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ChinaThe unbound network of product and service interaction of the MMOG industry: with a case study of ChinaYear2007 Publication informationProceedings of DiGRA 2007: Situated Play. Tokyo: The University of Tokyo, September, 2007. Pp. 335-343. URLhttp://www.digra.org/dl/db/07312.38207.pdf Bridging East and West at Game Developers' Conference ChinaI'm writing this at Shanghai Oriental Riverside Hotel, where the first ever Game Developers' Conference China has just ended. By all accounts the event was a success: there were over 2000 visitors at the exhibition and some 800 attendees at the conference. The exhibition part was largely about outsourcing, recruitment and training, but also showcased neat Asian titles like the phenomenally popular online dancing game Audition. All the big Chinee MMO companies were present, as well as EA, Ubisoft, CCP and others. For me GDC China was particularly interesting because of the emphasis on online gaming typical of China. I was able to contrast the more theoretical musings of State of Play V last week with practical insights from game developers. For example, there were discussions on how to make Chinese titles palatable to the Western audience and vice versa; World of Warcraft's big success here shows that it's possible. This is a practical approach to "bridging the East and West" that SoP V called for but didn't yet deliver so much. Second Life moves to China, becomes family friendly?Shanda, one of the leading MMORPG companies in the world, plans to create a new service similar Second Life. This was reported today by Financial Times, quoting Shanda's founder and chairman Chen Tianqiao. According to Chen, the Nasdaq listed company wants to diversify away from fantasy worlds, but he wouldn't say anything about release dates. Earlier this year, another "Chinese Second Life" called HiPiHi attracted attention in the blogosphere. HiPiHi is already in the beta stage, but lacks the resources of China's biggest MMORPG company. The graphics look somewhat dated by today's standards, although so do Second Life's. The Q Coin secondary market in practice – with screenshots
In this posting, I describe how Q Coin secondary market trading (or one facet of it) works in practice, and illustrate the process with some screenshots. I also provide some figures from a trading site. Many people have seen the news articles about QQ, but for most non-Chinese speakers, this is probably the first glimpse of the actual Q Coin market. By Jiaping Xu at 2007/04/27 - 15:41 | Case description | Currency | Non-game | China | read more | login or register to post comments
When scarcity is threatened
The story helps to highlight how the value of virtual assets is often based on their artificial scarcity. Many virtual assets are positional goods, meaning that their value is derived not from their absolute attributes, but from the relative advantages they confer compared to other goods of similar kind. MMORPG players can pay with bloodWe have all heard about real-money trade of virtual property — but how about paying in real blood for your virtual stuff? Players of the Chinese MMORPG Cabal bleed half a litre to get their banned accounts back. Thanks to Lassi ;) Government rumbles, Chinese virtual money markets stable for now
This is the most severe notice so far in a series of growing government attention to the use of virtual currencies and real-money trade of virtual property in China. At the time of writing, however, RMT markets seem to be operating as usual. For example, Taobao lists thousands of sell offers for Q Coins, the virtual currency of Tencent QQ. I dug a little bit into Chinese language sources to find out more about what's going on. By Jiaping Xu at 2007/03/19 - 05:24 | Currency | Governance | Legal/moral/policy issues | China | read more | 3 comments
A Quite Profitable VirusA worm virus (targeted to steal passwords for the ubiquitous QQ service and other game accounts)with the logo of Xiongmao Shaoxiang (Panda burns joss-sticks), has hit millions of computers in China since November 2006. According to Xinhua, BEIJING, Feb. 13 Police Monday arrested eight suspects involved in producing and disseminating a severe computer virus. It was the first case related to the spreading of computer viruses in China. The virus writer programmed the virus on Oct. 16, 2006, and made more than 100,000 yuan (13,000 U.S. dollars) selling it to over 120 people via the Internet both himself and through agents. By Jiaping Xu at 2007/02/16 - 09:57 | Legal/moral/policy issues | China | read more | login or register to post comments
A new QQ service--iTQQAs Vili introduced before, Tencent QQ is the dominant form of instant message for online communications in China. It supports instant messaging, games, and other value-added services, all of which are paid for with Q-coins. With the usage of Q-coin, you can buy everything from QQ sausages and clothing to QQ credit and debit cards, which builds the QQ virtual world. According to Virtual China, there is a new QQ service called iTQQ. By Jiaping Xu at 2007/01/31 - 11:59 | China | read more | login or register to post comments | 1 attachment
2007: Year of the virtual economy?The VERN blog has been quiet this month. Rest assured that the reason is not that we have been inactive, but that we have been busy working. In January I hope to have a little announcement to make. Meanwhile, Steven Davis at PlayNoEvil has posted three excellent articles on virtual economies and plans to regulate them in the Far East. The first one is a Xinhua report on how virtual Q(Q) Coins are increasingly being accepted as a viable currency by Chinese businesses and how the goverment is reacting to this. The second one refers to a Korea Times story providing new details on Korean lawmakers' plans to restrict RMT. The latest Xinhua article discusses Chinese Ministry of Culture's regulatory ambitions over RMT. Does regulation mean the party is over? Will governments step in and sever the links between real and virtual economies? Will games and community services go back to being "entertainment and relaxation, and nothing else", as one Chinese MOC official puts it? By Vili Lehdonvirta at 2006/12/31 - 13:53 | Business | Legal/moral/policy issues | China | Korea | read more | login or register to post comments
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