China Finally Getting WoW: The Burning Crusade
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 license termination - oh my!):
Although World of Warcraft was launched in China six
month after the game's launch in Western markets, previous content
update releases usually lag North American market releases by a month.
Chinese WoW players have not experienced any new content since
last October, and their patience has been taxed to the limit. The
number of average concurrent users (ACU) for WoW has dropped two quarters straight, from 340,000 ACU in the forth quarter of 2006 to 300,000 in the second quarter of 2007.
Some of the speculation is that the new anti-addiction measures (and
the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) that
administers said measures) held up approval for the game. Regardless,
Chinese WoW fans should be placated soon. |
