World of Warcraft Loses 6 Million Users

[Kubiatsu]

World of Warcraft may be in imminent danger of losing its crown as the largest massively-multiplayer online role-playing game in the world, as its user numbers fall by 50%. WoW’s Chinese servers are down, according to blogger Tobold, and have been for a month. And the Chinese market represents about six million Warcraft players. Of course, these users are not that profitable for Activision Blizzard. Chinese rules mean that they have to operate in partnership with a local company which takes most of the revenue.

The current issue may be political. Activision Blizzard ended its relationship with former WoW operator The9 due, I believe, to EA’s 15.8% stake in The9. But it is also geopolitical: the Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has to approve the release of “an electronic publication belonging to an overseas copyright holder”. Marbridge Consulting reports that:

“At the 2008 Annual Meeting for China Online Gaming, GAPP said that in order to protect the interests of domestic gaming enterprises, it would suspend review of all games belonging to foreign companies in the event of lawsuits or arbitration between foreign companies and Chinese companies.”

So perhaps unsurprisingly, The9 has brought four lawsuits against Blizzard in Shanghai. And the Warcraft servers stay down. I’m sure that competitors are swarming to attract former WoW players to their own MMORPGs even as we speak.

The financial impact for Activision Blizzard is likely to be small. Chinese players do not spend anywhere near as much per head as Western subscribers. But the prestige impact of no longer being the largest MMORPG in the world is likely to grate on Bobby Kotick.

Oh, and the stigma of “failing” in the Chinese market if they don’t resolve this issue quickly.

Links on the issue:

http://www.gamesbrief.com/2009/07/world-of-warcraft-loses-6-million-users/

http://tobolds.blogspot.com/2009/07/wow-subscriptions-down-to-5-million.html

[Kubiatsu]

And for those that don't know, China doesn't have Wrath of The Lich King yet due to the government.

[Gripen2]

lol. Poor Chineses.

[Örpheus]

Damn, where do we get cheap goldfarming labor now?

[Kubiatsu]

Wasn't gold farming also officially made illegal in China? lol aren't they having a great time.

[Aqz]

The Chinese are playing on the Taiwan servers.

[Kubiatsu]

Did they all buy new accounts then? Because surely only Chinese accounts work on Chinese servers? e.g. You cant play an EU account on a US server.

[Aqz]

Did they all buy new accounts then? Because surely only Chinese accounts work on Chinese servers? e.g. You cant play an EU account on a US server.

We in Europe can freely choose to play in Russian, Spanish or French servers. And ofc English ones.

So maybe they just transferred servers. Dunno

[Kubiatsu]

I see what you mean, however WoW EU is a collective of a bunch of countries and has it's own site/servers dedicated to those countries, I don't see a WoW Asia site as they all have individual websites to Asian countries.

[Zenodice]

Wasn't there a recent ban on gold selling in China as well? Or some sort of ban... that would probably hinder a lot of sellers.

[Iscariote]

That wasn't exactly a ban on gold selling. It was some new legislation about virtual currencies that may have an impact, but not a direct ban.

[Kubiatsu]

Yeah your right, it wasn't a direct ban but it does effect all of the companies who sell gold for real money.

"Trading virtual currency for real goods has been banned in China, putting hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity at risk."

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/ebusiness/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=218101859

[su3n01z3]

Im glad i live in the usa, i dont think they are going to do anything stupid like that here...

i hear in china they made this program to where porn is unlawfull and the program reads skin color/type and if the program detects a certaint tint of color skin (like pink or red? who knows) it will block the content.... China might as well not even have the internet.

[pwned22]

Im gonna miss the cheap gold, and the "Ni Hao" .... Done

[Demon within]

And for those that don't know, China doesn't have Wrath of The Lich King yet due to the government.

So long, I'm moving to China. =)