WoW NetEase Operation Not Approved By Government

The Chinese Government has notified the new WoW Chinese operator NetEase that it does not have proper approval to operate the game.

The Chinese WoW saga continued today after NetEase took over Chinese operations of the MMORPG from The9 which lost the contract to operate the game in China. The government has now contacted NetEase encouraging it to "suspend charging users to play the game and not allow new account registrations". The company could now receive a penalty from the Chinese government and has had its approval application returned.

NetEase and Shanghai EaseNet say that they have complied with all the government's regulations and they are currently trying to ascertain exactly what the problem is.

WoW has only recently come back online in China following a lengthy down-time period after the game was migrated from the old operator The9 to NetEase.