Chinese WOW has been offline for a month

By Oli Welsh Published 8 July, 2009

Operator handover not going smoothly.

Chinese online gamers have been without World of Warcraft for a month now, thanks to a problematic handover to a new operator in the region.

Servers closed on June 7th and the game was due to be relaunched by the end of the month, but NetEase, the company selected by Blizzard to take over from previous operator The9, has said that factors beyond its control have indefinitely delayed the launch.

"We have met with some factors which are out of our control, the servers reopening will be delayed," NetEase posted on its WOW website last week, according to Reuters. "As of now, we don't have a specific reopening timeframe."

Yahoo reports that Chinese WOW players have been flooding onto Taiwanese servers, while rival game operators have stepped up their advertising budgets to tempt idle players onto their games.

NetEase is paying over USD 300 million over three years to operate WOW in China, says Edge Online. Although the WOW player-base in Asia is said to be huge - up to half the 11.5 million players the game has worldwide - it's less profitable there than in other regions, accounting for only 10 per cent of revenues, analysts reckon.

Nevertheless, a month of no service in the world's biggest market for online gaming has to stem the flow of cash into Activision Blizzard's coffers somewhat.

Although it's successful in China, WOW has had a rough time there recently, with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion still unreleased in the country after getting tangled up in government red tape.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Setaro #1 3 years ago

    In related news, China's gross national productivity rose 3000% in the same period.

  • curtlikesmeat #2 3 years ago

    And unemployment rose 3000% as gold farmers cried out in horror!

  • ChthonicEcho #3 3 years ago

    Have suicide rates jumped up?

  • Optyk #4 3 years ago

    Has Gold spamming mysteriously stopped for a month also?

  • Kerome #5 3 years ago

    *looks around for the inevitable class action lawsuit to be filed*

    ...

    Do they even have such a thing in China?

  • joe90 #6 3 years ago

    @Optyk they don't play on Chinese servers, they play on uk/us servers :)

    But no epicxxx for the chinese.. not yours.

  • moshegy #7 3 years ago

    "Lazard Capital Markets analyst Colin Sebastian stressed that only 10 per cent of total revenues came from China. With the NetEase contract paying $30-40million more than its predecessor, any losses would, he said, be “more than offset."

    If China takes up roughtly half the subscribers and only account for 10% of the revenues Blizzard will be able to run on those $30-40 million extra for 3-4 months. ^^

    I wonder what their business plan looks like in China, seems pretty solid if they're ringing in a hundred million dollars a year from licensing + whatever scrabs they get off the player fees. :p