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The Chinese versions of Blizzard's games may have been shut down over a big misunderstanding

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A New York Times report says the bad blood came to a boil over a perceived threat during a licensing negotiation.
In January, gamers in China lost access to Blizzard games (opens in new tab), including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Diablo 3, and Overwatch, as a result of a falling out between Activision and its Chinese partner, NetEase, a few months earlier. But a New York Times (opens in new tab) report says that while the relationship between the two had been strained for some time, the incident that finally ended it may have been a misunderstanding. 
The relationship between Activision and NetEase had been under strain for some time, according to the report. For one thing, Activision CEO Bobby Kotick was unhappy with NetEase’s $100 million investment in Bungie in 2018 (opens in new tab), because Bungie was behind schedule on Destiny 2 content and Kotick worried the investment, which was to help Bungie become a « multi-franchise entertainment studio, » would slow down the work even further. Kotick was also reportedly unhappy with another NetEase investment into a studio founded by a former senior employee at Activision; that resulted in a 2019 agreement that prevented NetEase from hiring former Activision employees or investing in their studios.
Those tensions were presumably still lingering when representatives of both companies began negotiating a proposed change to the licensing deal between Activision and NetEase in October 2022.

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