December 25th is Christmas. Eleven months ago today at 0:00, Blizzard’s national server game was officially closed. A quick calculation shows that it has been more than a year since Blizzard left the domestic market. Although it has left the domestic market, the name Activision Blizzard is still lingering in front of domestic gamers. During this period, it even had various entanglements with domestic and foreign game industry giants such as Byte, Tencent, and Microsoft.


(Image source: Blizzard)

Of course, the one that has the most disputes with Blizzard is definitely NetEase.

Shanghai NetEase sued Blizzard, claiming that it had violated a series of licensing agreements, and demanded a refund of 300 million in arrears; Blizzard Entertainment sued NetEase Leihuo to court, citing copyright infringement disputes, trademark infringement disputes and unfair competition disputes.

When two major manufacturers fight, we players naturally enjoy watching the show.

But who would have thought that such a pair of happy enemies would get back together out of nowhere?


(Source: Financial Associated Press)

According to news on December 25, the Financial Associated Press learned from multiple independent sources that in the past period of time, Blizzard has negotiated with many domestic game manufacturers about the "return of the national server". After the trials failed, Activision Blizzard finally chose to cooperate with NetEase again.

And this also means that for a series of games including "World of Warcraft", "Hearthstone", "Overwatch", "Diablo III", "Warcraft III: Reforged", "Heroes of the Storm" and "StarCraft", all operations in mainland China are expected to be fully restored.

For Blizzard players, everything comes so suddenly.


(Image source: Blizzard)

The Chinese market that cannot be separated

In fact, Blizzard's current situation is pretty good.

On the one hand, the protracted tug-of-war for acquisitions has finally settled, and Activision Blizzard has finally "married" into the wealthy Microsoft family as it wished. The latter has abundant funds, a hardware ecosystem and a large amount of high-precision technology reserves, which is of great benefit to Activision Blizzard's research and development and promotion.

Recently, Tim Stuart, chief financial officer of Microsoft's Xbox business, revealed that Activision Blizzard's game products and Xbox hardware ecosystem are integrating at an impressive speed. Tim Stuart also revealed that Microsoft will work with Activision Blizzard’s team to develop new 3A products and work closely on matters such as accelerating the iteration of classic IP and incubating new products on mobile platforms.


(Image source: Microsoft)

On the other hand, the company's performance has also survived the pain period, with many indicators improving in the first half of the year.

Looking back at the time when we broke up with NetEase last year, the loss of users in the Chinese market combined with the overall decline of the overall environment, Activision Blizzard was walking on thin ice. In the fourth quarter, Activision Blizzard’s net profit fell 28.6% year-on-year to US$403 million. This was achieved on the premise that several ace IPs performed at a high level. Among them, "Call of Duty 19: Modern Warfare" once broke the fastest sales record in the history of the series of games, but it still cannot support its performance.

Fortunately, the situation has improved greatly now. In the second quarter of this year, Activision Blizzard's total operating income was US$2.21 billion, a year-on-year increase of 34%, hitting a recent high; net profit and operating profit were recorded at US$587 million and US$583 million respectively, with year-on-year growth rates as high as 109.6% and 72.5% respectively. The current Activision Blizzard cannot be said to have returned to the top, but at least it has survived the bottom.


(Image source: Blizzard)

But the success of the business does not affect Activision Blizzard's obsession with the Chinese market.

Not long after they broke up with NetEase, there were rumors that Blizzard might have almost decided to take over Blizzard Games. In preparation for taking over Blizzard games, ByteDance also started poaching NetEase Blizzard people, and even leaked online information, which was somewhat conclusive.

Of course, it seems a bit funny that Blizzard has not yet returned, and Chao Xi Guang Nian has fallen first.


(Photo source: Chaoxi Guangnian)

On November 30, many media reported that they were negotiating with Tencent and NetEase about the return of the national server, and Tencent was the most promising company to take over.

However, the bullet did not fly for long. Tencent refuted the rumors on the evening of the 30th that it was an agent for Blizzard games, saying that it was only cooperating with the live broadcast test of "World of Warcraft" at Station B. It also made it clear that the Rubik's Cube studio group that was rumored to take over Blizzard is a self-developed team and will not act as an agent for external products.


(Source: Tencent Rubik’s Cube Studio Group)

Although several major manufacturers have failed to follow up, at the 2023 Blizzard Carnival, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra made it clear in an interview with The Verge:

"There are millions of players in mainland China who love Blizzard games, and everyone at Blizzard wants to make sure they can play our games. We are a global company, and I want Blizzard games to be in every country and region around the world, including mainland China, so as we make progress, we will evaluate this and see what happens."


(Image source: BlizzCon, Mike Ybarra and Phil Spencer)

Now it seems that after completing all evaluations, all the information points to one possibility——

NetEase is Blizzard’s true destiny?

Nothing has changed, everything has changed

Of course, nothing happens for no reason.

Before the Financial Associated Press learned of this information, there were already many signs in the gaming circle suggesting that Blizzard and NetEase would "reunite."

First, on December 6, the well-known investment bank Morgan Stanley released a blockbuster investment analysis report. The article stated that the return of game developer and publisher Blizzard Entertainment to the Chinese market may have a slight positive impact on the famous Chinese online game company NetEase (NTES.US).


(Source: Morgan Stanley)

Subsequently, a series of anchors who host Blizzard games (World of Warcraft, Hearthstone), including Flame Rat, Donkey Brother, etc., began to break the news in the live broadcast room that Blizzard is about to return to the Chinese market.

Finally, according to an announcement from the Shanghai Court Litigation Service Network, the number of previous cases brought by Shanghai NetEase against Blizzard Entertainment has been reduced from six to one, and the remaining five cases have all been withdrawn. The final case may only be a matter of time.


(Source: Shanghai Court Litigation Service Network)

what does that mean? I think everyone has a good idea.

But in fact, everyone has already guessed that as long as Bobby Kotick steps down, there is a possibility that Blizzard Games will return to China. Otherwise, his unequal agreement, not to mention NetEase, even Tencent, Perfect, MiHoYo and Byte will probably not agree.

According to current gossip, NetEase Thunderfire is responsible for contacting Blizzard this time. NetEase and Blizzard need to re-establish a national service operation team, and then both parties need to re-obtain data and version numbers through Shanghai NetEase channels, and test servers and related systems.


Therefore, even if the two parties make an official announcement at the beginning of the year, it may be a quarter or more before the game that players are looking forward to is back online.

To be honest, Activision Blizzard cannot abandon the Chinese market. In the final analysis, it still sees the potential of the Chinese market.

After all, according to relevant statistics, the number of domestic console game players has reached 16.7 million. No one with a bit of business acumen will be willing to give up loyal users who have accumulated more than ten years of experience.

As for whether Blizzard will be successful again this time around, I can only say that although players are loyal, they also pursue freshness. They can log in and check in every day for ten years, but they can't guarantee that they will maintain their enthusiasm.

For Activision Blizzard and its classic IPs, the longer they leave, the greater the resistance will be to returning, and the harder it will be to regain users' attention.

In any case, for those players who collectively read "Nine years of youth, goodbye" and "Ten years of companionship, goodbye" when they closed the server.

The "electronic urn" derived from your more than ten years of youth will really be resurrected by the Great Holy Light Technique this time.