Analyst: The9 did very well last quarter
by Mike Schramm 
Jan 15th 2008 at 9:00PM
Chinese company The9 (which is the licensee for World of Warcraft in China) saw their stock rise after an analyst posted higher-than-expected estimates of their fourth-quarter profits. In short, more people are playing WoW in China than ever before. Which isn't surprising at all, given that right before the fourth quarter started, The9 released Burning Crusade over there. And we all know what kind of effect that had on the game on this side of the world.However, there may still be dark clouds on the horizon for The9. As you probably know, Blizzard recently merged (along with its parent company, Vivendi) with Activision. And Activision is a competitor with EA... which owns a 15 percent stake in The9. So while The9 currently licenses WoW from Blizzard to sell and service in China, that relationship may be short-lived. And you can bet that will have an effect on the stock, if and when that deal ends.
But for now, The9 is going gangbusters, and Chinese players are enjoying Outland as much as we did last summer.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Blizzard, The Burning Crusade
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
donoteatmikezila Jan 16th 2008 12:02AM
I still want their Undead models.
chinesehackers.... Jan 16th 2008 3:47AM
no offense to any chinese that may read this but my account was hacked via keylogger from an unknown source. probably one of my addons, although i only use popular ones like titan panel/x-perl/bongos... well to make a long story short my friend logged on the day after i told him my account was hacked and my password was changed without my knowledge. he saw me online and proceeded to whisper the person on my account with "ni hao" the person replied in chinese saying something along the lines of "who are you?" (my friend irl is of chinese decent and understood) this is how i found out it was a chinese gold farmer/hacker who took my shit. btw i do not tell anyone else my password. NO ONE! my only warning to anyone is don't use addons...
thankfully after a week of bitching at blizzard they finally reset my password via e-mail cause their stupid website reset didn't work properly. now i'm just waiting for my items/gold to be restored.
to Chinese goldfarmer/hacker/ass: if i ever find you... (not a threat)
From: guy you hacked
Arthur Jan 17th 2008 3:36PM
Don't be ignorant, #1 Keyloggers cannot be sent threw addons. #2 You don't no it was a chinese gold farmer, It was just someone who spoke chinese. #3 What does that have anything to do with the article?
Liel Jan 16th 2008 8:08AM
The website works properly for chaning the password your just not that good with computers and probably got the keylogger from surfing the web.
jrb Jan 16th 2008 9:03AM
the problem with western companies publishing games in china is that the chinese government wants to keep some form of ownership in chinese hands. whether that means you open up shop in china, and employ chinese employees (as ubisoft have done with a codeshop), or using a third-party company to deal with the logistics of localisation as blizzard have done with the9.
I don't think it would be an easy step for EA to just dump the9 and opt for their own derivitive, primarily because of the costs and timescales involved, but also because as far as i'm aware they don't have that dedicated local presence of their own to take the place.
The old addage, if it aint broke, don't fix it.
Heartless_ Jan 16th 2008 10:13AM
Just to be correct here, keyloggers can be sent via addons. Anything you download from the internet can have something added onto it, especially a zipped archive of UI files. Also, there are plenty of legitimate looking websites that offer UI installation EXE files which could very well be a keylogger. Also, it would not surprise me that someone would download a UI file that has a readme file that says click UI.EXE which then isntalls a keylogger of some sort.
Also, if I had a penny for every time someone states they found a Chinese gold farmer/hacker by sending them a tell and they replied in Chinese, I would be a millionaire. Chinese gold farmers/hackers don't reply to tells written in ENGLISH letters and have no reason to use your characters.
I have no doubt the account was hacked, but #2 is probably just grasping for straws on who did it and why. The real warning #2 should give is: "Don't download shit from the Internet if you have no idea how to run anti-virus/anti-malware, or firewalls properly." It amazes me that people think they can just use "trusted" websites and be safe. Every website on the Internet is susceptible to hacks. Cyber criminals have long given up on trying to get you to visit their websites, they just hack legitimate websites and snag unsuspecting victims that way.
Liel Jan 16th 2008 12:30PM
How to be so wrong, the Chinese players use their localized version of Wow, in order to play on American servers they are using our version with English characters.
wisely Jan 16th 2008 2:26PM
This is an interesting topic.
Actually the 9 Ltd is a listing company in Nasdaq, under NCTY.
If you check the price of their stock, you will find out that :
Last year around Aug/Sep, their stock price was about 35-40, and even with the TBC was out and they are doing very well in the last quater of 2007 (as expected), their current stock price was down to about 20-21 per share, which is having a huge loss.
You may think that something is not right here, and indeed, if you look at the other income source of the 9, you will not be surprised that they are not doing very well other than Wow, their other imported game such as the soccer game from EA and couple joint venture stuff with the Korean companies are a total mess.
Heard that they secured the WOTL expansion already with Blizzard, that could be a good news for them, otherwise, they will be in more deep trouble than they were now.
Tigraine Jan 16th 2008 11:54PM
I don't think Blizz will break up with The9 just because of a 15% ownership from EA.
Running Servers, providing support and having trained staff in a foreign country is something very very complicated and blizzard would be very stupid to break up on something that works.
One of their only ways out would be to just buy the WoW division from The9. (Who owns the WoW servers? blizzard or The9?)