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 Diablo, Warcraft, 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 Commission, Sony Group Corp SONY, Alphabet 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.
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