As you may have heard, Google could be shutting down its operations in China. However, it may not only be Google users who are suffering these hardships. Do you remember WoW(CN)? And here is its new story.
The latest rumor says: the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) of the PRC has recently ordered NetEase to revert
World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade to the free
closed beta test state, which had been conducted by Sept. 19th, 2009, before Jan. 17th, 2010, otherwise, NetEase will be punished with its internet access blocked and be heavily fined etc.
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"Boring Beta drove us like Forsaken", art by monicajade
It's once reported that, the
GAPP and the Ministry of Culture have agreed on whether
NetEase's WoW operation violates related rules and will officially announce the punishment toward NetEase. It is expected that the above-mentioned punishment will be officially announced in the middle of this month and prior to the opening of the China Game Industry Annual Conference.
NetEase expressed that they hadn't received such info, and refused to make any comments on it. On Nov. 4th, 2009, the GAPP issued a notice and decided to suspend its approval of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and return the application. According to the notice, Easy Net (a joint venture of NetEase and Blizzard) was asked to stop all illegal acts, close the p2p business model and disable the new account registration. The GAPP said that they would impose administrative punishment on NetEase by law according to circumstances, like blocking its internet access.
Subject: Hardship with Google, WoW(CN) Reboot Closed Beta Test 
Thu Jan 14, 2010 5:21 am