WoW in China Resolving Dispute

World of Warcraft gamers in China have been experiencing tough times ever since their new distribution partner, NetEase, struggled against two regulatory agencies' dispute back in November of last year. With Blizzard's highly-popular MMO taking in more than 11 million users worldwide, a big percent of that number resides in China. But in recent news, Chinese WoW gamers have a good reason to feel hopeful.

 

Reuters has recently stated that NetEase "may be close to resolving a dispute," and will do so by paying an undisclosed amount of money to one of Beijing's top regulators to resume operating the game. During the dispute, GAPP did not give NetEase permission to operate WoW, due to "gross violations." As a result, China's Ministry of Culture defended the distributor, who stated that GAPP "overstepped its authority," further declaring that GAPP did not have the right to reject them.

 

However, Blizzard has confirmed in the past that WoW was not offline in China at all, but did affect the release of The Burning Crusade, the MMO's first expansion. It is most likely NetEase will be able to release this expansion in China after this settlement, as well as the other expansions of World of Warcraft that have been released so far.

 

David Gabriel, NoobFeed