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It's a story we're all well familiar with by now... World of Warcraft enters a new territory (this time China), underestimates demand, and a growing player base suffers increasing queues and server outtages as a result. The thing that makes things a little more dire for Chinese players is they pay by the hour, rather than month-to-month like in other regions. So an hour in a queue costs them money, and if the server goes down three hours into an instance before the group gets to the elite loot, it costs the players more than just time and frustration. A
story at Interfax China chronicles the current manifistations of player discontent.
Large numbers of Chinese players have made complaints about their unsatisfactory WoW gaming experience - including disconnects, long time-lags and queues, which are posted on the Chinese WoW forum, and then deleted by the operator. Many gamers said that it usually took them more than 1 hours to log into the game and another half an hour to get the game list for the 'realm' they wished to enter - while the game begins charges users as soon as they log into the game. This means players need to sometimes pay for up two hours game time before they begin playing.
Shanghai based The9 saw its net revenues surged 24 times year-on-year to reach USD 26.3 mln in the fourth quarter of 2005, including a net profit of USD 8.5 mln. The firm's rapid growth depends heavily on its commercial operation of the WoW online game title in China, which it commenced in June 2005.
The operation of WoW in China attained peak and average concurrent users of approximately 530,000 and 270,000 in the fourth quarter of 2005. The9 does not provide any monthly package for playing WoW, instead it charges Chinese gamers RMB 0.45 (USD 0.06) per hour to play the game.
More... | | Source: Clickable Culture |
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WoW: Chinese Players Threaten Protest @ Interfax China
