A young Chinese woman poses as a character in the online game World of Warcraft at a cosplay competition in Guiyang, Guizhou province on Aug. 7, 2010. (Photo: Xinhua/Ou Dongqu)
After years of waiting, fans of popular online game World of Warcraft (WoW) will finally see a film adaption of the game next month. Interestingly, the movie will be screened in China before the United States, widely seen as a nod to the importance of the Chinese market for the game in the past decade.
The movie, which will premier in China on June 8, is expected to attract high viewership among young people, for many of whom WoW offered the first taste of online fantasy gaming.
Ever since WoW was launched in China in 2005, it enjoyed enormous popularity, especially after other variations of the game such as Warcraft 3 and DOTA have already built a strong fanbase here for Blizzard Entertainment, the producer of the games.
The game was so popular that the Chinese government requested game operators to install a timer mechanism into the game, in fear of widespread Internet addiction.
Even as WoW user numbers have declined since 2010 after peaking at 12 million users, China still make up roughly half of the 5.5 million presently active subscribers.
