(Censored) World of Warcraft Returns To China
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iTZKooPA on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 21 Comments Tags: activision blizzard, blizzard, bones, censoring, china censoring wow, finances, industry news, netease, the9, wow back up in china, wow in china
iTZKooPA on Monday, August 10, 2009 - 21 Comments Tags: activision blizzard, blizzard, bones, censoring, china censoring wow, finances, industry news, netease, the9, wow back up in china, wow in china 
And We Think It's Bad In DalaranMost of ProjectLore's bloggers have been following the whole "WoW in China" escapades pretty closely. I'm not exactly sure what draws us to the topic, but various voices have touched upon almost every aspect of the struggle to keep our favorite MMORPG up and running in the world's most populated nation. We've got you covered from the originating factor of the partnership switch, the following lawsuits and outages, all the way to everyone's favorite pastime, gold farming. And now for the latest installment, WoW's return to China.
Seeing as you clicked on the loaded title I will just hit you with the details straight away. For starters, according to MMOSite.com World of Warcraft saw a one week relaunch in late July (v3.1.3) with millions of players participating, or attempting to. To get Wrath of the Lich King, and WoW in general, back online the title has been censored in various ways. Nearly all of the changes have to do with the prevalence of dead bodies (read Undead/Scourge) that are everywhere in WotLK.
- Undead mobs have had their models redrawn to patch up the bare bones (this was done for vanilla WoW and TBC as well).
- Piles of bones, and other items, in the world have been modified to sandbags, sacks of grain and the like.
- Bleed effects now cause black goo to spew from the target. Many players are joking that it's oil. It also appears that blood of non-humanoid targets may have been turned green, as seen on this wolf.
- Various spell and talent icons have been modified to remove bones. Most of these have been replaced with "generic boxes."
Where The Bones At?To me the modifications remove a lot of the sinister, nefarious, and downright disturbing aspects of the Scourge, and even the freed members of the Forsaken. I do wonder how the Government in question can justify adding a patch of skin to an Undead knee, but allow an Abomination to exist in the title. Better yet, Thaddius. The electric monstrosity is "built from the flesh of women and children" for C'Thun's sake. It's unfortunate that the Chinese players can't experience the content as it is meant to be played. At least they get to play a slightly modified vision, instead of nothing at all.
For those of you interested in the finances the 50+ days down may have on Activision Blizzard's stock, it appears that there is little to worry about. According to the excellent Gamasutra, the company only makes 6% of its worldwide WoW revenue from China. This is largely due to lopsided contract Blizzard had with The9. The old contract granted the developer a low revenue stream of only 20%, according to some insiders. By restructuring to a much friendlier agreement with NetEase Blizzard should begin to pocket far more cash from China. Enabling the company to make up for the 50+ days of losses rather quickly. Of course, it remains to be seen how many hourly users Blizzard may have lost due to the down time.
The saga continues.
Reader Comments (21)
DK spells just got thrown out of the window...Army of the Dead is now Army of the walking normal people, and the skeletal arms that tend to poke out of the ground in ice crown is nothing more than blooming flowers. You took the wow factor out of WOW...grats...
ah well at least a censored WoW is better than no WoW
Hey Shamtastik, wanna hear something funny?
Death Knights were taken out of Chinese WoW.
They weren't added, because they could not be bothered to censor all of it.
The DK class doesn't exist in chinese WotLK.
Why was this post removed off the front page? Or was it just me? Either way I find the bag spells for warlocks hilarious.
So there are no Death Knights or Bones in China?
That's so gay...
I dont understand this... Everyone else is so far ahead of China. PLUS, they virtually have to redo everything in the expansion because of some stupid law...
Just dont release WoTLK in China. Somehow make a modification for next XPac
"The old contract granted the developer a low revenue stream of only 20%, according to some insiders."
Really? Why would Bliz' have agreed to such a figure in the first place (assuming its true)? No wonder The9 were so pissed when they lost the contract! LOL
Maybe it's just me, but it seems to be bothersome to me that a game has to be censored over bones and skeletons, despite how "well respected" you want them to remain. They should let WoW be it's original form and let the people who play it decide if it should be censored or not; after all, you don't have to buy a game if it offends you so much.
I wonder if they can only play for so much time as well (on WoW)? I know Aion had a limit where you could only play for 4 hours a day unless you put in an adult's ID # (of some sort) in.
Either way, makes me glad I can play how I want for however long I want here.
At least this solves that nagging issue where undead characters put on clothing and it develops holes instantly. give it back to a non-undead and it's good as new again.
It always bugged me that I couldn't cover up my undead character's bony elbows with some long sleeves. Sure, they're undead...but that's no reason they can't wear some fancy threads from time to time.
I just had a thought. What did they do to the skeletons that walk around? Are there now walking piles of flour?
I think they should replace all the NPC skeleton mobs with children. Kill all the children instead. When the Chinese government calls up to complain, ask two questions:
1) Bones weren't so bad now, were they?
2) Where's that Chinese food I ordered?
no dk's in wotlk thats just like a fat kid without chocolate!!!! i think the chinese are taking this way out of preportion.. and how about the pandoran rce? i want to see them but noooo china wont allow it i think blizz should have the pandoan rce in america and give the chinese a diff race.. seems to me china is slowing killing what maked wow good.
@PatrickD:
Skeletons are given skin. They're not skeletons.
What many of you don't understand is that they are not doing this because they think skeletons need to be censored due to scariness.
They are censoring them because they want to respect their dead elders. That's all.
a WoW without DKs......i remember thouse days.....
it would be intresting to visit this state just to see what the hell they do they their
You guys shouldn't flame China too much for this because as Zelyon said the Chinese tend to be more superstitious about death. That aside I find the changes rather amusing.
Also, kinda going with @Snorlax, China isn't the only place censoring games. About anywhere besides the USA (Maybe even them) censor games.
Like for example, Japan had Bethesda take out the Megaton bomb detonation
Must be nice in China not to have to stare at a DK every 5feet ...
what they take out megaton detonation???
thats one of the best scens in fallout3
i never liked bones on undeads...
never
I get that they're respecting their elders, but why does their government make that call for them? Like I said before, I see no good reason to just let people decide for themselves if it's offensive or not; and if it is offensive, don't play it!
I miss the peace of having no chinese goldfarmers whispering me every 5 minutes asking if I want to buy gold. :(
I wouldn't mind having the option to take away the bones from the undead, but seeing as both my undead toons are casters, the legs get hidden by robes anyway.
As for the lack of DKs......... nope I can't even imagine trade chat now without 12 DKs all whining about how they're forever nerfed. Or a Dalaran where there isn't one DK for every 2 other people.