Chinese Bureaucrats Duel Over Right To Regulate WoW 128
upto0013 writes "Chinese bureaucrats are battling each other for the right to regulate World of Warcraft. They hope to gain the political clout and the revenue that comes along with controlling a new industry with potential for explosive growth. 'If you supervise a more dynamic area with a lot of growth potential, you have more budget and more administrative muscle,' said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, an Internet research firm in Beijing. 'They see this pie is getting bigger and bigger, so it is no wonder different administrations are fighting over pieces of that territory.' It's absurd how orcs and elves (and Moonkin) can affect so many different faraway places."
What I think is more likely (Score:5, Interesting)
Or maybe they found the right people, but they're asking too much for CWoW to be profitable?
Worse than that... (Score:5, Interesting)
They still only have level 70 because the government STILL hasn't "filtered" every last quest in WotLK for any themes that might contradict the Chinese government policies. I'm dead serious. The "censorship" is that horrific.
Not only that, but there are some really weird censorship issues you wouldn't expect. For example, there are no undead in Chinese WoW because the Chinese government won't allow any human bones to be shown in the game. So anywhere you see a skeleton, it had to be removed by Blizzard.
Re:Power hungry money grubbing grab-asses (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Power hungry money grubbing grab-asses (Score:4, Interesting)
Ummm, your ignorance is astonishing. Or your hyperbole.
If you're trying to draw a parallel between the Chinese Gov't and US Gov't because of some difficulty you had with taxes or some annoying permit you were required to get (probably by your local Gov't, and not even the Fed)... ahh, why am I even bothering trying to answer this rationally. Dude, read a book. I'd start with the dictionary and the definition of the "Authoritative." Then try reading a year's worth of articles about life in China. Then, reflect on how much of that information you wouldn't be reading if you lived in China (or what hoops you'd have to jump through to read it, and what consequences there would/could be for disseminating it.)
Then, put your money where your mouth is and move there and take your flippant attitude toward gov't with you. Please, express it loudly and unabashedly as much as possible. And then, after ten years, let's have this discussion again.