Spurned Chinese Publisher May Create WoW Knockoff

Earlier this year, Chinese game publisher The9 lost the rights to operate World of Warcraft in China. Now, it appears they are trying to solve their financial troubles by making World of Fight, which bears a suspicious resemblance to World of Warcraft. Others have noted similarities between World of Fight and Warhammer Online. Quoting Eurogamer: "According to the China Journal report, Chinese industry observers 'wonder whether The9 is launching a "shanzhai," or knock-off, World of Warcraft in hopes of keeping WOW players,' with iResearch analyst Zhao Xufeng noting that 'with the topic staying in the centre of attention, The9 can easily attract attention by doing this.'"

Comments

Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[andyn]

Oh, come on. We all know the fact that that most MMORPGs are practically clones of each other anyway...

Re:Poor ripoffs are nothing new

[Renraku]

I bet they have some kind of actual code from Blizzard, be it server software, client software, whatever. And they likely have the source to compile on their machines. So whatever game they use will probably be a direct clone of WoW.

I bet their first expansion will be Flaming Crusades, and their second will be Wrath of the Zombie king.

Dethroning WoW

[DreamsAreOkToo]

A lot of people have made the observation that it's basically impossible to raise the capital and perform the beta testing required to dethrone WoW. But all these factors aren't valid in China. Especially with their copyright laws. And the source code of WoW's servers...

Re:Dethroning WoW

[goodmanj]

they did chinese language localization for WoW

Localization that requires source code is bad localization.

they censored some parts of the story for WoW

Censors don't need to see the source.

they sent chinese programmers to the usa to custom fit parts of the story to chinese audiences

Story design that requires source code is bad story design.

Every US corporation that isn't led by total idiots has figured out that if you make your widget in China, six months from now you're going to be competing against the factories you outsourced to. So if you don't want to be shot with your own pistol, you'd best keep your trade secrets out of China.

Either that, or make a product with a 6-month lifetime. Blizzard, as it happens, does both. Paranoid control over IP, *plus* new expansions which render stolen IP obsolete.

Re:Dethroning WoW

[mooglez]

This all assumes that the coders:

1. Knew what good design was.
2. Weren't told to ship ASAP and screw 'design'.

We are talking about Blizzard here, not a random software house.

they are famous for shipping late because they weren't happy enough with it yet.

A terrible idea

[ShooterNeo]

This is about the worst idea a Chinese firm could have. It's one thing to knock off a physical good where you have access to the factory that makes the goods, and the manufacturing process is well understood. See knockoff chinese cars, watches, etc.

But, World of Warcraft is a gigantic software application. It probably has as many or more lines of code as any computer game ever created. It's been through years of testing and refinement, and has god knows how many hours invested into the artwork and graphics.

Recreating all that from scratch, even if you have a working example to clone, is a huge financial blunder and a waste of resources.

Note : I don't play WoW. My statements about it's internal complexity are based upon the fact that an MMORPG project is the biggest game project there is, with 5+ million lines of code. And WoW has a stupendously large budget, given the fact that the game charges customers over a billion dollars in subscription fees per year.

That's more money than any Hollywood movie has ever taken in.

One wonders what Blizzard does with it's cut of the revenue : in theory, they could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt that WoW is particularly huge based on lined of code. The quests basically all come from 1 template, the AI is non-existent and the whole thing is based on repetition. When playing, I get the feeling they're aiming at creating as much content as possible with as little coding as possible. Keeps the bugs down and speeds up content creation.

Same goes for the art too, actually. They're using plenty of color swaps and similar recycling methods.

The Chinese spot fakes better than anyone

[Praseodymn]

and those kids won't play a fake WoW.

Ooh!

[Greyfox]

I can't wait to create a character over there to farm and sell glod* all day and night! Time to pop out and buy an English to Not-Quite-Mandarin phrase book!

* The World of Fight currency