Tag Archives: netease

Pearl Research has estimated that during 2011, the online gaming market in China grew 32% to $6.6 billion.

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Netease has signed up for another three years of delivering World of Warcraft to China.

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World of Warcraft’s Chinese operator, NetEase, has posted a 39.8% increase in year-over-year revenue, noting a profit rise of 41.3% to $128.2 million and revenues of $308.3 million. The upswing for the quarter ending September 30 is despite the decline in subscription numbers for the Blizzard MMO, which were down 800,000 to 10.3 million for the start of Activision’s Q3 financial period. The publisher attributed the loss of subs to the Asian market, which, at the end of Q2, helped bolster the subscription numbers to 11.1 million. Thanks, Gamasutra.

Chinese World of Warcraft provider NetEase has reported significant increases in sales and profit since taking over from The9.

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According to a GP report, StarCraft II has been submitted for review for China by NetEase, operator of World of Warcraft in the country.

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Blizzard and local operator NetEase have beaten the Chinese bureaucracy machine to finally peg a release date on WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

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World of Warcraft’s Chinese boss has resigned his post.

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NetEase has suspended registration of new accounts for World of Warcraft in China.

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It seems that a decision of World of Warcraft’s short-term future in China is about to be sorted.

A JLM Pacific Epoch report (via GP), has claimed that the country’s GAPP and Ministry of Culture has prepared sanctions for Chinese WoW operator, NetEase.

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Shanghai-based MMO operator, The9, has reported that Q3 sales dropped 94 percent after loosing World of Warcraft to NetEase in China.

However, the company remains optimistic, as revenues for Soul of the Ultimate Nation, Jiu Zhou Zhan Ji, Granado Espada, and FIFA Online 2 increased 55 percent compared to the previous quarter, while attracting 3.4 million active users when compared to last quarter’s 3.2 million active users.

While that is good news for the company, it just goes to just how massive the WoW beast really is no matter where you go.

More through Gamasutra.

The General Administration of Press and Publication in China, a regulatory authority, has ordered NetEase to cease operating World of Warcraft in the area due to the new version of the game lacking in approval.

According to Reuters, the hammer has come down due to an apparent “governmental turf war” between the agency (GAPP) and the Ministry of Culture, which also oversees the online gaming sector.

“Millions of Warcraft players will suffer the most,” said Leon Li, vice president of Chinese mobile Internet firm KongZhong. “But if you take a long term view of the industry, many of these Warcraft gamers may migrate to other games, so for the other Chinese online game companies, it is a good thing.”

NetEase launched the game commercially September 19 and the GAPP was upset that it launched without its approval.

Loads more drama through the link.

WoW’s now fully up and running in China again after over two months downtime, as you can see here.

Local operator NetEase has also confirmed that the Chinese language version of Wrath of the Lich King is complete and is about to be submitted to the Chinese government for approval.

There more on Gama about the amount of money Blizzard and NetEase have burned through the transition period from previous operator The9. In short – “a lot”.

It’s Saturday again, and time for your dose of MMO news.

This one has been branded the “trouble” edition, because certain MMOS were either in trouble, or getting out of it this week.

First off, Stargate Worlds is rumored to be in massive trouble, Age of Conan isn’t in as much any more, and China has ungrounded World of Warcraft but only a tiny bit. It can still go out on dates, but not whore about the countryside like it had been doing. What a tart.

Other than those bits, the week in MMOs was a bit uneventful. Yeah sure, the major news hit the front page as usual, but there are a few things you may want to know about that didn’t. For that, and the rest of it, along with a song devoted to Second Life, read on below.

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The Chinese version of World of Warcraft is still offline, according to this Yahoo! report, having been taken off the air on June 7 when Blizzard’s contract with The9 expired.

As the piece notes, new operator NetEase wasn’t ready to have the game up and running at the time, and clearly still isn’t. No one appears to have a set date for play to recommence.

Whoops. Full details through there.

Blizzard didn’t specifically say this morning why it’s dropped The9 in favour of NetEase to run its Chinese WoW operation, but Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter’s claimed the answer’s simple: it’s going to make a mother-trucking boatload more money from the new deal.

“The company had previously contracted with The9, but the current arrangement will expire in June 2009,” said Pachter in a note this afternoon.

“Under the terms of its contract with The9, Activision Blizzard received a royalty of 22% on revenues generated in China. We estimate that the current arrangement generated revenues of around $50 – 55 million annually (using most recent subscriber figures), at close to 100% margin. Although the terms of the new arrangement were not disclosed, we estimate that the royalty rate will increase to at least 55%, and that the new arrangement will generate revenues of over $140 million annually.”

$90 million is probably a good reason to kick a partner into touch. But don’t shit the bed just yet, share-buyers: Pachter said he believed the upside – approximately $0.04 per share – has already been factored into forecasts.

Blizzard just confirmed it’s gone with NetEase for its Chinese licensing, as has been rumoured for the last few days.

The9 was the previous holder of the contract.

NetEase will now run the Chinese version of World of Warcraft “for a term of 3 years following the expiration of the current license agreement,” according to this press release.

“We appreciate the enthusiasm that Chinese gamers have shown us over the years, and we’ve always worked hard, in collaboration with our partners, to ensure that these players receive the same high-quality service and gameplay experiences that we deliver in other regions,” said Blizzard head Mike Morhaime.

“This new agreement with NetEase will support that goal for years to come, and we look forward to collaborating with them on a smooth transition for World of Warcraft moving forward.”

Full thing through the link.

Chinese developer and MMO handler NetEase has posted a net profit of $63.9 million compared with $45.6 million for the previous year, reports Edge.

Total revenues for Q2 08 were $104.4m compared with 2007s $81.3m.

Company boss William Ding was in an understandably buoyant mood: “We experienced a strong second quarter due to solid execution in our online gaming and advertising businesses,” he said.

“We believe that China’s online gaming industry is in the midst of unprecedented growth and NetEase is very well positioned to benefit from this trend.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

According to this, Chinese MMO operator Netease’s first foreign license may be “Starcraft Online, developed by US-based Blizzard”.

The report goes on, “Netease CEO Ding Lei didn’t confirm the market saying, adding that the company is observing many online games and has not signed any formal license contract.”

Nothing, obviously, has been confirmed regarding a Starcraft MMO from Blizzard, although to say it “makes sense” is something of an understatement. The company is known to be working on a “next gen MMO” which is presumably something to do with either Starcraft or Diablo, but your guess is as good as ours.