Ding Yingfeng, a founding figure at NetEase who worked alongside Ding Lei for 23 years and served as Executive Vice President of the group, will officially "retire" on the last day of 2025. After stepping down, Ding Yingfeng will continue to provide guidance for the development of NetEase's business in the role of a company advisor. Reviewing Ding Yingfeng's career provides a microcosm of China's gaming industry. From entering the gaming industry in 1998, to joining NetEase in 2002, and rising to Group Vice President and then Executive Vice President, he witnessed and participated in NetEase's remarkable journey from an emerging player to a gaming giant. Within NetEase, Ding Yingfeng's status was second only to CEO Ding Lei, making him a veritable core manager. Under Ding Yingfeng's leadership, the Interactive Entertainment Business Group successively incubated multiple blockbuster titles such as "Fantasy Westward Journey," "Onmyoji," and "Identity V," cementing NetEase's leading position in the gaming industry. Just over a month before Ding Yingfeng's retirement announcement, NetEase disclosed its financial report for the first three quarters of 2025. The report shows that for the first nine months of this year, NetEase achieved revenue of 85.079 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.32%, and net profit attributable to shareholders of 27.518 billion yuan, a surge of 31.47% year-on-year. However, behind this seemingly prosperous performance report, NetEase is facing multiple severe challenges. In the third quarter, the revenue growth rate for NetEase's core business—games and related value-added services—declined sequentially, while revenue growth in several other business segments was slow, with some even falling into negative growth. Simultaneously, the company is grappling with the dual tests of internal core talent attrition and intensifying external market competition. It is worth noting that in the recently revealed "2025 Hurun Rich List," NetEase's helmsman Ding Lei ranked 6th on the list with a wealth scale of 320 billion yuan, his personal wealth having skyrocketed by 60% compared to the previous year.

A NetEase veteran "retires," while several other core talents have "departed." On December 27, NetEase announced via a notice that the company's Executive Vice President and head of the Interactive Entertainment Business Group, Ding Yingfeng, will officially step down on December 31, 2025. After "retiring," Ding Yingfeng will continue to serve as a company advisor. In the announcement, NetEase CEO Ding Lei stated: "We sincerely thank Mr. Ding Yingfeng for his dedication and contributions. He made outstanding contributions to the success of the company's flagship games and played a key role in building the company's R&D and operational capabilities." As a veteran who served at NetEase for 23 years and was the core business leader second only to CEO Ding Lei, Ding Yingfeng witnessed and participated in NetEase's development from a newcomer in client games to a full-category gaming giant. His departure is also seen as the end of an era for China's gaming industry. Media reports citing informed sources revealed that Ding Yingfeng had already expressed an intention to retire three years ago but delayed his retirement plans to ensure the smooth launch of the "Fantasy Westward Journey" free-to-play server and "Marvel Rivals." Notably, according to media reports, in March of this year, Ding Yingfeng reduced his holding of NetEase shares by over 41,000 shares, cashing out approximately 30 million yuan, which attracted industry attention. An analysis found that since the beginning of this year, executive adjustments within NetEase Games have been frequent. At the end of March, NetEase conducted a significant round of personnel appointments: the former head of the Leihuo Business Group and NetEase Senior Vice President Hu Zhipeng was promoted to Group Executive Vice President, while the former General Manager of the Leihuo Business Group and NetEase Group Vice President Cheng Long was promoted to Group Senior Vice President. In August, according to Game Xin Zhi, Jin Tao, the head of NetEase's "Onmyoji" business department, had left to start his own business. It is reported that during his years at NetEase, Jin Tao led teams that developed hit games like "Onmyoji" and "Harry Potter: Magic Awakened." His entrepreneurial partner is the former president of NetEase's Art Design Center, "Da Shi" (Yi Xiuqin). On October 17, according to Jinghe, due to disagreements related to position adjustments, Xuanzi, the producer of the infinite flow romance mobile game "Beyond the World," left the company. On October 22, according to the National Business Daily, Li Kaiming, the producer of NetEase's "Infinite Borders," announced his departure to start a business due to "long-term plans for personal career development," ending his 12-year career at NetEase. According to Sina's "BUG" column, a former NetEase insider revealed that there is internal competition between the game studios in Guangzhou and Hangzhou, with the Guangzhou faction now losing influence and the Hangzhou faction taking control. Furthermore, internal work suffers from "formalism." "We have to spend a lot of extra effort on reporting, to meet some internal process requirements, and in the end, we still failed to create a hit game." Some analysts suggest that the frequent executive changes at NetEase Games represent an attempt by NetEase to revitalize the organization and break the "big company disease."

