The9 sent out a short press release announcing that World of Warcraft in China, as well as the rest of The9's other MMO games, would go offline for three days following the earthquake that occurred in the country last week. More on this news after the jump.

It looks like World of Warcraft players in China have a little less to worry about these days. The9 has manually set the Isle of Quel'danas quest progression on Chinese WoW servers to a fully complete status, allowing players to do all the quests available on the island. More on this issue after the jump!

Ever wondered just how many people are online on World of Warcraft at any given time? According to The9, China alone has experienced a peak concurrency of about one million players. More details on this matter are available in the full article

It looks like Chinese company The9, the Chinese distributor of World of Warcraft, is on the up and up. The9's shares rose after an analyst posted a higher fourth-quarter estimate for the company, based on the positive response China has had towards the Burning Crusade expansion.

More on this intriguing development after the jump!

Another case of video game violence was spotted in China after a teen who played World of Warcraft proceeded to pour a water bottle of gasoline on a classmate he had an argument with then lit him up. Needless to say, the victim received major third degree burns and the perpetrator was slapped with a hefty sentence for the crime.

For more details on this, read the full article after the jump!

A free-to-play World of Warcraft? Sounds good to me. China may be the first recipients of a payment-free WoW according to a statement from the head of The9, China's local publisher of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft.

Find out more in the full article right after the jump!

 

From the looks of it, there's a whole new burning legion forming up over in China's World of Warcraft scene, though it's not of the malevolent demonic sort. We've just picked up word that a week after WoW's The Burning Crusade expansion was released into circulation, Chinese distributor The9 is already recording peak concurrent users (players online) of up to more than a staggering 800,000.

Given that WoW's current world population recently exceeded nine million, we're looking at a little less than a tenth of the game's population in one country alone. The massive influx doesn't appear to be all newcomers to the game, however. WoW gamer Zou Jun from China's Nanjing province states that inactive guild members were coming back come the new expansion.

In relation to this news, The9's buffering its local network with nine server groups. WoW's player population in China is expected to reflect in The9’s Q4 financial results.

China's long wait for more Blizzard-luvin' may be coming to an end soon, as regional distributor The9 finally announced a fixed launch date for World of Warcraft's Burning Crusade.

Burning Crusade will reportedly launch in China on September 10. The report comes in shortly before the company was to present its second quarter 2007 earnings.

And while it's yet to be confirmed, rumors in circulation indicate that one likely reason for the expansion pack's long delay is due to China's General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP).

As previously reported, stringent measures in the region ensure that MMO gamers below the age of 18 are discouraged from playing for more than three hours. Given the marathon sessions that took place shortly after TBC's release in the West, we can imagine the same said Chinese officials getting very worried as well.

What still remains to be seen is what sort of region-specific changes may have taken placer for TBC come release. China's WoW has already gone through considerable "sanitation," including the addition of flesh upon the bones of the world's undead.

China Daily is reporting a curious new incident related to copyrights, fonts, and Blizzard's World of Warcraft. It seems that Beijing-based Founder Electronics has sued Blizzard Entertainment over the copyright of its fonts.

Founder Electronics, a subsidiary of the Founder Group, is one of China's largest supplier of fonts, developing hundreds of multi-language fonts used in China today.

The suit alleges that some of Founder's fonts were used without the company's permission for World of Warcraft, further claiming that the use of those fonts has resulted in a loss of 1 billion yuan (approx US$ 132M). The company is asking for 100 million yuan (approx US$ 13M) in compensation.

There's no word on whether the fonts were for the English or Chinese version of the game, but it's probably safe to assume that Blizzard's Chinese operators, The9 Ltd., are currently handling various aspects of the case for both Blizzard and The9.

Microtransaction advocate and worldwide publisher Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) reported a net revenue of US$ 395 million for the first quarter (Q1) of fiscal year (FY) 2007, which dipped 4% than last year's US$ 413 million. But after EA's recent announcement to 'pull the plug' on servers for older boxed games, the publisher announced via press wire than it will now recognize revenue derived from those services. Such earnings will be reflected in future financial reports.

 

The gross profit for Q1 dropped 7% to US$ 229 million compared to last year, while the company's quarter net losses reached US$ 132 million as opposed to the prior year's US$ 81 million. And for concerned investors who couldn't make it to the company's conference call, diluted loss per share was claimed at US$ 0.42 (US$ 0.26 last year). Non-GAAP diluted loss per share dipped by US$ 0.22 (US$ 0.12 last year).

Surprisingly, EA's operating cash flow was noticeably slimmer this year, as its twelve-month flow was tallied at US$ 243 million, compared to a deeper US$ 589 million pocket last year. EA claimed to have ended the quarter with cash and short term investments amounting to US$ 2.2 billion.

Biggest highlights of the quarter for the publishing giant were the two million units sold in a single week for the company's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, while closer to corporate news was the arrival of Peter Moore, former Microsoft corporate vice president, and Kathy Vrabeck, former Activision president, to the executive ranks of the company.

In addition, the company has reorganized itself into four labels which is expected to come into effect this current quarter, while expanding further into Asia with equity investments in The9 Limited, China and Neowiz Corporation, Korea. An agreement with The9 was also signed to bring EA SPORTS FIFA Online to China.