Here in the US, you can't really arrest someone for selling gold in-game -- it's against Blizzard's Terms of Service, so they can ban you from the game or even file suit against you, but it's not actually illegal. But in China, under communism, things are apparently a little different. Two gold farmers have actually been arrested by the government for "unfair revenue distribution" -- apparently the two had a disagreement about how to distribute the over $200,000 they had made from selling gold in World of Warcraft.
Word is going around that "unfair revenue distribution" is the actual charge in the arrest, but it sounds like they just had a financial disagreement, so we really have no idea what they'd be charged with. Unfortunately, China isn't exactly forthcoming with how its legal system actually works, so who knows what's really happening here.
Their operation also sounds interesting as well -- they had been going for about seven months, and had a crew of 20 PCs and 20 employees. There's little chance that an arrest like this will make much of an actual difference in the game (and there's no way an arrest in China will set a precedent in the US), but it is an interesting case that we'll follow if we can.
According to our tipster Gwwfps of the blog Potato Skin, World of Warcraft distributor The9 has manually set all the quests in the Isle of Quel'danas to be fully completed -- that is, all quests on the Isle are now open to all players as though Phase 4 had been opened. With the help of Babelfish, as far as I can make it out, this decision was arrived at to "make up several weeks the partial servers to appear returns to the files question for generally to play the loss which the family brings". If my Engrish serves me right, this means that the move was a drastic resolution to having massive downtime for numerous servers which resulted in realms-wide progression rollbacks. Some servers reportedly had their Isle of Quel'danas progress rolled back several times over the course of one day.
Gwwfps explains it better in his blog, noting that Patch 2.4 resulted in poor server performance across the board. Apparently, WoW China has been suffering from performance issues for quite some time and some have suggested that the servers upon which the game runs aren't quite up to par with Blizzard's standards. Others argue -- with good reason -- that the forced unlocking of the phases makes the game "less immersive." The sweeping measure also demonstrates an apparent lack of industriousness on the part of The9, who in theory could simply roll back individual servers to specific progress levels. On the other hand, players can probably get all ecstatic about getting their hands on epic gems so early (blast my slacker server!).
Blizzard announced today that the forthcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion will be published by The9 in mainland China, and Soft-World in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. The9 and Soft-World have brought both the original WoW and Burning Crusade to their respective regions, so it's not surprising that they'll be handling Wrath as well. Release dates, of course, are still TBA, there as here.
However, if there's one thing I like to do, it's speculating based on insufficient data. The agreement with Soft-World to carry BCappears to have been made just a month before BC's January 2007 launch in North America and Europe. So if Wrath follows this pattern, it will be out next month. On the other hand, the agreement with The9 to carry BC in mainland China was made in February 2007, a month after BC came out here, so if this holds true for Wrath as well, we should have been hitting Northrend a month ago. Either one of these is pretty unlikely; maybe there's not much information to be gleaned from this announcement after all (aside from that WoW is still doing well in Asia).
The9, which is the company that runs Blizzard's World of Warcraft in China, has announced today that the game has hit a full million concurrent players (which means that they've had one million people playing the game all at the same time) following the release of the Burning Crusade expansion there last year. Here in North America, concurrent users hasn't really ever been as high (although that is of course unofficial data, and we don't have information after the first month of this year). But MMOs are a different beast in China and other Asian countries -- not only do players pay-to-play (instead of a monthly fee, many players often pay hourly or daily, which means concurrent users equals paying users), and there are actually three games that have hit a million concurrent users over there (while here, WoW is far and above the largest MMO online).
Still, it's quite an achievement. It's interesting that it's coming so late in the product's life -- it seems that, just as over here, the expansion had a significant impact on player interest. Definitely a big milestone for Blizzard's game in China.
According to Worlds In Motion, the CFO of The9, distributor of World of Warcraft in China, has recently announced her resignation in order to pursue other interests. Hannah Lee, The9 vice president and CFO, has worked with The9 for over four years and will be stepping down at the end of February. The resignation comes at a curious time as the Shanghai-based company outperformed expectations in the last quarter of 2007. The announcement dealt a crit to the company's shares, which subsequently fell over 8.75% on the Nasdaq.