A 23-year career at NetEase forged a "perennial evergreen" in the gaming industry. Ding Yingfeng, with over 20 years of experience in the gaming industry, entered the gaming field in 1998. In 2001, Ding Yingfeng served as the lead planner for "Gu Long Qun Xia Zhuan" at Shenzhen Jinzhita. In 2002, Ding Yingfeng joined NetEase, embarking on a new chapter in his career. Early on, he was involved in numerical architecture work, later taking on responsibilities for product R&D and operations. He initiated and participated in the development of several core products, including "Fantasy Westward Journey," and held positions such as Director of the Second Product Department and Vice President of the Online Games Division. From product planner to head of the gaming business, Ding Yingfeng's promotion trajectory closely aligned with the growth curve of NetEase Games. From 2011 to 2016, he served as Vice President of NetEase, overseeing product development, operations, and management for the online games department. Since 2016, Ding Yingfeng was promoted to Group Executive Vice President, responsible for leading the company's Interactive Entertainment Business Unit for online games. In this role, Ding Yingfeng led his team to strategically position itself in the mobile gaming sector, facilitating the launch of popular products like "Onmyoji," "Infinite Borders," and "Identity V," while also spearheading the agency of well-known overseas IPs such as "Sky: Children of the Light" and "Minecraft," helping NetEase Games evolve from a client game giant into a full-category gaming enterprise. Looking back at Ding Yingfeng's growth path at NetEase, "Fantasy Westward Journey" is not only the masterpiece of his career but also a "perennial evergreen" in the history of Chinese gaming. Ding Yingfeng secured internal approval for this project and, overcoming opposition, pushed for the game to adopt a more appealing Q-version art style. As recently as the third quarter of this year, the PC version of "Fantasy Westward Journey" was still contributing core revenue to NetEase's gaming business. According to official NetEase disclosures, since the third quarter, the peak concurrent users for the PC version of "Fantasy Westward Journey" hit new highs four times in a row, reaching 3.58 million. Furthermore, the mobile version of "Fantasy Westward Journey" launched a lightweight server, allowing players to enjoy turn-based combat with a lower barrier to entry, resulting in monthly active users reaching a two-year high. Regarding the long-term operational strategy for "Fantasy Westward Journey," NetEase management stated that the game possesses an extremely stable economic system and a unique, very rich gaming experience that many other games cannot provide. The team has consistently adhered to providing users with gaming fun, a stable game ecosystem, and innovative content. For example, the free-to-play server removed time-based fees, simplified systems and gameplay, retained optimized designs accumulated over years in time-based servers, and further provided gameplay designs that reduce burden, attracting a large number of long-lapsed users and entirely new players. Simultaneously, the high-quality experience of the free-to-play server also brought additional new and returning users to the fee-based servers.

