Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Recently, the New York Times, a foreign media, released the latest report on the inside story of NetEase Blizzard's "breakup". The article said that Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Codick had offered NetEase a "one-time payment of 500 million US dollars in advance" for a sky-high contract renewal condition. Activision Blizzard said that if NetEase paid $500m in advance (currently about 3.445 billion yuan), then Activision Blizzard would have agreed to sign a new agreement with NetEase, but in the end NetEase rejected the unreasonable "sky-high price" proposal.

According to the report, long before the cooperation negotiations began, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Codick was "dissatisfied" with NetEase only because NetEase invested in a company he did not want to invest in.

In 2018, for example, NetEase announced a $100m investment in game developer Bungie. As Bungie worked with Activision to produce the popular game Destiny, Codick was unhappy with NetEase's investment because Bungie was behind schedule in developing Destiny content, which he feared would further distract the company from developing Destiny. NetEase also invested in a game development company in 2018, but infuriated Activision Blizzard CEO Codick because its founder was a former senior employee of Activision Blizzard, according to people familiar with the matter.

January 24, Blizzard and NetEase officially ended the 14's cooperation, "World of Warcraft", "hearthstone Legend", "Watchman Vanguard" and other seven national service games officially terminated operation. A week before the suspension, Blizzard China tried to "throw" the suspension responsibility on NetEase, saying that because NetEase was unwilling to extend the game service for six months based on the existing terms of cooperation while Blizzard was looking for a new partner, so Blizzard had to "stop the national service".

However, national service players are not convinced by Blizzard's "throwing pot", and NetEase also pointed out in the subsequent response statement that Blizzard's "deferred proposal" and sudden statement were outrageous, inappropriate and illogical. During the same period, Blizzard's negotiations with other partners were all based on a three-year contract, except for a six-month contract for NetEase. In this foreign media report, Activision Blizzard CEO proposed an one-time advance of up to US $500 million, which also confirmed that the Blizzard clause previously proposed by NetEase was indeed "outrageous" and "not in line with commercial logic."

It is reported that Blizzard has been trying to find a new partner after the suspension of Blizzard national service, but there has been no "pick-up". According to foreign media, both Tencent and byte beat have expressed interest in cooperating with Activision Blizzard, and Activision Blizzard has also considered working with communications companies such as China Mobile. And Activision Blizzard to NetEase proposed a sky-high price of "US $500 million" advance, as well as many unreasonable terms put forward in the cooperation, may also make the new agent on the card table back down.

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