Industry insiders say that Blizzard’s return to the national server is gradually accelerating. Who will take over, such as NetEase and Tencent?

Recently, according to domestic media reports, Blizzard’s return to the national server is gradually accelerating, but as for who will take over, there is no conclusion yet. The reason why Blizzard's return to the national server is accelerating is mainly due to two aspects. One is that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard has been settled, and the other is that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, who is regarded by the outside world as the "culprit" of NetEase Blizzard's "separation", has announced that he will officially step down on December 29.

In October of this year, Microsoft officially completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the largest acquisition in gaming history was finally settled. A game industry analyst said: "The 300 billion game market sales revenue and 668 million game users mean that Microsoft will never leave the Chinese market alone." The return of Blizzard games to the national server will continue to accelerate as Microsoft internally adjusts Activision Blizzard's organizational structure.

At BlizzCon in November this year, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra said in an interview, "There are millions of players in mainland China who love Blizzard games, and everyone at Blizzard hopes they can play our games. We are a global company, and I hope that Blizzard games can be found in every country and region around the world, including mainland China."

Previously, Activision Blizzard's third quarter report of 2022 mentioned a number of games released by Blizzard China ("World of Warcraft", "StarCraft 2", "Hearthstone", "Overwatch", etc.). These products accounted for approximately 3% of Activision Blizzard's consolidated net income in 2021. Although the amount of 3% seems ordinary, there is actually something else going on. Activision Blizzard's revenue mainly comes from the three major business segments of Activision, Blizzard Entertainment and King. Activision Blizzard has direct cooperation with NetEase only with Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard Entertainment's net income in the third quarter was US$1.827 billion. After conversion, the revenue generated from cooperation with NetEase accounted for more than 14% of Blizzard Entertainment.

Now, Activision Blizzard’s internal adjustments are on the agenda. On December 21, Bobby Kotick will officially resign from his position on December 29, and the possibility of Blizzard’s national server returning has also greatly increased. Yesterday, it was reported that Blizzard had negotiated with many domestic game manufacturers about the "return of the national server" in the past period, and finally chose to cooperate with NetEase again. Blizzard China later responded that we currently have no information or updates to share. People close to the company said that NetEase's team that was previously responsible for operating Blizzard's national server has been disbanded this year, and it is unlikely that the team will be reorganized for Blizzard in a short time.