THE revenue gain from self-developed games helped propel net profit by 26 percent in the fourth quarter for NetEase Inc, a Chinese online game operator and news portal.

The company earned 898.6 million yuan (US$142.8 million) in net earnings in the three months ended December 31, according to its filing yesterday.

William Ding, CEO and director of NetEase, told a conference call after the release of earnings that income from "War of Warcraft", which it is licensed by Activision Blizzard to run on China's mainland, slipped in the fourth quarter. But an increase in revenue from its self-developed games such as ''Westward Journey'' offset the drop.