the9

Chinese Kid Becomes ‘Fire Mage,’ Sets Fire to Classmate

3:00AM Maggie Greene | Ai you – to add to the ever growing collection of bizarre stories from the Chinese gaming world comes news that a 17 year old high school student has been sentenced for setting a classmate on fire. What does this have to do with gaming, you ask? Because the kid ‘thought’ he was a WoW fire mage. Now, in China, the ‘but the video game made me do it!’ defense doesn’t work so well (the kid was sentenced to 8 years in prison, his accomplice – who lured the victim outside with the old line about wanting to chat for a bit – was sentenced to 7, and both boys and their families were ordered to pay a 760,000 RMB restitution – over $US 100K – to the victim and his family), so there’s nothing to gain – nor a lawsuit to pursue – by pointing the finger at Blizzard, The9, or Warcraft. From billsdue: More »

Foreign WoW Servers Blocked In China?

2:30AM Maggie Greene | A Kotakuite emailed us yesterday regarding problems he (an expat living in Beijing) is having connecting to non-Chinese World of Warcraft servers (and the US version of the WoW site) as of 14 December. I nosed around to see if there was any news, and only found some pretty pissed off expats at both official WoW forums and a board for Shanghai expats. I didn’t manage to dig up anything pertinent in Chinese, so I’m curious what’s going on here. More »

The9 On Making WoW Free to Play: Just Kidding!

2:00AM Maggie Greene | Last week, Chinese WoW operator The9’s CEO dropped the news that The9 and Blizzard were discussing the possibility of making WoW free to play in China. Zhu Jun, the CEO, said they were hoping to expand into new markets (last I checked, WoW wasn’t hurting for subscribers in China, so I’m not sure what market they’re looking at). Of course, as soon as the news was published in the Tianjin Daily, The9’s PR people swooped in and back-peddled like mad: Zhao Yurun, deputy director of The9’s marketing and public relations department, told Interfax that reports of any free-to-play plans for WoW were “speculation” and “rumour” on the part of media and gamers, despite the quotes from The9’s CEO. Zhao declined to comment further. Rumors were fuelled after Giant Interactive, another Chinese company, went public in the US. Gamers’ responses were mixed, with many expressing concern over a potential micro-transaction model, fearing it would wind up being more expensive than a straight up subscription pricing scheme. Whatever the actual motivation behind The9’s contradictory comments, I’d be pretty surprised if WoW went for a free to play model – at least, until player numbers start dropping. The9 denies WoW free-to-play plans, contradicts CEO’s comments [Interfax China] More »

The9 Buys Stake in MSN China, Makes More Microsoft Deals

2:00AM Maggie Greene | The9 – the Chinese company that runs World of Warcraft on the Mainland – has purchased an over 50% stake in MSN China (which was originally launched as a 50-50 joint venture between Microsoft and Shanghai Alliance Investment, an attempt to get around government regulations). Despite having WoW in their stable, The9 lags behind Shanda and two other companies for market share; the acquisition of MSN China, plus the deal made earlier this year in regards to an active role for development on the 360 and XBLA could change that. “The purchase of MSN China’s stake is part of The9’s strategic layout. It is aimed at to build up a cross-business platform just like the one of Tecent Group, which is covering instant messaging, cyber game, online communities, and online auction,” says spokesperson of The9. Besides new deal, in March this year, The9 also joined hands with Microsoft on Xbox 360. However, the two parties did disclose the detail about the cooperation. Insiders close to the company say that their cooperation focuses on the software platform of Xbox online games. For this purpose, The9 has founded a special video game department. I’ll be interested to see if this impacts The9’s market share at all; I wouldn’t personally want to have to compete with Shanda for domination of the Mainland gaming scene. The9 to Buy Stake of MSN China [Trading Markets] More »

China Finally Getting WoW: The Burning Crusade

7:00AM Maggie Greene | It’s been out in the rest of the world for several months, but Chinese gamers have yet to see The Burning Crusade expansion pack for WoW – but The9, the Chinese operator for the game, has finally announced it will be arriving 10 September. Chinese gamers haven’t gotten any new content since October of last year, and their patience is running thin – not a good position for a currently beleaguered company to be in (lawsuits, pissed off gamers, and possible early licence termination – oh my!): More »

Blizzard Getting Sued In China

7:00AM Maggie Greene | Just because a lot of Chinese companies don’t respect intellectual property rights doesn’t mean they don’t want you respecting theirs – Chinese IT firm Founder Electronics Co. is suing Blizzard for copyright infringement. Claiming that “it lost more than one billion yuan (132 million dollars) through the unauthorised use of five of its fonts” in World of Warcraft, Founder is bringing suit in Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court against Blizzard, Chinese company The9 (who runs the game in China), and Qingwentuwen, the company who distributes WoW in Beijing. Teddy Liu, Greater China communications director of Blizzard, told Xinhua on Thursday that he had not received any official information on the suit, and had only read media reports. More »