14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this year, we talked about how World of Warcraft day to day operations in China would no longer be handled by The9, as NetEase picked up that task. Unfortunately, the change means that servers for the MMO will be down for some time, which might make a number of players jump ship and be interested in other massive multiplayer games offered in China.
NetEase has sent a letter to players of World of Warcraft saying that the downtime for the game would begin on June 7 and that the servers would be brought back up one at a time with server groups being added on June 20. NetEase is reassuring players that they will receive free play time in World of Warcraft based on the time the servers are down.
The transition of the operating rights from The9 to NetEase was made primarily because of financial issues, as Activision Blizzard is set to get about 100 to 120 million dollars in licensing rights from NetEase. Apparently, the transition itself might cause the company to lose about 10 to 15 millions.
It's interesting to note that although around 50% of those playing World of Warcraft hail from Asia, only about 10% of the revenues generated by the MMO come from the same geographical region. This is because of the licensing structure, which means that Blizzard does not directly operate the game in countries like China.
World of Warcraft is currently the subscription-based MMO enjoying the biggest number of paying players, going beyond 11.5 million, if we take into account the latest figures released by Blizzard. The game received an expansion late last year, Wrath of the Lich King, which is one of the fastest selling PC games of all time. Blizzard is continuing to create new content for the game just as it is quietly working on a new MMO that is not related to World of Warcraft.