WoW's future unclear in China

One government body would strip Netease the right to operate World of Warcraft in China. The second has nothing against WoW.

World of Warcraft has had a tough time of late in China following the change in licensed operator resulting in a lot of downtime, now it seems the country's Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) is looking to shut down the MMO completely.

GAPP has returned NetEase's application to run World of Warcraft and told the company to stop taking new subscriptions. The reason for the take down is that GAPP says it only allowed NetEase to begin closed beta testing and by taking on paying subscribers it was acting illegally.

However there's some confusion over the issue as the Chinese's government's Ministry of Culture is at odds with GAPP's attempt to shut NetEase down, calling it "not appropriate".

World of Warcraft faces an uncertain time in China thanks to problems over the handover of the game from The9 to NetEase and an atmosphere of suspicion against foreign MMO investment. It will be interesting to see whether it can weather this new storm.

Source: World of Warcraft

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