Earlier this year World of Warcraft was suspended in China. The Chinese government administration did not license the continuation of a server for WOW.
This online game has about five million active users in China, accounting for about 30% of its total users worldwide. In April 2009, Blizzard Entertainment terminated its operating contract with the game’s former Chinese operator, The9, and selected Chinese portal and online game provider NetEase.com as its new operator in China. Since the operator replacement, the operation of the game in China has been suspended and users of the game have consistently complained to get the game restarted.

World of Warcraft in China has seen some six weeks of downtime as government regulators process their approval of the transition to operator NetEase…According to the MMOSite report, the lack of specific age ratings for games in China make issues like showing bones or the undead a gray area. You should read this story to see the difficulties of running a worldwide game across multiple government environments.(legal and cultural)

Here are other links pointing to this monumental story in the MMO world.

The Escapist Magazine

Softpedia talks about the small section of China to the entire WOW market

MMORPQ discusses WOW online again

Gamasutra discusses WOW reopens

Article for background about WOW opening in China, 2005
Another excellent article by same author; great discussion about difference in subscription plans China to US

For the full scope of the story to the World of Warcraft community, read a couple of the stories linked in this article;
WoW shutting down one server in China (GREAT LINKS)

And just these last two; to show the extent of World of Warcraft’s growth.

Blizzard reveals WOW operations

WOW Audience Grows (Gamasutra)

Technically, I know this is a Chinese government administrative decision, and not a legal decision. But it shows the tremendous worldwide reach of these games, and the jurisdictional nightmares if a user wants to file suit against an entity spanning dozens of countries, and thus dozens of different legal environments. It’s also important to have this background when reviewing individual lawsuits against multinational games. Hopefully you’ll read these and have a little empathy for those writing End User License Agreements(EULA) to span five continents’ scrutiny, or a little sympathy for the players or even the lawyers trying to make sense of them.

Jay Moffitt is a TN attorney. The words do not constitute legal advice, and do not create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in the subject matter by the Tennessee Bar, and the Tennessee bar does not have a certification in this specialty. Copyright October 2, 2009.