The9 prepping WOW knockoff in China?

By Activision Blizzard's most recent accounting, World of Warcraft's subscriber population numbers some 11.5 million people, a significant number of which hail from the Internet cafes of China. As such, the publisher dealt The9 a serious blow in April, when it announced that it would drop the...

By Activision Blizzard's most recent accounting, World of Warcraft's subscriber population numbers some 11.5 million people, a significant number of which hail from the Internet cafes of China. As such, the publisher dealt The9 a serious blow in April, when it announced that it would drop the partially EA-owned company in favor of a new Chinese-region WOW operations partner.

Unsurprisingly, it appears as if The9 is none too pleased with the recent turn of events. The Wall Street Journal reports that The9 may be planning to launch a World of Warcraft "shanzhai," or knockoff, with which it hopes to retain a number of players who currently subscribe to Blizzard's highly prized massively multiplayer online game.

Namely, The9 recently launched a promotional site for World of Fight, a "new" MMOG whose Web site bears art with more than a passing resemblance to WOW. The Journal also notes that the site's URL, wofchina.com, is just one letter different than WOW's Chinese Web site URL, wowchina.com.

Blizzard Entertainment had not responded to requests for comment as of press time.

116 Comments

  • beymod

    Posted Jun 6, 2009 5:53 am PT

    thanks....
    http://www.beymod.com.tr

  • Blackwind7

    Posted May 24, 2009 2:54 am PT

    http://www.wowfailblog.com/news/made-in-china/comment-page-1/#comment-4397


    Damn you all, the bad thing is done by damn The9, why the hell you idiots insult China?!

    CAO NI MA, ZHE SHI JIUCHENG ZUO DE NIAO SHI NI MEN ZHE BANG BI MEN MA ZHONG GUO GAN MA, HUN DAN!

  • spartanwrath

    Posted May 7, 2009 9:53 am PT

    all i can say is lol... and damn china

  • JFFHawke

    Posted May 6, 2009 5:25 am PT

    @ glhx2112
    There is a larger social dynamic at play here than a simple "It's Walmarts Fault". Walmart is a byproduct of the ever increasing shrinking middle-class. There was a time when most people had the cash to shop at luxury department stores like Kohls, Bon Ton, Sears. But since more often than not the middle class is shrinking to poverty levels forcing many to shop at a bargain, and look for a less expensive product, which Walmart provides.

  • kastilho

    Posted May 5, 2009 3:55 pm PT

    For me the only game that may gona put WOW to an end is Continent of the ninth. but i'm sure is gona fail to.

  • nurse_tsunami

    Posted May 4, 2009 8:16 pm PT

    WoF = World of Fail?

  • Gao_Wuji

    Posted May 4, 2009 8:09 pm PT

    @Barighm I agree, the Chinese are not the only one's making knock-offs. I live in Beijing and if you buy a new hollwood movie that should only be in theaters, it's most likely a Russian bootleg.

  • glhx2112

    Posted May 4, 2009 7:10 pm PT

    And this is news? China can and will rip-off any and everything it possibly can. Get used to it. From cheap toys to Sophisticated intel on defense programs. Why spend to time to develop something when you can just steal it, replicate it, and have the government protect you while you are doing it. Think about this the next time you spend good money on cheap Chinese stuff at Walmart (China-Mart). Happy shopping.

  • manzy57

    Posted May 4, 2009 7:08 pm PT

    Best of luck...already a good amount of knock-offs out there.

  • jrabbit99

    Posted May 4, 2009 6:00 pm PT

    nothing like knockoffs

  • Barighm

    Posted May 4, 2009 12:29 pm PT

    You guys act like only the Chinese are the only people who create knock-offs. Practically 90% of the video game world consists of clones, knock-offs, and derivatives. Heck, most of the "greats" todays are just clones with a twist or a cool feature (and it's not always the developer's fault; many developers want to create something new or different, but publishers force them to "play it safe" and do what the other highly successful guy is doing). And I wouldn't bet on Blizzard suing The9. They may sue The9, and win, but do you really think the Chinese government will back a foreign company over one of their own, especially with the potential to grab some of WoW's enormous Chinese-based audience?

  • aura_enchanted

    Posted May 4, 2009 12:11 pm PT

    everything except for murder,theft, and gta are legal in china XD hence why half your e-waste that was "safely recycled" ends up there in the hands of poor families.

  • MrZilch

    Posted May 4, 2009 8:10 am PT

    halo2mad12345: People who spend time posting on internet message boards using video-game usernames probably shouldn't go around calling other people nerds.

