Blizzard Entertainment‘s agreement with NetEase to publish almost all of the company’s games in China expires next year. Blizzard has already started looking for a new partner, but warned that from January 23, the games will temporarily stop working in the country.
Chinese gamers will lose access to World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Warcraft III: Reforged, Overwatch, StarCraft series, Diablo III and Heroes of the Storm. At the same time, they will be able to continue playing Diablo Immortal, which is also published by NetEase, but under a different contract.
Analysts at Daiwa Capital Markets predict that NetEase’s revenue may decrease by 6-8% in 2023 due to the closure of Blizzard games.
Against the background of the news, the shares of the Chinese company fell by 11%. Activision Blizzard shares were not affected by the incident.