World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC)China Bans Gold FarmingInformationweek - June 29, 2009
Submitted by apujanata (14935)
at 4:44PM PST on June 29, 2009
The Chinese government has declared that virtual currency cannot be traded for real goods or services
The ruling is likely to affect many of the more than 300 million Internet users in China, as well as those in other countries involved in virtual currency trading. In the context of online role playing games like World of Warcraft, virtual currency trading is often called gold farming.
1
Oh please. Don't give me that, if I was so obviously spinning my posts I'd have a ton of downbids which as you will observe, I don't.
Facts are Lich King has been out for quite some time and it still doesn't have regulatory approval and still doesn't have a release date so yes, I'd say there is a little bit more uncertainty over it than say, six months ago. Nothing more, nothing less.
I was also happy to play down/correct the "banning" of gold farming story.
The bigger question mark over this stock is what counts as a 'sale'. If the existing Chinese subscriber base get it for free like Burning Crusade then I think you can only count new subscribers post it's release as "sales" of this expansion. If on the other hand everybody has to effectively buy "new" copies when moving to the new operator then it could be a complete switch-er-roo.