NetEase earned 27.5 billion in the first three quarters, but can it maintain this performance? Tianyancha shows that NetEase was listed on the US stock market in 2000 and the Hong Kong stock market in 2020. One month before Ding Yingfeng announced his retirement decision, NetEase released its financial report for the third quarter of 2025. In the first three quarters of this year, NetEase achieved revenue of 85.079 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.32%; net profit attributable to shareholders was 27.518 billion yuan, a surge of 31.47% year-on-year; gross profit margin reached 64.3%, an increase of 1.24 percentage points year-on-year. Specifically, in the third quarter, NetEase achieved net revenue of 28.359 billion yuan, up 8.2% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 8.616 billion yuan, an increase of 31.77% year-on-year. A further breakdown shows that games and related value-added services, as NetEase's core engine, generated net revenue of 23.3 billion yuan in the third quarter, an increase of 11.8% year-on-year, accounting for over 80% of total revenue. Within this segment, net revenue from online games constituted approximately 97.6% of the segment's net revenue this quarter. The year-on-year increase in revenue for this segment was primarily attributable to the PC version of "Fantasy Westward Journey," "Eggy Party," newly launched self-developed games like "Where Winds Meet" and "Marvel Rivals," as well as increased net revenue from several licensed games. Reportedly, since the third quarter, NetEase's new self-developed titles have been released intensively, becoming the most important source of incremental growth for NetEase this year. "Destiny: Starlight," after its global launch in August, quickly topped the iOS download charts in multiple Western markets and remained at the top of the domestic charts in October. The overseas version of "Where Winds Meet," launched in November, saw its Steam concurrent users exceed 250,000, ranking second on the global bestseller list, with the number of players for the overseas version surpassing 15 million in its first month. Additionally, the return of Blizzard games has officially begun contributing. The remastered version of "Diablo II" and "StarCraft II" have successively returned to the Chinese market, the "Titan Reforged Server" exclusive to the Chinese server of "World of Warcraft" opened in November, and "Diablo IV" is planned to enter the Chinese market in December. Although NetEase's third-quarter performance was stable, it still faces multiple challenges. Compared to market expectations, NetEase's total revenue and gaming business revenue for the third quarter were both below Bloomberg consensus estimates, while adjusted net profit was only slightly higher than the consensus estimate. Apart from games, the performance of NetEase's other businesses in the third quarter was mediocre. Among them, Youdao achieved revenue of 1.6 billion yuan, a slight increase of 3.6% year-on-year; NetEase Cloud Music achieved net revenue of 2 billion yuan, a decrease of 1.8% year-on-year; innovative businesses and others generated net revenue of 1.4 billion yuan, a decline of 18.9% year-on-year. In the earnings call, Ding Lei responded to questions about the significant fluctuations in revenue and DAU for "Identity V" in recent months, mentioning that "Identity V" was indeed affected by some competing products during the summer period, particularly impacting parts of the lower-tier market. Furthermore, according to incomplete statistics from the "BUG" column, over the past two years, at least 7 game studios at NetEase have undergone adjustments or been shut down, with multiple games being taken offline. While NetEase undergoes frequent internal adjustments, external competition in the gaming industry remains exceptionally fierce. Whether it's old rival Tencent, newcomer miHoYo, or other game manufacturers, all pose significant pressure on NetEase. For instance, Tencent continues to generate stable cash flow from its evergreen products like "Honor of Kings" and "Peacekeeper Elite," while "Delta Action" has surpassed the 30 million daily active user milestone. Simultaneously, Tencent's pipeline of new games is equally robust. According to statistics from Sina's "BUG" column, Tencent still has over 34 products in its pipeline for 2025 and has made deep strategic layouts in several genres, including shooters. Meanwhile, miHoYo adheres to a strategy of "high-quality original IP + long-term operation," driving the global success of "Genshin Impact," "Honkai: Star Rail," and "Zenless Zone Zero." In fact, in the current fiercely competitive market, it is becoming increasingly difficult for game developers to create new hit titles. According to Diandian Data statistics, the number of new mobile game titles launched by NetEase in the first three quarters of 2025 decreased significantly compared to the same period last year, with only 4 key new games this year compared to over 10 in the first three quarters of last year. Now, as Ding Yingfeng concludes his 23-year career at NetEase, and with the veteran's successful retirement, the question remains whether NetEase can subsequently stabilize its industry position amidst intense market competition. This publication will continue to monitor the situation.