Netease-Blizzard Meeting Could Mean Blizzard’s Return to China

NetEase is reportedly about to bring Blizzard’s games back to China.

As reported by Video Games Chronicle, a Twitter account named CN Wire / Sino Market shared a photo of Netease CEO Ding Lei meeting Blizzard CEO Johanna Faries. They also claimed that NetEase stock went up 2.9 % on rumors that NetEase is expected to announce Blizzard’s return to China on April 10.

This is exciting news for both companies, and also happens to come at an auspicious time for both of them. But to really understand how strangely exciting this news is, we need to reexamine what had happened in the past.

NetEase and Blizzard signed a deal in 2008 to bring Blizzard’s games to the Chinese markets. Because of the Chinese government’s stringent regulation, Blizzard needed to find a Chinese company to partner with to even be allowed to do this. They would go on to bring World of Warcraft, Overwatch, Hearthstone, Starcraft, and Diablo.

This arrangement seemed to be doing well for both companies, until it didn’t. The sudden dissolution of their agreement in 2022 was followed by NetEase employees publicly lambasting Blizzard, and even destroying a giant World of Warcraft statue. In turn, then Activision Blizzard King CEO Bobby Kotick claimed he felt NetEase threatened him, which is why their partnership ended.

We reported this January that rumors were already going around that NetEase and Blizzard were talking about, this time with Blizzard now a part of Microsoft Gaming. Now, it must be said that Microsoft does do business in China, but it is very limited. At least, it looks like Microsoft is easier for NetEase to deal with than it was to deal with Kotick when he was running Activision Blizzard.

We also reported on Johanna Faries being promoted from general manager of the Call of Duty franchise to the president of Blizzard. Her work seemed to have been behind the sidelines, so we didn’t know what to expect from her then, but it certainly looks like she knows what she’s doing now. FWIW, Faries likely worked with NetEase’s rival TenCent to bring Call of Duty to China.

And of course, most recently NetEase announced their latest Marvel licensed video game, the 6v6 superhero shooter/action game called Marvel Rivals. While both companies had been working towards growing their business without each other, clearly they are more than eager to get back together again.

Now, the big unanswered question is the matter of the save data of the hundreds, maybe thousands, of Chinese Blizzard gamers, that were supposedly held by NetEase. Did NetEase safeguard that data for them, and will they be able to regain it back? How will they work with that data with the changes Blizzard has made after being bought by Microsoft? We’ll see how this little reunion plays out in the future.