  • gameking5000

    Posted May 4, 2009 3:12 am PT

    If they continue to 'copy' they deserved to be sued.

  • shani_boy101

    Posted May 4, 2009 12:19 am PT

    kinda like that Limbo of the Lost game which stole all the environments, objects and textures from Oblivion, the idiots must have thought something was wrong with us if they assumed we wouldn't notice the same exact designs on the rugs.

  • damaster101

    Posted May 3, 2009 8:24 pm PT

    People still play this crap?

  • aldrenar47

    Posted May 3, 2009 6:59 pm PT

    I think its kind of funny how the Chinese always develop knockoffs of everything, especially technology like the iPod and iPhone. Lineage might have successfully ripped off Diablo, but MMORPGs are a different story. Its going to be extremely hard for them to keep the game quality up to WoW standards... they dont have nearly the cash that Blizzard has. And WoW already has a ton of content.

  • somberfox

    Posted May 3, 2009 3:52 pm PT

    I don't expect that Blizzard will just sit back and watch this happen.

  • cjdaweasel

    Posted May 3, 2009 2:58 pm PT

    I'm sure it'll be just as good as all the other Chinese knock-offs.

  • JKxMExAN

    Posted May 3, 2009 2:35 pm PT

    Theyre not tgoing to stop playing a gmae that theyve been spending as lot of money on just because the old developer* is making a new game! dumbasses

    *might not be developer

  • Hunt270

    Posted May 3, 2009 1:28 pm PT

    Americans care, why? this is all china's problem

  • halo2mad12345

    Posted May 3, 2009 12:20 pm PT

    About 10 Million who play this game are gold farmers, hackers etc, And the rest are nerds who have no life. And like to dress up as WOW characters at HMV.

  • Ra0

    Posted May 3, 2009 9:56 am PT

    Who let the dog out..."Wof" "Wof" "Wof"............

  • DamnedApples

    Posted May 3, 2009 9:52 am PT

    I couldn't care less, but at the same time this has prompted me to start my own gaming franchise--World of Awesome (WoA), which will be an awesome game of awesomeness, topped with a helping of super-awesome in which player get to play a totally awesome avatar of awesomeness. Awesome.

  • falconclan

    Posted May 3, 2009 9:22 am PT

    Mr_Versipellis - I doubt it, we aren't talking about American copyright infringement, or any copyright infringement really. It looks similar but I'm not sure its enough to be sued over, and in China.... it doesn't matter though, WOF will likely fail pretty hard if anything becomes of it. I personally think they are just teasing blizzard more than anything.

  • roshansequeira

    Posted May 3, 2009 9:04 am PT

    lol hard to believe people still play wow, that game is so damn monotonous

  • Mr_Versipellis

    Posted May 3, 2009 8:41 am PT

    Hahahahahahah! "World of Fight" -- gotta love the Chinese!
    Can'r wait for Blizzrd to catch wind of this... How long shall we give 'em? Half an hour? Then 15 minutes after that the site will be gone!

  • nappan

    Posted May 3, 2009 8:35 am PT

    @poorisaac: Beats me... Apparantly TomM_GScom or his boss lol. That said... World of Fight... LOL. Reminds me of the first time I can remember traveling to the western europe and reading the titles of American made movies... still in english... but totally reworked. Hilarious stuff.

  • 125094929

    Posted May 3, 2009 7:26 am PT

    ……WOF

  • poorisaac

    Posted May 3, 2009 7:20 am PT

    Who cares?

  • Miicrox

    Posted May 3, 2009 7:10 am PT

    It won't happen, but what if WoF actually is better than WoW and everyone starts playing WoF? I would laugh so hard.

  • rusky4ever

    Posted May 3, 2009 6:23 am PT

    What do you expect from the Chinese. I hope and crash and burn.

  • Arclight_Blue

    Posted May 3, 2009 4:14 am PT

    World of Fight, where people.... uhhh...... fight....
    you guys got some crazy genius creativity going on there

  • theodosis21r

    Posted May 3, 2009 4:06 am PT

    WoF??? WTF??

  • PimpiNbananas

    Posted May 3, 2009 3:22 am PT

    WOF? LoL that stands for warrant of fitness in my country

  • syedzaim

    Posted May 3, 2009 1:02 am PT

    china, i am really not surprised

  • paullywog

    Posted May 3, 2009 12:24 am PT

    world of fight? only in chinese-english translation would a game title sound so bad. all they have to do is copy wow and charge the equivalent of 10 bucks a month instead of 15 and they'll take over.
    i guess the short way to say it is WoF - now we can call the players WoFfles.

