Wow In China

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http://english.people.com.cn/90001/6707595.html
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/25670

After two long months, Chinese WoW players will soon again play Chinese WoW. (In Ragnarok terms, it would be called "cWoW", but apparently nobody uses terms like that in WoW.)

On July 30th, NetEase (new owner of cWoW) will perform testing while Blizzard works on all the revisions required by the Chinese government and the General Administration of the Press and Publication (GAPP).

At the opening of Chinajoy, a Shanghai online game carnival, thousands of cWoW players were threatening to show up and demand more WoW. Similarly, on July 11th, over five thousand people accessed NetEase servers at once, taking seven down, in protest.

The China Consumers' Association has logged nearly three thousand complaints and there have been plans in the works for a lawsuit.

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http://www.wow.com/2009/07/30/wow-china-hi...-upon-relaunch/

And here comes the censorship! No severed heads or skulls in the game! Even pictures of them have been replaced with images of bags, chests or crates! Player corpses are now gravestones (hey, who put that thing in the middle of the road?).

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The latest and the strangest!

http://news.mmosite.com/content/2009-07-29...5936714,1.shtml

Pictures of black and green blood, of sandbags in sarcophagi, and oh, some very enthusiastic Tauren and Undead players.

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It back online!

http://www.wow.com/2009/09/21/wow-back-online-in-china/

Just show me where to dig and I'll tunnel through the center of Azeroth to get there and play it standing on my head.

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http://ow.ly/15Zw2I
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews...245010720091103?

Banned in China! That was certainly fast!

I don't really know which regulations were being violated, but NetEase was being put to the task of doing a lot of things to make it compliant with China's draconian laws. And they had to step over the corpse of the old owner The9.

I feel sorry for the millions of legitimate Chinese WoW players who have to put up with this. China's Ministry of Culture is deliberately stifling foreign influence in online gaming, which means anyone there wanting to play games will be forced to opt for the ones with a "more Chinese" look and feel.

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http://www.p2pnet.net/story/30663
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2009...ent_8909420.htm
http://www.wow.com/2009/11/07/nyt-gapp-and...inese-wow-regu/

Now there is a battle between two Chinese government departments, each of which is claiming ownership of game approval.

Meanwhile, many thousands of WoW players are taking serious action, crashing servers and threatening lawsuits. (DDoS attacks next?)

Remember, this is China, whose government has never cared about human rights and is responsible for the deaths of many thousands in diverse tragedies over the last couple decades. So what chance do gaming rights have? WoW may as well be toast.

At present, however, WoW-C has not been taken offline, because they have not been served with official notice yet.