http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/02/16/

Could this be a 'cultural thing'? i.e. is it something to do with respect for the dead, even if they're the evil dead?

Gold farmers play on US and Euro servers, as it's unprofitable to sell gold to other Chinese players. If Chinese WoW servers were shut down, nothing would change on that front.

"bone" is a funny word

Quite possible; cremation has been the norm as opposed to the exception for centuries, and i'm pretty sure there is a shortage of skeleton-types in east asian mythology.

Give the man who thought up "extremely nude" people a pack of hobnobs.

China seems to look on WoW as an alien influence to be controlled whereas it would be closer to the truth to say China is the home of WoW. In much the same way as BeBo is Canadian but for some reason is full of Irish types. A network of WoW capable machines is a resource worth having in any country. The actual players at worst are addicted to a harmless enough drug compared to the alternatives. China should be hosting international WoW conferences rather than dicking around with a bunch of semi-skilled tax paying voters.

I think thats actually the exact opposite. By giving China it's own server, part of the idea was to get them off the western servers and on their own to try and reduce gold farming, as well as increase the gold farming for the companies involved. A few of the MMOGs seem to do it, Blizzard, Turbine, etc all are on the attempts to keep the gold farmers home. Isn't working totally, but even a slight help is better than nothing. And if you get licensing fee's, all the better for the companies.

Just imagine it without local servers, a shedload of extra players from China showing up on the western servers.

Interesting: Extreme reverence for the bones of the dead is a pre-Mao cultural thing, from Confucianism. I guess the Great Revolution wasn't as far-reaching as they thought.

I dont really like the gory stuff either. I mainly play sports games.

From "syndicate wars" I assume (oh how I long for another one)? But is it really so nefarious to own a fast server or 6? You guys are actually making them out to be "The 9"! Personally I'd quite like to see the church of the new epoch entering the market, so hopefully you're right.

There goes the farming industry. Maybe they'll get government subsidies...

They might play on US and European servers, but they'll probably end up getting the server IPs blocked by the Great Firewall of China as part of the ban (if not now then eventually)

Well they want to put minimum prices on Alchole (coz it's bad mm'kay)

Use tax to disuade you from doing anything they or their sponsors don't like (smoke,drink,drive,fly)

(look to) Make things illegal based on no evidence what so ever (extreme porn, cartoons)

Ignore science when their dogma says otherwise (drugs)

Blindly enact law that devistates our global reputation (much of the anti terror legislation)

Place child offenders with foster families that have children (it's too hard to check these things mmm'kay)

the list goes on and on,

however back to WoW,

I can see our puritan overlords wanting to "deal" with it on several levels.

1) There are children and adults in the same location, therefore everyone should be vetted.

2) It is possible to send communications to people all over the world, this means it should be monitored becouse you it could be used to form underground networks terrorist/peadophiles/bdsm/train spotters.

3) At least one "scientist/guy" has said that it's a dangerous addiction like crack, that means it should probably be banned, controlled, taxed or/and have a minimum fee.

Anyway, yeah the UK wont let China be ahead for long.