Activision Blizzard Fails To Renew Gaming License With NetEase; Explores Other Alternatives To Tap Biggest Gaming Market

  • NetEase, Inc NTES ditched an offer from U.S. games publisher Activision Blizzard, Inc ATVI to extend their China licensing agreement by six months.
  • The denial signals the exit of global titles like World of Warcraft from the top gaming market, Bloomberg reports.
  • Blizzard's content and online services will be unavailable in China from January 23 under the existing agreement.
  • Blizzard and NetEase failed to reach a new licensing agreement in 2022 that would have prolonged their 14-year partnership of delivering Blizzard titles to the Chinese market. 
  • The report added that the collaboration helped build NetEase into China's second-biggest games distributor, after Tencent Holdings Ltd TCEHY, and offered the Blizzard unit a reliable partner for franchises like DiabloWarcraft, and Overwatch.
  • Blizzard remained in discussions over alternative distribution partners to help avoid the cutoff of its services in China.
  • Separately, Microsoft Corp's MSFT deal to snap Activision Blizzard faced opposition from the Federal Trade CommissionSony Group Corp SONYAlphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL Google and Nvidia Corp NVDA over anti-competitive concerns in the video game industry.
  • Price Action: ATVI shares closed lower by 0.31% at $76.66 on Friday.
  • Photo Via Wikimedia Commons
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