Blizzard Entertainment agreed to work on the operation of World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade with The9, current operator of Blizzard's MMORPG, in China, where the game is played by more than 3.5 million subscribers.

Cooperation of Blizzard and The9 aims to provide hardware upgrades to the existing World of Warcraft infrastructure to enable the best gaming experience possible for players in China. Working closely with Blizzard's global teams, The9 will offer their local community management, technical support, and full-time in-game customer service. The9 is also a distribution manager of game cards and physical host of World of Warcraft and The Burning Crusade on local servers.

Mike Morhaime, president and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment said: "We're fully committed to ensuring that the ongoing operation of World of Warcraft in mainland China will provide an excellent experience for players there for many years to come. We look forward to extending that commitment with this expansion as well as with future Blizzard releases."

Launched in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand in mid January, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade smashed the day-one sales record for PC games, selling nearly 2.4 million copies within its first 24 hours of availability and, at the moment, it is played by more than 8 million subscribers worldwide.

In order to become a WoW subscriber, you must have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft (that also goes for those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access). If you have accessed the game in the last thirty days, you are considered a subscriber. All players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards are excluded. The rules are the same everywhere.