Let that be a lesson,NetEase.Keep your instances running and your downtime low,because if Blizzard pulls the plug on a game you Are running,they will be taking a ton of money with them.

World of Warcraft has,as you have probably heard,been offline in China for a while now.Even though The9 originally said they would transfer over their servers to NetEase,they later decided to fight it out,leaving WoW offline for a matter of weeks.And it is not quite up yet,but they are getting there -- this (very roughly) translated article says that Battle.net servers are now up and running,so Chinese players can now at least sign in to Battle.net,if not into the game itself.We already went through the same thing here in the US and the EU,so Azeroth should be back online in China any day now.

Meanwhile,the poor folks at The9 have not been doing so well -- they were on top of the world last year,but when World of Warcraft up and flew the griffon out of there,they lost the majority of their business.A new AP article has them revising their expected earnings down by an estimated 55 to 75 percent. Ouch.