WoW Loses Almost Half of Player Base
In an astounding piece of news, due to a loophole of China’s legal system, World of Warcraft just lost nearly half of its playerbase. The servers in China have been shut down for a month now, due to legal issues with former partner organisation The9. There’s no obvious end to the legal battle, and Chinese MMO companies will be mopping up those users furiously.
Chinese users aren’t such a big source of income compared to American and European ones, and this fact has probably distorted a great many back of envelope calculations (including my own, I’m ashamed to admit). However, it’s still, at the very least, going to be a major dent for the pride of Activision Blizzard. Finding a legal schwerpunkt that can rob them of nearly 6M users is a masterstroke on the part of The9 and whoever they might be working with now.
(Image: Protest in WoW, source)
