update activision blizzard has responded to neteases reported complaint saying that while no lawsuit has been received the developer believes no licensing agreements have been breached regardlessthe terms netease appears to be complaining about reflect standard industry practice and have been mutually beneficial for years activision blizzard tells gamesradar in a statement while this persistent campaign by one former partner is disappointing and puzzling its important to note that we have enjoyed nearly two decades of positive experiences operating in china and remain committed to serving players and protecting their interestsoriginal story netease is reportedly suing blizzard over refunds for discontinued games in chinalast year in november blizzard announced games like world of warcraft would be leaving china due to the studio being unable to renew a licensing agreement with publisher netease later in january after blizzarddeveloped games had shut down in china the developer claimed netease had rejected a deal to keep game servers alive in chinanow its been reported that netease is suing blizzard over player refunds for games that had their servers shut down earlier this year in january as reported by wowhead chinese media outlet sina technology claims netease will sue blizzard to the tune of roughly 435 million usd for compensation for refunds for chinese players affected by the server closuresthe likes of world of warcraft hearthstone heroes of the storm and overwatch were all affected by the server shutdown earlier this year sina technology reports that netease has actually already paid refunds to over one million chinese players of blizzard games seeking compensation which netease is contractually obligated to do but is apparently now seeking damages from blizzard directlyits a bit of a messy situation complicated by blizzards past claim that it was neteases fault that the licensing agreement wasnt renewed theres currently no indication from sina technology as to whether the lawsuit against blizzard has already been filed by netease so theres no clue when an agreement could potentially be reached between the two sideschina is a major games market for blizzard last year it was reported that simply delaying diablo immortal from launching in china was costing blizzard millions each and every day considering this its easy to see why the failed licensing agreement couldve potentially been hugely damaging for blizzardif you missed it it looks like world of warcraft is getting a diablo 4 event to coincide with the latters launch later this year in june