WoW unleashes an earthquake in Chinese institutions

Censorship in China of 'World of Warcraft', a video game network with over twelve million users worldwide , has triggered an earthquake in Chinese institutions, that are thrown things at his head by this decision.

The decision to ban the game took on Monday, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP, according to its acronym in English), which urged the company NetEase, responsible for managing it in the Asian giant to suspend this activity under threat of sanctions .

However, the Chinese Ministry of Culture came out yesterday to step ensuring that the GAPP holds no authority in this matter.

The head of the Ministry Cultural Markets, Li Xiong, said the General Administration of Press and Publication, "has no right to authorize NetEase to stop the 'Burning Crusades' , the latest version of the series' World of Warcraft '".

This type of controversy on account of the responsibilities of each agency are rare in China, a country with the scale of perfectly nested decisions and in which dissenting voices rarely overlook .

Complicating the matter, NetEase, one of the most important companies in the entertainment industry 'online' in China, issued a statement in which he denies having received any official communication regarding the decision to ban the game.

"To date, neither NetEase NetEase Shanghai subsidiary nor received any notification from the GAPP" states the note.

The Chinese firm claims that "fully comply with laws of the Republic of China and is seeking clarification from government authorities."

The new ban is one more in the campaign of "cleansing" of the network that made ​​the Chinese authorities, which seek to remove access to content "pornographic and violent" Chinese Internet users, the world's largest online population with more 380 million customers .

The campaign, which has blocked access from China to thousands of websites, including some 'heavyweights' like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter, and last month had an impact on network games, with the enactment of a new law that prevents companies from foreign operations in this sector in the Asian giant.

However, NetEase is a Chinese wholly giant , founded in 1997 in Guangzhou, with an operating profit in excess of $ 280 million last year, and whose importance is demonstrated by the fact that it is listed on the Nasdaq in New York .

The reaction of Chinese Internet users, as expected since more than one million players of "World of Warcraft" come from this country , it has been expected.

"If you close the 'WoW', all national games would have to close. Hate all games presumably acceptable," said a netizen.

"No matter what government agency overseeing Internet gambling, but whoever he is, will never come to ask our opinion . players are the biggest victims, "a Chinese.

"Sure NetEase has not paid the bribe corrupt officials of GAPP. Businesses operate in China as well," writes another.

The 'Wow' is the most popular online game, created by the American company Activision in 2004 and magic and action mixture in which the user controls a character within a virtual universe in which characters compete with other Internet users.

It also has the Guinness record of players online, because in December last year were quantified at 11.5 million subscribers.