Wrath of the Lich King banned in China? (Answer: No)

What we heard: With online ad dollars drying up faster than the Aral Sea, blogs and Web sites are scrambling to generate traffic. One time-honored tactic is the sensationalist headline, a few words that greatly exaggerate a situation to attract unsuspecting newshounds in search of the latest scuttlebutt.

Case in point: Today's article on Silicon Alley Insider, which bore the banner headline "New World of Warcraft Banned in China." In the piece, author Eric Krangel proclaimed without hesitation that Activision Blizzard's "World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a blockbuster hit in the West, has been banned from sale in China by Chinese government censors."

Krangel's apparent conviction stemmed from a less sturdy source: a post on the East Asia finance blog JLM Pacific Epoch that doesn't mention a ban at all. That site, in turn, references a news report on the Chinese-language search engine Sohu, which cited "unnamed sources" as saying that "The [Chinese] government has rejected two applications by the second expansion for The9's licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King." The9 is Blizzard's localization partner in China, and currently operates World of Warcraft and its first expansion, The Burning Crusade, in the territory.

The official story: "As a matter of practice, we don't comment on rumors and speculation. World of Warcraft continues to operate as normal in mainland China, and we're continuing to work with our local partner, The9, toward the launch of Wrath of the Lich King there. An official announcement will be made once it's ready to go."--Blizzard rep.

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus. Sure, the Chinese government rejected The9's application to launch The Wrath of the Lich King...just like it held up the The Burning Crusade launch in 2007. After The9 removed content that Beijing censors found objectionable--in this case, skeletons, for some reason--the expansion launched without any further hitches. Blizzard reps expressed confidence that the already triple-platinum Wrath of the Lich King will follow a similar path to release and success in the monstrous, massively multiplayer-mad market.