That figure covers any and all games requiring a subscription, so don’t go laying all the blame at World of Warcraft’s feet. Spare a little for EVE, Age of Conan and LOTRO as well.

“Despite concerns that the recession would cause consumers to reduce spending on entertainment subscription services, most forms of subscription entertainment are doing just fine,” NPD’s Russ Crupnick said in a press release. “Consumers are clearly looking to the value offered by entertainment subscriptions and like what they get for their money.”

According to a report on Reuters, NetEase – the company operating the game in China for publishers Activision Blizzard – have been ordered to “stop operating” the title, cease charging existing user’s accounts and block any new account registrations.

The GAPP claim that because of these supposed violations, the game lacks the necessary approval required to be run under China’s increasingly strict laws governing online video games.

This is the second time this year the game has been suspended in the country, with this move the latest blow in an ongoing struggle between the GAAP and the Chinese Ministry of Culture, which was behind last month’s bluster over foreign investment in Chinese online gaming firms.

Indeed, things are so messy between the two that it’s unclear whether the GAPP’s actions will even be enforced, with reports emerging that NetEase haven’t even been contacted by the GAPP, and that the Ministry of Culture have labelled the threats inappropriate.

NetEase, Activision caught up in China turf war [Reuters]
‘World of Warcraft’ Faces Goverment Crackdown In China [MTV]

After going through the “How long have you been doing hardcore?” motions, we get to the interesting stuff — Ms. Alexis’ five-year-long career in WoW, her preference for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Battlestar Galactica. I’m sure Crecente will do a follow-up in the name of journalistic integrity on par with his World of Whorecraft feature.

If this is the sort of thing you’d like to retain in your memory bank—people who play World of Warcraft and regularly have sex on film—you may want to do some “reading” over at Fleshbot. Just remember, they card at the door.

Meet Raven Alexis: Your WoW-Playing, Star Trek-Loving, PC-Modding Crush Object [Fleshbot]

The ReSTART clinic in Seattle claims to be “the first residential treatment centre for Internet addiction” in the US, and are offering WoW addicts a 45-day course where patients are weened off World of Warcraft cold turkey. All for the low, low price of $US14,000.

Seriously, $US14,000? I know the American medical system is a joke, but I didn’t think it was that funny.

Rehab available in U.S. for Web addicts [AP, via Dtoid]

“8-Bit Trip,” according to its Swedish creators took 1,500 hours to animate. They pay respect to everything from International Karate on a tape drive to Tetris on the NES, with Pong and Pac-Man in between.

The music was written by Daniel Larsson and the animation was done by Tomas Redigh, of the Swedish electronica duo Rymdreglage.

8-Bit Trip [YouTube]

Once a level 60 40-man raid, Onyxia has become a bit of a joke over the years. Now that the level cap is 80, her head is showing up on giant pikes outside the capital cities four or five times a day. Hell, I’ve even turned her head in, and I am such a casual player that my mage wears khaki shorts. Patch 3.2.2 will change all of that, restoring the brood mother to her former glory in the form of a new 10-man model encounter and a 25-man heroic raid. Long-time players will be thrilled to know that the new Onyxia will drop equipment that looks the same as the loot from before, only with updated statistics to reflect the current level cap. On top of the revamped loot, there’s a small chance that a 310 per cent speed flying mount will drop, modelled after Onyxia herself.

Further honouring our forgotten foe, players logging in during November’s fifth anniversary celebrations will score a mini Onyxia whelpling pet of their very own. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take any deep breaths.

The Brood Mother Returns [World of Warcraft]

Just in case you’re not one of the millions of Chinese subscribers to World of Warcraft who already knows this, here’s a recap; the game recently changed operators in the PRC, and as a result had been down for weeks.

But now it’s back! And, as we told you a few weeks back, it’s back with a catch: some of the game’s content has been edited by the local authorities. But just what are the extent of those changes?

Blood has changed colours, and is now black instead of red. Undead characters remain edited, so as to appear less “dead”. Talent tree icons depicting stuff like bones have been edited. And piles of bones you find in the game are now…piles of sandbags. Yes. Sandbags.

MMOSite have good photos depicting the scope of the edits, the most notable of which we’ve run at the top (original) and bottom (Chinese edit) of this post.

WOW(CN) 3.1.3 CB: Blood Turn Black, Icons Become Boxes? [MMOSite, via Gamasutra]

Like these cards, which skate so close to the thin ice covering Lake Copyright Infringement that you can hear it cracking audibly underfoot.

I mean, Adam Eternum is…OK. But Keldor is Skeletor’s real, actual name. Surely that’s a bit much. But hey, hopefully it’s not, because as far as hat-tips go, this is pretty great. They even switched up He-Man a bit, making him less grunty grunty Dolph Lundgren, more sexy swarthy Cary Elwes.

He-Man and Skeletor in Warcraft?! [FANtastic, via GameSetWatch]

Both the Horde and Alliance will get 24 karat gold plated, Sterling silver and copper coins, based on the gold, silver and copper pieces used in World of Warcraft’s currency system. No price or release date announced at Comic-Con, but don’t expect to be able to cash these in for a flying mount.

Sounds like they’ll be packed in a display box, the kind of thing we don’t expect to be cheap. They’ll probably look a lot better in person than the shaky digital camera shot above.

That’s not to say, however, that Blizzard haven’t noticed the commercial appeal of microtransactions.

In an interview with Videogamer, Blizzard’s Tom Chilton has said:

I certainly think it’s possible that we could do some kind of micro-transaction stuff. Whether or not World of Warcraft ever goes the direction of, I guess like Anarchy Online has gone the direction of going free-to-play with micro-transactions. Whether we ever shift to a free-to-play model is really too hard to say at this point. Anything I say now could easily five years from now end up seeming like, oh my gosh, that was an incredibly dumb thing to say, how naive!

Hardly a firm statement of intent, but then, you don’t stay top dog without keeping an eye on the competition.

Blizzard’s Tom Chilton on the future of WoW [VideoGamer]