Source: WoW Insider
We told you a few days back that Wrath of the Lich King has had a tough time getting approved in China due to the government's strict censorship laws, but now there's even more bad news for Chinese WoW players. As Sister site Massively reports, The9 has told JLM Pacific Epoch that they will face bankruptcy if the expansion is not green-lighted soon. The Government agency responsible for the decision says that they must balance the needs of the9 with the need to root out "unhealthy" content from the game.
Now I've never played WoW so I'm uneducated. What in WoW would need to be censored?
It's a fantasy world isn't it? It's a world where people go around doing quests and gaining XP and killing stuff to improve their characters? What needs to be censored?
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Skeletons and spirits. To have the ideal society, they must disbelieve the supernatural. (No ancestor worship)
Pretty much the new continent is populated with all sorts of ghouls, zombies, Lich's, undead dragons, and reanimated corpses. Also the Lich King is dead, but moving around causing havok. (Although I haven't explored that area yet)
Although the other thing would be is if they even allow the forsaken race at all, (with all of the forsaken being undead player characters)
The Chinese government had earlier forced The9 to make changes to the graphics used for undead players and monsters, and cover exposed bone with flesh. The official rationale at the time was that World of Warcraft's depiction of corpses was unacceptable disrespect for the dead, and by extension, Chinese values honoring the memory of the deceased.
What's more, there are also numerous political subplots on each side which will doubtlessly have to be vetted carefully to make sure that none of them provide any embarrassment to the party regarding issues like Tibet, Taiwan, etc. Finally, some mid-level bureaucrat may just invent some excuse to delay the release of the WoW expansion in China, and just put an end to it altogether for purely capricious reasons. We will see!
Weird! What's better than killing undead stuff!
I don't play the game so I'm not familiar with the images but the Chinese do believe in ghosts and ghosts are quite common in literature.
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