The Chinese versions of Blizzard's games may have been shut down over a big misunderstanding
pcgamer.comIn January, gamers in China lost access to Blizzard games(opens in new tab), including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo 3, and Overwatch, as a result of a falling out between Activision and its Chinese partner, NetEase, a few months earlier. But a New York Times(opens in new tab) report says that while the relationship between the two had been strained for some time, the incident that finally ended it may have been a misunderstanding.
The relationship between Activision and NetEase had been under strain for some time, according to the report. For one thing, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was unhappy with NetEase's $100 million investment in Bungie in 2018(opens in new tab), because Bungie was behind schedule on Destiny 2 content and Kotick worried the investment, which was to help Bungie become a «multi-franchise entertainment studio,» would slow down the work even further. Kotick was also reportedly unhappy with another NetEase investment into a studio founded by a former senior employee at Activision; that resulted in a 2019 agreement that prevented NetEase from hiring former Activision employees or investing in their studios.
Those tensions were presumably still lingering when representatives of both companies began negotiating a proposed change to the licensing deal between Activision and NetEase in October 2022. NetEase wanted to license Activision games (including Blizzard games) directly, rather than through a joint-venture third party as had previously been the case, because it would enable the company to more easily comply with China's tightening game regulations(opens in new tab); Activision was reluctant to give NetEase more control over its game properties than it already had.
During the negotiation call,
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