Warcraft Post Bar.
Regarding the suspension of the above-mentioned games, some netizens told the Zhongxin Finance reporter, ""World of Warcraft" should have been discontinued a long time ago, and I just returned my husband." But some netizens think, ""World of Warcraft" contains our youth. , I hope to have other agency companies, just like when we went from Ninetowns to Netease.”
Although the cooperation between Activision Blizzard and Netease will expire, Activision Blizzard's latest financial report stated, "We continue to see huge long-term growth opportunities for our business in China." This means that follow-up games such as "World of Warcraft" There may really be a "receiver man" in China.
It is reported that these potential targets include Tencent, Perfect World, Bilibili and so on.
The reporter contacted the aforementioned three companies, all of whom said they had "no news" or "hadn't heard of it".
Do you play Blizzard games, who do you want to "take over"?
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