Chinese operators of the “World of Warcraft” have done away with skeletons in the game, replacing them instead with healthy human bodies in tandem with a government campaign that aims to clean up Internet content. I personally think that this is pretty much an impossible task since the Internet is just too vast an intellectual organism to be shackled, but perhaps that’s why I hold no public office. This change has enraged Chinese players, with up to 500 of them already signing a petition that signals their intention to boycott the game.

According to James Zhao, a spokesman for The9 Limited online gaming company in China claimed that these decisions were made to match designs due in the upcoming version of the game known as “The Burning Crusade”. This is part of the effort involving China’s government to prevent its citizens from accessing material that is considered obscene or politically subversive. In fact, the Chinese government has already banned local authorities from approving the mushrooming of new Internet cafes this year.

In fact, word on the street has it that some of the other more notable changes include bones that symbolize dead characters being changed to graves. I must say that the level of realism will definitely drop, since dead folks end up as bones works much better than having them transform magically into a graveyard. Do you really think these subtle changes would do any good to the game, or does it really matter? I think as long as the essence of the game is not removed, then these subtle modifications won’t really amount to much.

Source: Wired

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