World of Warcraft ordered to shut down in China again
The Chinese version of World of Warcraft is a cash machine for Activision Blizzard. But the massively multiplayer online game’s fate is up in the air again.
A Chinese government agency, the General Administration of Press and Publication, has once again revoked the permit required to operate the game. The regulators said that NetEase, which operates the game in China for Blizzard Entertainment (a division of Activision Blizzard), must stop charging players and cease accepting any new registrations for “gross violations” of Chinese law. It also rejected the application to create a Chinese version of WoW’s first expansion pack, The Burning Crusade.
It seems that WoW is once again the victim of government agency rivalry. The GAPP and China’s Ministry of Culture, which approved the game’s relaunch in September, are jockeying for control of regulation with GApp. Blizzard hasn’t commented yet. The MoC has stated that GAPP has exceeded its authority (Chinese report). This is starting to make Chinese government officials look like laughing stocks. It would be funny, but think of all of the four million WoW addicts who aren’t getting their fix in China.
