(Yicai) Dec. 1 -- Following a media report that MoreFun Studios will license Blizzard Entertainment's games, a source close to its parent company Tencent Holdings said the video games developer will not endorse others’ products.

Blizzard has been negotiating the return of its gaming services in China with local game vendors, including NetEase and Tencent, according to a report yesterday. MoreFun was live-streaming the US game developer's World of Warcraft on Chinese video platform Bilibili, the report said.

The livestream was just a test and has ended, Tencent told Yicai, without disclosing if it was negotiating with Blizzard. The California-based firm and NetEase have yet to comment.

“There are millions of players in China who love Blizzard games, and all of us at Blizzard want to make sure they can play our games,” President Mike Ybarra said at BlizzCon 2023 early last month. “We are a worldwide company,” he noted. “I want us in every single country around the globe, and China included.”

Blizzard's licensing agreement with NetEase expired on Jan. 23, it said last year, while the Hangzhou-based company confirmed that games, including World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, and Overwatch, would no longer be available in the Chinese mainland starting Jan. 24.

Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard, the parent firm of Blizzard, for USD68.7 billion on Oct. 13 after the approval of UK competition regulators, with the return of the studio's games in China becoming possible after the acquisition.

Editors: Shi Yi, Martin Kadiev