China's biggest online game operator, The9, and one of the largest portal sites, Sina.com, have launched a blog contest for the world famous online game "World Of Warcraft". Officials said yesterday in Beijing that this move is to build a platform for game players to share their opinions and experiences.

The contest dubbed "The World Of Warcraft Blog Contest" is the first of its kind. James Zhao, public relations director of The9, said that there have already been 160,000 weblog articles on World Of Warcraft by Sina.com's blog users. He said the game had the most blogging players in China according to figures. The blog contest is set up to enhance players' communications by using the new concept of "blog marketing".

The blog contest will be held from New Year's Day of 2007 to the end of March. The jury will select and vote for winners in April and a winning blog-article collection book will be published in May. Zhao said the competition was for anyone to participate from all walks of life including entertainers, company executives and the media. 

"World Of Warcraft is one of most popular online games in China with so many loyal supporters. They've never had a communication platform before to share their opinions. Sina's blog section is the most influential original literature creation media platform. So I believe our cooperation will be a 'feast for minds' of people." These were the words of Chris Shen, vice president of The9 at the launch press conference. He also said that they'll use this opportunity to do some good by editing a blog book and publishing it. All proceeds would be donated to charity.

However, blog contestants shouldn't expect material awards. The hype is asking bloggers to do it for free. Shen is convinced that netizens will support their decisions and said it's the greatest honor to see your words published in a book the proceeds of which will go to charity.

Zhao Tian, deputy chief editor of Sina, said she's a fan of the game herself. She revealed that she has four characters in the game and could play for more than two hours every day. "We are very happy to jointly hold this contest with The9. This is a brand new venture. We'll use this cooperation to provide a good opportunity for players to share their experiences and deeply communicate with one another. It's also a good beginning for Sina's blog section and other technologies to develop further in the New Year."

The9 also operates other well known online games such as "Guild Wars" and "Granado Espada" in China. When asked if the blog-contest style marketing would be used on other games, Shen said they would but there'd be something new because they don't want to repeat themselves.

But do they worry about those unfriendly articles which may attack the game and the operator during the contest and include them in the upcoming book? Shen said they'd welcome them. "No matter whether it's love or hate, it's a feeling. What worries us most is that people don't have feelings for the game. I think we'll find out what needs to be improved when we read those negative critical pieces and fix problems as soon as possible."

(China.org.cn by staff reporter Zhang Rui December 28, 2006)