Chinese Company to Operate StarCraft Online

The rumor mill seems to be turning once again as word is out that China-based Internet company NetEase will be licensed to operate StarCraft Online in China. This could either be one of the happiest days of our lives, or maybe China has April Fools day at the end of January.

It has been reported that NetEase has been given the license to operate StarCraft Online recently. This of course was only reported by TradingMarkets.com from an industry insider. So how much of this is true or even believable?

NetEase is a Chinese company which operates an Internet Portal, Wireless Value Added Services (VAS), and online games as well. In the stream of online games they have developed several titles under the theme of "Journey to the West". One of the games they have licensed and operated in China has been Fly for Fun, the popular Korean developed MMORPG. NetEase has come out and said that they were interested once again in making "its first step on being licensed to operate overseas online games in the near future." So could StarCraft Online be one of the titles it will receive?

The only MMORPG that Blizzard currently has under its belt is World of WarCraft. World of WarCraft's license was given to The9 Limited to operate in China. This is a company which already has licenses to operate Guild Wars, Hellgate: London, Ragnarok Online 2 and several other game titles. We also know that there are currently three development teams working on three different projects for Blizzard currently. We have the team on StarCraft II, WoW: Wrath of the Lich King, and Team 3.

GosuGamers.net along with a horde of other Blizzard fansites were scrambling to get every detail we could when Frank Pearce, founding member and senior vice president of product development for Blizzard slipped out the words "Team 3" at last summer's E3. It has also been confirmed by Gamasutra.com that there is a next-gen MMO in the works citing a community administrator, "No, it is an unannounced Next-Gen MMO. And that doesn't mean an expansion for World of Warcraft either." [Link: Scroll down to Drysc's post]

So could it be official? If NetEase has received the license to a game called StarCraft Online from Blizzard, then it is pretty set and clear that Team 3 is indeed working on a next-gen MMO under the StarCraft banner. As of yet Blizzard has not made any official statements regarding the game and Frank Pearce would not even budge when asked about Team 3. If this industry insider is correct, then we could be looking towards walking on the barren deserts of Shakuras, or flying over the molten rock lakes of Char.

Links
TradingMarkets.com - Source
Gamasutra - Confirmation of next-get MMO