China: Online gaming is serious business
I know the news is a little bit late, but it’s still relevant to what we write about here in MMOtaku, which is Asian MMORPGs. Check out this excerpt first posted on Games Industry Wire of a report from international news wire agency Reuters on China’s crackdown on “undesirable” elements in online games:
BEIJING - China said it would issue new rules cracking down on “undesirable” elements of online games amid fears of growing Internet addiction as the number of players soars, state media reported recently.
The number of online game players in China rose 23 percent to 40.17 million last year, Xinhua news agency said, citing an industry survey. Regular subscribers, accounting for over half of the players, soared 30 percent.
The demand propelled online games sales to top 10.57 billion yuan, or USD 1.46 billion, in 2007, up 61.5 percent, the agency said.
The industry’s growth comes amid media reports of soaring rates of online addiction, and officials blaming Internet obsessions for the majority of juvenile crime.
“Although China’s online gaming industry had been hot in recent years, online games are regarded by many as a sort of spiritual opium and the whole industry is marginalized by mainstream society,” the China Daily quoted Kou Xiaowei, a senior official of the General Administration of Press and Publication, as saying. “If we don’t make adjustments, the industry will suffer sooner or later.”
China has banned children from Internet cafes and last year ordered their owners to enforce time restrictions in the wake of several cases involving obsessive players dying of fatigue after marathon game sessions. But attempts to regulate the booming industry have been undermined by a lack of a proper rating system in China and easy access to pirated games online and on street corners.
What’s ironic is that, just recently, the government of China instituted measures to support the online gaming industry, providing incentives for local game developers to come up with titles that can trounce the foreign competition.
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POSTED IN: Asian MMO, MMORPG, MMORPG News
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