netease posts

StarCraft II is now officially invading the many cyber cafes in China. The sci-fi RTS game from developer Blizzard and its Chinese publisher NetEase has now entered into open beta testing in that country and that it will get its official launch just a few days later on April 6.

The game will be sold in 30 day increments for the Chinese market which gives players access to both the multiplayer modes and the single player campaign for the equivalent of $3. The Chinese launch comes several months after StarCraft II was released in much of the world in late July 2010.

[Via VG247.com]

Several months after its release in most other parts of the world, StarCraft II is finally available to play openly in China. Blizzard announced this week that multiplayer open beta testing of the Chinese version of its hit sci-fi RTS sequel has begun in that country.

As they do with World of Warcraft, the China version of StarCraft II is being supported by NetEase. When the game officially launches in that country, it will be sold in 30 day increments to allow for both multiplayer and single player access. The official launch date for StarCraft II in China has not yet been announced.

During Activision Blizzard's financial conference call today, Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime states that sales of its sci-fi RTS game StarCraft II are approaching 4.5 million units since its release back in July. While that's huge for a PC exclusive game that's actually less than some people though it would sell. Several months ago Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey predicted the game would sell as much as 7 million copies by the end of Activision Blizzard current fiscal year which ends on March 31.

Part of the reason for the lower numbers may be that the game has yet to launch in China. During the conference call Morhaime stated that Blizzard was working with its partner Netease to launch StarCraft II in that country but so far there's no word on a China release date. Meanwhile the game's players have uploaded over 150,000 user-made maps to Battle.net. Morhaime stated that work continues on the next game, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, but offered no other details.

Even as World of Warcraft players prepare for the release later this year of Catalysm, the third expansion pack for Blizzard's hit MMO, its second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, is only now about to be released in one of the game's biggest countries China.

This week Blizzard and its current Chinese publishing partner Netease announced that Wrath of the Lich King would launch in that country on Tueday, August 31. Blizzard transferred control of the Chinese publishing rights to World of Warcraft to Netease in 2009 but not without some issues that kept the MMO offline in that country for a few months due to the Chinese government forcing some content changes to the game.

Activision Blizzard execs like its CEO Bobby Kotick have stated on more than one occasion that the publisher would like to take its successful first person shooter franchise Call of Duty and move it into a more persistent online game genre similar to an MMO. Now an analyst is predicting that such a move in China could net the company some big bucks.

According to IndustryGamers, Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey is predicting that a Call of Duty Online game could generate "an additional +$50 to +$100 million in sales" in its first year in China alone. Activision Blizzard already has an agreement with China-based NetEase to run Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft. So far Activision Blizzard has not officially announced any such plan to release such an Call of Duty Online game in China or any other region of the world.

After weeks of waiting, Blizzard's MMO World of Warcraft finally came back online in mid-September in China after reported issues with that country's government kept the transition to a new provider, NetEase, from, moving as planned. Now our sister site WoW.com reports that there could be problems in China yet again.

According to the article, China's General Administration of Press and Publications have ordered NetEase to suspend taking new accounts and stop taking money from current subscribers. This is apparently at odds with another government entity, the Ministry of Culture, who have called their fellow government division's action's "not appropriate." Sounds like the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

It took a lot longer than publisher Activision Blizzard wished it did, we are sure. but now it seems that the Chinese version of Blizzard's hit MMO World of Warcraft is back in full (i.e. commercial) operation. Gamasutra reports that the Chinese servers went back up over the past weekend.

Blizzard expected downtime of only a few weeks in China this past June when it decided to transition its World of Warcraft license to another operator, NetEase. However the game took a lot longer to come back online as the Chinese government mandated some content changes to the game. The big question is how many of the millions of Chinese players will return to the game after such a long time

It's been several weeks since Blizzard's hit MMO game World of Warcraft has been offline in China due to the transition to the new Netease arragement in that country. Many have wondered if the Chinese government has delayed the re-launch due to content concerns. There is now some evidence that was indeed the case.

MMOsite.com has posted up some screenshots from the now running closed beta version of World of Warcraft in China, showing some interesting changes. The in-game blood, as you can see from the above screenshot, has been changed from red into black. In addition, piles of bones that can been seen throught the game's world have been changed to now appear as sand bags. Overall the changes appear to be cosmetic in nature. There's no word yet when the game will officially relaunch in China.

Last month, it was announced that Chinese gamers would have to do without playing Blizzard's hit MMO World of Warcraft for a few weeks as the game transitioned between its old China-based operator The9 and its new operator NetEase. Now it has been revealed that the transition is taking longer than planned.

According to a Reuters article, NetEase is now saying that due to "factors out of its control" the company still has not re-launched World of Warcraft. It also can't predict when the game will come back online for the millions of its Chinese players. Obviously the longer the game is shut down there's more of a chance that its previous gamers will not return to World of Warcraft when it does finally come back online. That ultimately could cut into Blizzard's overall revenues and subscription numbers for the game.

The million of World of Warcraft gamers in China are now dealing with some withdrawl symptons. Early on Sunday the company in charge of the the game's Chinese servers, The9, shut down those machines. The reason? Earlier this year, Blizzard announced it was breaking off its relationship with The9 and handed the big China World of Warcraft keys to a rival company, Netease.

The problem is that, according to the Wall Street Journal, Netease isn't ready to launch its servers for the game and won't be until sometime later in June, which means that a number of Chinese players might not come back to World of Warcraft when it resumes operations. According to a poll of those gamers, 53 percent stated they would come back, 26 percent said they would wait and see what happens with the transition while 21 percent said they were done with the game.