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The9: Pres Letter Suggests NetEase Wins WoW
The9 (Nasdaq:NCTY) President Xiaowei Chen sent an internal letter to company employees on April 15 implying that The9 has lost the license to Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft (WoW), reports Sina. The letter mentions that a domestic operator who entered agreements to create a joint venture with Blizzard last August has requested, via Blizzard, that The9 transfer servers, hardware and employees related to WoW operation to the unnamed operator at a reduced price. The operator is offering to pay $22 million for servers and hardware The9 purchased for $73 million and pay $1 million to take on WoW staffers, according to a copy of the letter published by Sina.
NetEase (Nasdaq:NTES) has already spent RMB 200 million on servers for WoW operation and will announce its licensing of the game on Wednesday, April 15, reports Sohu quoting an unnamed insider.
The9 will not lay off a single employee because of the loss of one game, said Chen in the letter. The9's WoW license expires on June 8.
Last August, NetEase and Blizzard announced the establishment of a China joint venture to support operation of Blizzard games Starcraft II, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne and affiliated multiplayer service platform Battle.net.
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