A free-to-play World of Warcraft? Sounds good to me. China may be the first recipients of a payment-free WoW according to a statement from the head of The9, China's local publisher of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft.

Jun Zhu, the company's CEO, mentioned during an interview that the local version of WoW wasn't doing very well in the country. The third quarter sales report from The9 showed that the company had a net revenue of US$ 42.2 million due almost entirely to World of Warcraft.

This was due mostly to the increasing operating costs for the game. The use of high-quality HP server farms to support its popularity in China was taking its toll on the company's profits.

Because of this The9 is considering to let go of the game and let it run as a free-to-play MMORPG. While there has been no word from Blizzard on this possible move from the Chinese game publisher, we'll have to see where this takes the WoW community in the country.