Blizzard Awaits China's Approval For WoW Relaunch

angry tapir writes "The relaunch of World of Warcraft in China, where it has already been offline for six weeks, still faces an indefinite delay as it awaits government approval for its content. Problems for Blizzard Entertainment, the game's creator, started when it switched to a new local operator for World of Warcraft in China, online gaming company NetEase. New operators of foreign games have to submit the games for government approval, and China has objected to some of the content it found in its latest review of the game."

Comments

What's the big deal?

[lymond01]

China. Pssht. They probably couldn't get more than 1% of the population to play and at $15/month...that's only...um...$150,000,000. A month.

Allrighty let's get China on board here! Start bringing in those tax dollars! (Blizzard does pay income tax for something like this?)

Re:What's the big deal?

[sopssa]

Its different rates in china, as most people are quite cheap compared to us/europe.

Players will need to purchase a CD key to create an account and enter the game. The key comes at a price of 30 Yuan (about 3 euros or 2 pounds) and can be bought with a so-called Points Card which costs the same. While game time can be purchased on a monthly basis here, you can play WoW on an hourly basis in China - at an incredible rate of 0.45 Yuan/hour, amounting to 0.05 euros or 0.03 pounds respectively.

Re:What's the big deal?

[A. B3ttik]

So someone over there would have to play just over 230 hours a month to be paying $15/month.

So in other words, a slow month for those of us who play WoW?

You No Take Mao's Candle!!!

[nweaver]

The Chinese Communist party got tired of people taking their candles.

Re:You No Take Mao's Candle!!!

[ring-eldest]

Is not YOUR candle.

Is OUR candle.

Worse than Nintendo

[Darkness404]

Seriously, China's "nanny state" protection is worse than Nintendo's censorship in the NES/SNES days.

The game has been modified to meet the Chinese government's demands before. Skeletons added to the game in an update overseas appeared with flesh in China.

So you can't see people's bones in China but a dead corpse is just fine? I mean, heck, back in the NES days you could play Castlevania and kill skeletons all day long and that was just fine with Nintendo's censorship.

Government objections have also prevented the China release of Wrath of the Lich King, the game's latest expansion. The expansion twice failed to gain government approval despite content revisions, possibly due to elements like the "death knight" character class, according to local media.

So lets see, the Chinese government won't let you have a class called a "death knight" while the government constantly celebrates the "great leap forward" which ended up killing a ton of its own citizens, celebrates the Chinese Civil War as some great achievement which ended up with millions dying. I really don't understand China's censorship, especially since this will give them lots of tax revenue.

Re:Worse than Nintendo

[MoldySpore]

Hey, at least Nintendo never administered shock therapy for an addiction to Zelda ;)

Re:Worse than Nintendo

[PotatoFarmer]

Different cultures have different taboos. Remember Janet Jackson during the Superbowl? I'd be willing to bet that gigantic shitstorm in the US would have been perfectly acceptable for a lot of other cultures.

The real reason for the delay

[Raindance]

It's pretty clear that the real reason for this delay isn't some minor quibble regarding content. It's that China doesn't want a Western/foreign company to dominate their online gaming market.

Clever, unethical (from certain standpoints), and frustrating for Blizzard, no doubt.

Re:Now is the time to strike!

[Austerity Empowers]

They need to check exhaustively, I'm sure out there somewhere is Fizzle Sparksprocket, a fire mage gnome who contributed to the overthrow of Gnomeregan, and who immolates himself periodically in worship of an Old God.