World of Warcraft faces rocky transition to new operator in China

If you take away the drug of the people, you should expect dire consequences. In China, World of Warcraft has been inoperative since June 7. That means that WoW addicts haven’t had their fix for 18 days.

Activision Blizzard announced that it was transitioning WoW to a new operator in China, moving from The9 to Netease. The American game company needs a partner in China because of government regulations that require some kind of locally-based Chinese partner, but also because it helps to have a local operator.


The9 had apparently been making a ton of money from its deal with Activision Blizzard, and the American company apparently made the move becasue Netease was willing to get by with a smaller cut of the pie, according to analyst Michael Pachter of Wedbush Morgan Securities. But so far the consequences of that decision aren’t looking pretty. WoW players usually pay by the hour at Internet cafes in China. So all of the downtime means lost revenue.

This represents a golden opportunity for rivals to pick off some of WoW’s customers. Blizzard Entertainment said in a statement that the downtime was expected and players were warned. The companies are still working on getting the game up, but they say they are operating on the schedule that they had anticipated.