WARCRAFT SUB ADDITIONS HALTED IN CHINA, 02/08/2010
WARCRAFT SUB ADDITIONS HALTED IN CHINA
NetEase.com announced today it has suspended new user registration for Blizzard’s World of Warcraft in China, and will reapply for a license to operate the game.
It was announced that new user registrations would be halted for a week from Monday, according to a posting on the WoW China website.
On June 7, Activision Blizzard switched WoW’s Chinese game operation from The9 to NetEase, and has, subsequently, faced issues with re-launching the title on NetEase’s servers. WoW operations were resumed in September, but regulators have prevented the company from charging for the service pending final approval.
China’s General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), stated that the agency has returned NetEase's application to operate in China and called any new accounts the company has recently charged customers for and added "illegal behavior”. Regulators there have also yet to approve Blizzard’s last WoW expansion.
Just under half of WoW’s ~12M subscribers reside in China. Historically WoW China operated under a licensing arrangement with The9, which paid roughly $1/month per sub.
