A subsidiary of Chinese internet company NetEase recently filed a lawsuit against Blizzard Entertainment for violating a series of licensing agreements in Shanghai, demanding the latter to return 300 million yuan ($43.5 million) in arrears.
On April 10, news about Jay Chou, a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, record producer, rapper, actor and television personality suing Chinese technology company NetEase for unfair competition went viral on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform.
On March 31st, it was announced that Youdao, a subsidiary of NetEase, will soon release their self-developed ChatGPT model for educational scenarios. The model is named "Confucius Quotes (Zi Yue)".
On March 23, China's video game regulator approved a total of 86 games for release this month, including titles from major companies such as Tencent, NetEase, 37 Interactive Entertainment, and Leiting Games.
On March 16th, the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou Committee officially announced that the e-sport project "Legend of Hearthstone", produced by Blizzard Entertainment Entertainment Company and operated by NetEase within China, will not go ahead as the business cooperation between the two parties expired and no agreement has yet been reached to renew the contract.
LOFTER, a life-sharing community owned by Chinese tech giant NetEase, recently launched an "avatar generator" function for testing, but was immediately met with controversy as several parties claimed infringement of intellectual property rights.
After NetEase's 2022 financial report was released, there was a more eye-catching change than its revenue and profit indicators: the number of daily active users (DAU) of its casual party mobile game "Eggy Party" has exceeded 30 million, garnering the highest DAUs in NetEase's game history.
Private tutoring businesses in China are exploring new growth avenues since the introduction of the "Double Reduction" policy. With the rising popularity of ChatGPT, they have started to incorporate AI into its training products.
On February 23, a puzzle video game named "The Room VR: A Dark Matter" developed by the British game publisher Fireproof Games was officially launched in the app store of Chinese VR device maker PICO, the first time this game has been released on a Chinese platform.
NetEase announced on February 15 that it will install the first game version of ChatGPT in China in its mobile game "Justice Online", so that smart non player characters (NPC) can freely conduct dialogue with players and give logical behavioral feedback based on that dialogue.
As the discussion caused by artificial intelligence chat robot ChatGPT continues to heat up, the science and technology circle is welcoming the new buzz. Many Chinese tech giants have made great efforts to seize the opportunity to create the first "Chinese version of ChatGPT".
A game license agreement between Blizzard and NetEase will expire on January 23, and Blizzard has decided not to renew it. Blizzard China latest announcement invited widespread criticism from Chinese web users.
In 2022, only 468 new games obtained approval from Chinese authorities, far less than the 679 approved in 2021. The tightening domestic game market forced NetEase to develop operations in overseas markets.
Blizzard China released a letter from Nathan Lyons-Smith, General Manager of Hearthstone’s production team, to all of the game’s players in China on December 23, saying that it is currently negotiating with some potential new distribution partners.
To cap off the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Argentina defeated reigning champion France 7-5 (4-2 on penalties) to win the coveted title for the first time in 36 years. Nearly as excited as Argentinian fans were many Chinese sponsors, including NetEase Media, a subsidiary of Chinese internet company NetEase, and others.
Blizzard China released a letter from John High, General Manager of World of Warcraft's production team, to all of the game's players in China at midday on December 13, saying that it is currently negotiating with some new potential distribution partners.
When a licensing deal between Activision Blizzard and Chinese game firm NetEase expires on January 24, 2023, many popular games such as World of Warcraft and Hearthstone will suspend services in mainland China.