The9 is China's biggest online gaming operator -- naturally with the license for WoW -- and also develops as well as distributes games in the region. Among its licenses are familiar titles such as Guild Wars and Hellgate: London, as well as titles more popular in Asia such as the control-three-characters-at-once Granado Espada, Ragnarok Online 2, and others. The company's CEO had this to say, "Hannah has been with us since before The9 went public in 2004. Over the years, she has played a vital role in transforming our company into a highly regarded US- listed public company with substantially improved financial reporting and internal control systems. We want to thank Hannah for her many contributions to The9 and wish her all the best in her future endeavors."
The company has announced a search for a replacement and expect to make an appoinment before the end of February. Let's hope that The9 stays in good shape despite the departure of the key person responsible for crunching their numbers! Otherwise, we might no longer see silly news stations using maps of the Arathi Highlands!
Chinese company The9 (which is the licensee for World of Warcraft in China) saw their stock rise after an analyst posted higher-than-expected estimates of their fourth-quarter profits. In short, more people are playing WoW in China than ever before. Which isn't surprising at all, given that right before the fourth quarter started, The9 released Burning Crusade over there. And we all know what kind of effect that had on the game on this side of the world.
However, there may still be dark clouds on the horizon for The9. As you probably know, Blizzard recently merged (along with its parent company, Vivendi) with Activision. And Activision is a competitor with EA... which owns a 15 percent stake in The9. So while The9 currently licenses WoW from Blizzard to sell and service in China, that relationship may be short-lived. And you can bet that will have an effect on the stock, if and when that deal ends.
But for now, The9 is going gangbusters, and Chinese players are enjoying Outland as much as we did last summer.
Curse Gaming posted a rumor the other day from a Chinese newspaper named RedlineChina that The9 (the company that runs World of Warcraft in China) is considering switching the game to a "free-to-play" model. As Curse notes, the rumor is just that-- a rumor-- especially considering that The9 is raking in the cash over there. So take this with a nice big cubic block of salt-- odds are that both you and Chinese players will be paying that monthly subscription for years to come.
Still, it's an interesting idea. There are a few free-to-play MMOs here in the US, but there are many, many more over in Asian countries like China and Korea. And there's no question that as popular as World of Warcraft is now, it would be even more popular as a free-to-play model. Odds are that The9 would have to come up with some other form of revenue if they did switch it to free-to-play, although as it is, you can play for free on a demo here in the US-- maybe RedlineChina really meant to report that The9 is going to start releasing free demo copies, up to level 20 with a week of free play, or some plan like that, while still charging for the full game.
At any rate, this is more likely a miscommunication than a rumor with any substance at all. Especially with subscriptions rising and the next expansion on the way, Blizzard is nowhere near even lowering the price on a WoW subscription.
An electronics company in Beijing has sued Blizzard, claiming that they allegedly used five copyrighted fonts in World of Warcraft. Founder Electronics wants 100 million yuan for the alleged infringement, which is apparently the largest amount ever asked for by a Chinese company in a copyright case (Founder claims the loss cost them 1 billion yuan). The case is sitting in front of the Beijing High People's Court, and the9, which is the Chinese company that runs WoW there, is considering their options.
I'm assuming that means the9's Chinese version of WoW, which would mean the fonts themselves are for Chinese characters, so there's probably no fonts that English-speaking users would recognize ingame. However, Founder is apparently known for creating some of the most popular fonts in China, so the odds that someone at the9 used one of them (or at the very least one that looked like one of them) are probably pretty good (the picture on this post is from a Founder event, not a Blizzard event, so the obvious use of the Founder font there doesn't count). Of course it's up to the High Court to decide whether the infringement actually took place or not-- no word on how long the judgment will take.
