Its unbelievable to me that this hasn't gotten more press (edit : if true notice its rumoured, but it sounds very plausible), but according to this story the WTO has ruled against China's practise of only allowing foreign games operators from operating in China through approved (and presumably state run) firms.



This could be a major landmark case as far as MMO's go, if the WTO have ruled in favour of Blizzard then they either have to comply or face legally enforceable trade sanctions, its lose or lose then with China's reliance on exports the way I see it. Kind of wonder how this will effect the rest of the MMO industry, and even further reaching with other video games, books, films etc.

Well I've found an initial story here dated July, interestingly the WTO probe is much wider as the result appears to show, but not mentioning Blizzard.


This is the new bit that interested me, I wonder if the censorship that WoW went through did not apply to Chinese based MMO's. Either way I'd expect any sanctions to be likely some way away, although I'd say that sanctions are likely since the US can happily slap, say a 10% import tariff on all Chinese made TV's and make it legal through the WTO (as they have already done in the past), the only lever China has against the US would be to stop buying treasuries, but since to do so would raise the value of their own currency and lower the value of their reserves so its pretty much a nuclear option in my opinion.

EDIT : Reuters are now carrying the story, but only very basic details

EDIT : Looks like the question of whether the US will ever apply sanctions or restrict imports in retaliation will be decided 17th September, further news of WTO rulings from Reuters.



Separate industry but once the precedent is made as Reuters point out...