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Wrath of the Lich King rejected thus far by Chinese government

Continuing on in that upward ascension toward MMO godhood, Blizzard's Wrath of the Lich King expansion for World of Warcraft has proven to be popular with the Death Knight crowd in Western markets. "Popular" is an understatement, of course. Millions of MMO gamers have bought the expansion to date. Despite its success in Western markets, Wrath of the Lich King still hasn't been released in China, where the title has a significant playerbase. Why? Regulatory issues and censorship.

China-based JLM Pacific Epoch reports: "The government has rejected two applications by the second expansion for The9's (Nasdaq: NCTY) licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft, "Wrath of the Lich King," [...] The applications were rejected due to content that didn't meet requirements, including a city raid and skeleton characters; the submitted version did not contain WLK's Death Knight first hero class..."


World of Warcraft has undergone changes specific to the Chinese market in the past, namely removing skeletons altogether in order to receive approval to operate the game in mainland China. It's likely that Wrath of the Lich King will still be a huge hit in China once the game is altered to the point of being 'acceptable' to the government. When that will be, though, is still anyone's guess.


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