  • Rizer

    Posted May 2, 2009 11:49 pm PT

    I'm not to shocked that SOMEONE would eventually try build off of WOW's success. US companies alone try this all the time to each other. As long as they tweak the art, theme, and some of the control schemes...it's technically a different MMORPG according to US standards, right? So it's not really different from what we see every month...Halo wannabes, Guitar Hero wannabes, God of War wannabes...wannabes "inspired" by other good ideas have been coming and going for a while , locally and globally WAY before this came up. "World of Fight" is a little obvious and bit corny though, maybe it sounds better in Chinese...anyway as long as the entire world's theme, character races, and story are different with a creative spin on how they controls work there's not much you can say about it that you couldn't turn around an say to some of our own country's games. Besides, it's hard to be an original anyway, especially if they title carries as much weight and fan devotion as WOW. If this "World of Fight" actually intends to replace it they better do more than simply copy it...otherwise most players won't bother with switching.

  • fiskefyren

    Posted May 2, 2009 11:18 pm PT

    haha, ohoh, hihi, haha (wait... that sounded kinda like the joker?) WoF eh? heh, that sounds awesome xD wow alone have like 6 million internet cafe accouts in china (so no people; wow does NOT have 11.5 million players) so now blizzard might get their balls in their mouths now *wink* but seriously... i still don't get it... why do anyone even play wow? its just such a lame game, plus it take ages to get anywere! why would so many people spend most of their life in this game?
    i have this guy at work and his always in a ******* rush to get home because as he says "he got plans today" and those plans always involve some 8 hours wow raid so his worth **** the next day on work... seriously someone should fire that guy or atleast tell him to get a life. and people... his like the major group of people playing wow... its just sad really.

    @maverick_76:
    funny? it would be ******* awesome if they did! PWNED blizzard! xD
    well... atleast they will focus more on new games rather than that old **** because it won't crap out gold bars in there face anymore every month!
    so now we might see starcraft 2 and diablo 3 within the next 7 years? *GASP*

  • UnsaidWarning

    Posted May 2, 2009 11:17 pm PT

    Haha who cares, they do it with all the consoles and console games already.

  • chappy_man

    Posted May 2, 2009 11:17 pm PT

    what cry babies

  • Smoo231

    Posted May 2, 2009 9:27 pm PT

    This type of thing only seems to happen in China... Coincidence, or proof that communism is the definition of failure?

  • johnrkinsey1

    Posted May 2, 2009 9:10 pm PT

    MMOG's are everywhere. MMOG's like WOW and EQ are great; however, if World of Fight is successful, then we will see it stateside in a year or so. I'm staying impartial.

  • CVM_123

    Posted May 2, 2009 8:39 pm PT

    world of fight lol

  • Deathfish69165

    Posted May 2, 2009 8:31 pm PT

    @Ekustix

    The font maybe there to get attention of those current WoW players currently under the services of The9, however that background is from Warhammer Online. In particular, it's from the Chaos starting zone from Warhammer Online. That's a dead giveaway that they're going to have Warhammer Online as their new game they provide service for.

    Also, just think about it. The9 is partially owned (via stock options) by EA; Warhammer Online is fully owned by EAMythic because EA bought out Mythic. Any average minded person can connect the dots as to what The9 will be hosting later, as well as the exact reasoning that Blizzard/Activion canceled their contract renewal with The9. I mean, would anyone actually have a company partially owned by competition running their products? I don't think they would.

  • theone332

    Posted May 2, 2009 7:32 pm PT

    damn chinease, is there anything they don't make copies of

  • Warchief_Zuljin

    Posted May 2, 2009 7:26 pm PT

    That's awesome!!

  • DarthEthong467

    Posted May 2, 2009 7:03 pm PT

    @maverick_76

    Simple, "politics". Before you know it, we will all be bowing down to our chinese overlords in our uniform red jump suits!

advertisement

Hot Stories

Newsmakers

Featured Stories

Submit News

Got tips? Send them in!

Related Game

World of Warcraft Boxshot
World of Warcraft

Game Stats

  • Rank:
    22 of 86,999
    (up by 4)
    PC Rank:
    9 of 12,962
    Tracking:
    37,280 Track It»
    Wishlists:
    10,077 Wish It»
  • Users Now Playing:
    19,197
  • Number of Players:

    Massively Multiplayer Online Modes: Competitive, Cooperative, Team Oriented

  • Top 5 User Tags:
    1. wow
    2. world of warcraft
    3. mmorpg
    4. warcraft
    5. blizzard
  • Teen Rating Description

    Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language. Learn more

Full Game Details »Close
Also on

Related Games

Site Blogs