Spurned Chinese Publisher May Create WoW Knockoff

Earlier this year, Chinese game publisher The9 lost the rights to operate World of Warcraft in China. Now, it appears they are trying to solve their financial troubles by making World of Fight, which bears a suspicious resemblance to World of Warcraft. Others have noted similarities between World of Fight and Warhammer Online. Quoting Eurogamer: "According to the China Journal report, Chinese industry observers 'wonder whether The9 is launching a "shanzhai," or knock-off, World of Warcraft in hopes of keeping WOW players,' with iResearch analyst Zhao Xufeng noting that 'with the topic staying in the centre of attention, The9 can easily attract attention by doing this.'"

"World of Fight"

[nomadic]

You know, when you translate phrases from other languages you're allowed to make them grammatically sound. World of Fighting would have, presumably, the same meaning but actually not sound quite as ridiculous in English.

Re:A terrible idea

[Anonymous Coward]

One wonders what Blizzard does with it's cut of the revenue : in theory, they could use that money to create a WoW sequel that would be the most technically complex game ever made, with the best graphics and most sophisticated AI ever put in a computer game.

Or they could — and this is entirely blue-sky thinking, mind you — use said revenue to develop a theoretical sequel to StarCraft, an obscure RTS they made a few years back.

And, unbeknown to many, Blizzard, back when they were a plucky, unknown company called "Blizzard Entertainment", put together a charming, though largely forgotten, duo of games under the "Diablo" name. Now, I know there's little chance you've heard of them (not many have), but from what I understand, they were sort of dungeon crawl games with online components. They DO have a small cult following, though, so maybe — just maybe — they could throw their loyal fans a bone and make a third game in the series.

Again, just wild, crazy ideas I've got.

The Chinese spot fakes better than anyone

[Praseodymn]

and those kids won't play a fake WoW.

Re:"World of Fight"

[jaxtherat]

What, you mean like Harry Potter and Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and_Leopard-Walk-Up-to-Dragon#Unauthorised_Chinese_Harry_Potter_books [wikipedia.org]

Re:The Chinese spot fakes better than anyone

[Gutboy]

Of course they won't. Who would buy the gold they are farming?

What the...?

[Bottoms]

WOF? World of Fail - "were u cum 2 farm teh gLOLdz"

Ooh!

[Greyfox]

I can't wait to create a character over there to farm and sell glod* all day and night! Time to pop out and buy an English to Not-Quite-Mandarin phrase book!

* The World of Fight currency

How is this news?

[Opportunist]

This just in, yet another MMO mimicking WoW in the making. Film at 11.

Re:I'm confused!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well then, why aren't you complaining to your mom, dad, aunt and uncle, instead of bitching at us on Slashdot.

Because they don't never come down in the basement no more. :-(