Beijing - Chinese gamers will be able to play the popular online role-play game, World of Warcraft (WoW), for free while the operator awaits official approval from government censors, local media reported Sunday. In April, Chinese players' access to the game was cut off when the operating rights were transferred from one company, The9, to another, Shanghai Netease.
The government requires new operators of foreign online games to apply for a licence and submit the content to the country's censors, the General Administration of Press and Publication.
However, many of China's 4 million WoW players have complained that censorship of the game has been too strict and it has taken too long for the game to relaunch, the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Players protested at the ChinaJoy digital entertainment conference in Shanghai in late July. Photos and video posted online showed them holding up placards before being escorted out of the venue by police.
So far China's censors have asked for a number of changes, and the game must be submitted for further screening.
In the revised Chinese version, piles of bones representing the corpse of an old player have been turned into sandbags, the colour of blood has been changed from red to black, and skeletal characters have been given skin, according to gaming site www.mmosite.com.
While players can now play the open testing program for free, the game will cost around 0.5 yuan (0.07 dollars) per hour once commercial operation is relaunched, Xinhua reported.
The operator didn't know when it would get final approval, the news agency said.
China's online gaming industry turned over 2.69 billion dollars in 2008, a rise of 76.6 percent year-on-year, according to an earlier China Daily report.
The number of online gamers in China totaled 49.36 million last year, the newspaper said, and Chinese WoW players represent 30 per cent of the total WoW gaming community.