Hoping to stay ahead of the Chinese censors, The9 (which handles operation of World of Warcraft in China) has tweaked the visual apperance of the Undead race in the game in hopes of allowing the game to pass the new Chinese censorship review. As anyone who's played the game for long knows, the Undead models are part flesh and part skeleton, with bones sticking out in various places. The9 has modified Undead models to show no skeleton, thus making the race less scary and more likely to pass review. I know plenty of Undead players in the US who would love their toons not to have such a bony appearence -- but as a cosmetic issue rather than an issue of the Undead being scary.
What do you think -- are the Undead just too scary?
You may recall some rumors back in April suggesting that EA was planning on buying a piece of The9 -- a company that handles the management of several MMOs, including our own World of Warcraft, on Chinese shores. While the rumors seemed to come from a credible source -- Chinese newspaper Shanghai Securities News -- EA denied that any such deal had taken place, stating only, "There is no signed agreement with The9." Until, of course, this week, when we find out that there is.
Our friends at Joystiq are reporting that EA is purchasing a 15% stake in The9 and making The9 the sole publisher of EA's FIFA Online in China. What exactly does this mean for Blizzard? Perhaps nothing at all. EA doesn't own near a majority share in The9 -- and with World of Warcraft being a significant part of The9's business, it would seem ludicrous for them to make any major move against it in favor of their new friends at EA. But in EA's quest to grab their own share of the Chinese gaming market, EA now owns a piece of the competition.
Several sources, all citing the Shanghai Securities News, were reporting yesterday that EA was planning on purchasing a 19% share of The9, a Chinese MMO company that operates World of Warcraft, Huxley, Guild Wars, and Hellgate London in mainland China. And on GameDaily BIZ, analyst Michael Pachter speculated that ths may have been the first step towards a complete acquisition of The9. However, EA is denying the deal, stating simply, "There is no signed agreement with The9." Of course, EA's denials don't imply that there might not be a deal in the works -- but we'll have to stay tuned to see if there's some truth to this rumor after all.
In some
news that doesn't quite fit in with the recent rumors of discontentment between Blizzard & Chinese publisher The9,
MMORPG Blog
reports today that Blizzard & The9 are now in talks to release the first WoW expansion on Chinese shores in early
2007.
Recent rumors have Blizzard being unhappy with their partnership with The9 & there has been buzz
of them searching for a new Chinese publisher. Hopefully, a deal can be worked out somewhere that will allow Chinese
players access to all the content of the upcoming new expansion.
You might imagine that playing Warcraft in China
would be the same as playing it anywhere else - we all have to deal with long queue times, server lag, and less than
helpful GM responses. However, Chinese players are considering a boycott of Warcraft, and its Chinese
distributer, The9, until performance improves. The9 seems to be pushing off the problems to Blizzard, explaining
repair delays on the difficulty of coordinating with Blizzard, which does not have a presence in China.
Online gaming is so popular in China, the country has more than 100 online game
operators. One of the most successful is Shanghai-based The9, which focuses primarily on MMORPGs. In 2003, they
launched MU Online, which attracted over 15 million subscribers within two years.
The9 is also in
charge of running Blizzard's international hit World of Warcraft (WoW) for Chinese gamers--who
account for more than half of the game's 5.5 million worldwide customers. On a
recent visit to Shanghai, Alan Rose from Joystiq had a chance to meet with Hoyt Ma, The9's Senior Marketing Manager for
WoW. We talked about his job and the growing popularity of gaming in China.
Here in the US, you can't really arrest someone for selling gold in-game -- it's against Blizzard's Terms of Service, so they can ban you from the game or even file suit against you, but it's not actually illegal. But in China, under communism, things are apparently a little different. Two gold farmers have actually been arrested by the government for "unfair revenue distribution" -- apparently the two had a disagreement about how to distribute the over $200,000 they had made from selling gold in World of Warcraft.
Blizzard announced today that the forthcoming 
Chinese company 
An electronics company in Beijing 
Online gaming is so popular in China, the country has more than 100 online game
operators. One of the most successful is Shanghai-based The9, which focuses primarily on MMORPGs. In 2003, they
launched MU Online, which attracted over 15 million subscribers within two years.
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