Chinese government to invest in MMORPGs

[Ausir]

Some struggling game developers in America or Europe might be wishing that their governments took a more hands-on role in business, after China announced recently a plan to spend $1.8 billion to help expedite the development of as many as 100 different kinds of online PC games over the next five years. Laissez-faire vs. Communism politics aside, the spending will almost assuredly increase the pace of China's already explosive growth in the online games sector.

Read more here:
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?a ... ure&email=

Will there be World of Communism or Chinese Revolution Online?

 

[Surlent]

Well China sure has market for games whether online or not. Maybe in future they will rapidly start developing too. Now they are known mostly as botters. Online gaming must be popular there though if they have clinics just for MMO players. But everyone here must remember the chinese who murdered because someone sold his sword in MMO, China has also banned minors from playing PVP MMOs. So yeah, I guess some Chinese revolution will happen online.

 

[Atrokkus]

China is getting ahead in cybersport, too.

One of the biggest WC3 tourneys ACON is chinese.
SOme of the best gosus are also chinese.

China is gettin' l33t

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Will there be World of Communism or Chinese Revolution Online?

Boy I hope so. Join the Red Army as they purge democractic trouble-makers from the game world. There'd have to be a big red warning on tha game somewhere though. Something like...

PLEASE NOTE: YOU CANNOT JOIN THE DEMOCRATIC TROUBLE-MAKERS FACTION. IF YOU DO YOU WILL LOCKED UP IN CHINA SOMEWHERE AND POSSIBLY SHOT. COMMUNISM IS SUPERIOR. ALL HAIL.

The future is good, no? It'll actually be interesting if more people start using the games as a way to rage against the communist governing machine.

 

[Atrokkus]

Actually, China is not a degrading socialist (there is no 'communism') society. It's much more complex than that. It is actually capitalistic, but with VERY strong goverment control. Most big, coastal cities look so much like the wester metropoli.
And all the new technology is there. Althoguh controlled furiously, yes. For instance, internet access is very screened, many sites are banned etc etc.

But there are NO problems with games. They are not prohibited or anything. Quite the contrary, they are encouraged. That's why there are so many progamers in China now, and why MMORPG are so popular.
Oh, and they have a very huge hacker-infrastructure.

 

[Jaesun]

But there are NO problems with games. They are not prohibited or anything. Quite the contrary, they are encouraged. That's why there are so many progamers in China now, and why MMORPG are so popular.
Oh, and they have a very huge hacker-infrastructure.

*COUGH* http://www.gameinsider.com/comments.php?id=837&catid=1

Chinese authorities unveiled new regulations on Tuesday that will prohibit minors under the age of 18 from playing more violent online games, which currently dominate the Chinese online gaming market.

Effective immediately, all minors are banned from playing online games in which players are allowed to kill other players, an activity that has been termed Player Kills (PK). China's Ministry of Culture (MOC) and Ministry of Information Industry (MII) have also ordered the country's online game operators to develop identity authentication systems that prevent minors from playing games These authentication systems would require all players to first enter their Citizen ID Card numbers before being allowed to play games that allow Player Kills.

 

[Atrokkus]

Well, it's just an age restriction. It's supposed to work everywhere, but in China it is FORCED to work! ^_^

 

[Drakron]

Well, it's just an age restriction. It's supposed to work everywhere, but in China it is FORCED to work! ^_^

So would be in the CCCP if you did not abandoned socialism.

 

[Jaesun]

Well, it's just an age restriction. It's supposed to work everywhere, but in China it is FORCED to work! ^_^

I just wanted to respond to your statement "But there are NO problems with games. They are not prohibited or anything."

 

[LlamaGod]

what about Hearts of Iron and China?

anyways, I hope less of them are in MMORPGs I play. they are damned annoying.

 

[LordofFever]

well he's right, they aren't prohibited, they won't take a game off the line for being violent, they just don't want kids playing the violent ones. he said the games aren't restricted, not the people playing them.

