Project Lore

Almost three months after WoW returned back to China (albeit censored) after a months-long hiatus, the game has hit a snag once again. According to a Wall Street Journal article, NetEase, the company which relaunched the game after former provider The9 ran into financial troubles and lost those rights, is essentially in a "turf battle" with China's General Administration of Press and Publications. The GAPP is China's regulating body for news, print and internet publications, and as such has the right to decide which online games will be allowed into the country. Monday, the GAPP announced it had rejected NetEase's application to provide the Burning Crusade, and further demanded that NetEase cease the collection subscription fees or the registration of new WoW accounts. The punishment for continuing to do so, according to the article, could include the “suspension of its internet service.” The governing body insists that NetEase's use of the game license that The9 previously had obtained was "commercial exploitation." Although the GAPP had allowed NetEase to start beta testing BC, they said, they had not authorized either the registration of new accounts or the collection of subscription fees. But here's the potential saving grace. Apparently China's central government recently decided that the GAPP would only have the ability to pre-approve an online game. Once published, it becomes the responsibility of China's Ministry of Culture. Liu Qiang, director of the ministry’s Internet culture office, has weighed in to the debate and said that GAPP "would be violating government regulations if it punished an online game company." For the sake of gamers in China, I hope this conflict is resolved soon. If I was a player there, I'd be pretty upset, but perhaps not too surprised given the long history of WoW issues in the country. Said the WSJ article:

Chinese WoW players are divided over the dispute. Some are seething with anger. It’s “really a tragedy…WoW playes are the ones suffer the most….Who cares about us?” said one player on a popular local game forum. Other said they were taking a wait-and-see approach.

How will this affect NetEase's previous plans to release WotLK later this month? Only time will tell.