FIGHT: World of Warcraft vs China

happygeek 0 732 Views

It would seem that there is something of an ongoing battle in the world of online Chinese gaming, and World of Warcraft is right in the midst of it.

As I reported back in July, the company behind World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment) was having problems in getting The Burning Crusade expansion pack up and running in China. Best not even mention Wrath of the Lich King then. It's all a little, well a lot, complicated and just a tad political, of course. Here's what I said a few months ago:

"A planned upgrade to the game which involved moving to a new operator in China, an online gaming outfit by the name of NetEase, has been anything but easy. Because it is a foreign game, and the move to a new local operator makes it a new foreign game for good measure, the Chinese government get to put it through a strict approval process."

Now it would that the publishing regulator in China has returned that application and halted the approval process as a result. NetEase, meanwhile, has already started operating World of Warcraft in China again despite not having approval. It fired up the local WoW servers back in September, one assumes as it was tired of waiting for that bureaucratic rubber stamp. Remember, WoW had already been approved and had been operating in China previously, all that changed was the local operator. Heck, NetEase apparently even got the nod to go ahead from the Cultural Ministry in China to rev up the WoW servers again.

But that has not appeased the agency concerned with the approval process, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and it has now demanded NetEase stop taking money, stop new players from signing up, and in effect just, well, stop. No doubt part of this intransigence stems from the declared intent of GAPP to clean up the online gaming sector and remove violence and pornography from the MMORPG genre (oh how China loves those weapons of mass censorship) but it will be interesting to see how the war is won between commerce, a Government with one eye on foreign investment and an internal agency seemingly struggling to justify its own existence.

Dani AI

Generated

captured the core problem: a high-profile MMO changing hands in China often turns into a regulatory flashpoint. That pattern — handovers triggering fresh approvals, mandatory content tweaks and long test windows — has recurred with major foreign titles. (wired.com)

How it works in practice: pre-approval and content clearance were handled by press/publication regulators while cultural bodies enforced content standards. Regulators look for graphic violence, sexualized content and issues around foreign-local partnership terms; operators commonly prepare a localized build and extended closed testing to satisfy those checks. (wired.com)

Practical checklist for publishers and ops handling a China handover:

  1. Start filings and get regulatory counsel months ahead.
  2. Contractually require account/data continuity or escrow; define refund rules if approvals stall.
  3. Build a compliance branch of the client (localized art/text, toggles for sensitive effects).
  4. Plan a staged rollout with a formal closed beta so regulators can verify changes.
  5. Budget for extra engineering, QA and PR time — prolonged downtime is costly.

These steps are the pragmatic ways to reduce churn and reputational damage when government review intersects with a major operator change. For contemporaneous reporting and the operator statement about regulator postings at the time, see NetEase’s announcement and coverage from the period. ()

References:
Wired: World of Warcraft Returns to China, With Edits
Kotaku: World of Warcraft is Back Online in China

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