 

[Atrokkus]

thats' right. it's not some game-ban, or serious restriction. It's the same restriction that is active in every country (almost), but in China it, well, has more chances to actually work.
Not that I am all for it, tho.

 

[Fez]

what about Hearts of Iron and China?

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Wasnt that the one that was banned because the government thought the history was incorrect or something?

 

[Azarkon]

No doubt the government does have a stake in promoting online games. But is the stake TO SPREAD TEH COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA? I doubt it. As have already been said, China is not Communist. It is a capitalist dictatorship.

More likely, the Chinese government is getting involved for two reasons: 1) to take control of the market boom by bringing Chinese games in line with Western ones in terms of competitiveness and 2) to promote the unity of Chinese cultural norms, as this article mentions:

http://www.dfcint.com/game_article/aug05article.html

Understand that the Chinese social elites have always been a very proud and thus isolationist group. They, like most Asian countries (Korea, Japan, Vietnam, etc.) before the age of imperialism, prided themselves on the superiority of their culture to the barbarism of the outside world. This concept is by its very definition Chinese: a civilization of scholars/philosophers and peaceful peasants surrounded by barbaric, warring hordes (ie the Empire vs. the Mongol Hordes, a classic ancient Chinese image). In modern times, China like most Asian countries have had to adopt a new, more open economic policy in order to compete with the rest of the world. This they did, but not without that earlier cultural ideal. Even now, China is determined to foster nationalism through the pervasive ideology that China's culture must remain "Chinese."

Which consequently is simply another way of saying that China's government wants more "Chinese-style" games. In a continent as fanatic about gaming as Asia, this is akin to defining the pop culture of the future - something that the government undoubtedly wants to have a hand in, having failed already in preventing Japanese dominance in the comic/anime arena. I've no doubt that said Chinese companies are not like the average Western development house in terms of their cultural sensibilities, and that if all of this works out, they'll introduce to the world a kind of distinctly Chinese games (though again, it's likely going to include a mish-mash of influences already present in China via the West & Japan).

 

[roguefrog]

China is making a MMO called "Anti-Japan War Online"

Here

"Our developers hate Japan, so they want to make the game very provocative, but the team leaders have tried to tone down the violence," one project manager, Liu Junfeng of PowerNet Technology, told the Guardian.

 

[kingcomrade]

Anti-Japan War Online? Catchy.

 

[Sovard]

Ha, good shit. I guarantee I'll play it and end up shooting the wrong yellow people. I mean, hell, how do they tell eachother apart anyway?

 

[almondblight]

In China right now, an it seems like for the college age crowd, online gaming is huge. Going into the computer place at night seems to be the equivalent of binge drinking in the states; you can even choose to get locked in for the night if you don;t want to go home when the place closes down. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the games they play are repetative garbage; dancing games, mindless grind MMORPG's, etc. I haven't seen anything that looked to interesting yet, though maybe at home there more likely to play interesting games.

 

[kris]

Wasnt that the one that was banned because the government thought the history was incorrect or something?

It was banned because communist China was portrayed as strong as they wanted it to be. Basically it was portrayed as it was, the communists was at the time of WW2 driven back to Xian (I think it was there) and could possibly have lost did not the Japanese attack the nationalists. There is much more to it, but basically it was banned because it was correct

 

[pseudo intellectual]

So what other MMO themes aside from anti-japanese propaganda do they plan? Search out and persecute the Christians? Instead of gold farming, kindney farming poltical prisoners? Or supply third world countries with nuclear weapons so they "might" use them on the west? Or dupe the stupid Americans by selling them cut rate junk in sleezy wal marts to fund your military modernization for conquest of same stupid americans? Or how to flood the west with refugees then turn them into sleeper agents to steal technology?

 

[Azarkon]

Well, they already use games for military training/recruiting in the US, so I can easily see the same being done in Asian countries, where the same games would be alot more effective in capturing an audience.