Chinese Bureaucrats Duel Over Right To Regulate WoW

upto0013 writes "Chinese bureaucrats are battling each other for the right to regulate World of Warcraft. They hope to gain the political clout and the revenue that comes along with controlling a new industry with potential for explosive growth. 'If you supervise a more dynamic area with a lot of growth potential, you have more budget and more administrative muscle,' said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, an Internet research firm in Beijing. 'They see this pie is getting bigger and bigger, so it is no wonder different administrations are fighting over pieces of that territory.' It's absurd how orcs and elves (and Moonkin) can affect so many different faraway places."

Comments

Re:Can we watch?

[binarylarry]

It's gonna be a big hit.

Crouching Tauren, Hidden Draenei

I've been playing WoW too much...

[Bookwyrm]

My first mental image was a conference room full of bureaucrats and a duel flag dropping down in the middle.

Or two opposing teams of bureaucrats playing a Warsong Gulch match.

Hmm. Does anyone else think this could be the next big MMO? "That's not a red health bar on the boss -- that's how much red tape you have to cut through!"

Worse than that...

[plastick]

Actually, I had some in depth talks with some friends from China about WoW.

They still only have level 70 because the government STILL hasn't "filtered" every last quest in WotLK for any themes that might contradict the Chinese government policies. I'm dead serious. The "censorship" is that horrific.

Not only that, but there are some really weird censorship issues you wouldn't expect. For example, there are no undead in Chinese WoW because the Chinese government won't allow any human bones to be shown in the game. So anywhere you see a skeleton, it had to be removed by Blizzard.

Re:The first line of the story tells you everythin

[TheRaven64]

The chairman of the BBC called for the abolition of the TV license last week, in favour of having the BBC funded out of general taxation rather than a specific levy. The BBC has, in the past, covered stories of people protesting about the TV license and has included quotes from people opposed to it. Any time a public figure criticises the BBC, you will find a BBC story covering it, usually giving someone at the BBC an opportunity to respond, but not generally weighted towards the BBC. For some examples, look at this story and this one.