China Terrified of Online Gaming
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: Mar 27, 2009 06:26 JST
- Tags: Bizarre, Censorship, China, MMORPG, NEETs, Net Café, Politics, Statistics
The latest threat to stable dictatorship in China is not America or Russia, but the insidious menace of massively multiplayer gaming.
The Chinese government is terrified by the results of research which shows the nation’s youth turning into legions of gold farming NEETs with no realistic prospect of filling the nation’s factories, and is calling for a clamp down on the decadent gamers.
The research, conducted by the Chinese Network Information Centre (CNNIC), identifies the need for a campaign to root out the evils of the “the Three Lows”, which are identified as low age, low education, and low income. These three qualities are overwhelmingly associated with Chinese online gamers.
The report points to the development of an enormous market for MMOGs in China, with the end of 2008 seeing some 55,500,000 Chinese engaged in such pursuits. Over 75% of these users are now paid subscribers of some game, and the market for virtual goods (RMT, Real Money Trading) is ballooning in size.
The increasing transformation of MMOG players into an underclass of young people with low academic attainment and income is highlighted as a clear danger. Over half of the MMOG population is now under 22, and 77% have less than a technical school education; worse yet, 30% have no apparent source of income, and most other users only have a monthly income in the range of $140 to $240.
The report suggests that if these youths are not “protected” from the wickedness of online gaming, the productive capacity of the nation may soon be damaged. Harsh measure to regulate and restrict gamers are called for as a result.
Via Record China.
The Party’s ongoing battle with the Internet seems set to continue; given its tack record so far we must expect ever harsher bans…
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Similar to a certain other Japanese initiative, the name of which, isn't worth the 10 second Google search I could do to remember it.
What China don't realise is, ban MMORPG will not solve anything. They should look at root of the problem, not the outcome of the problem.
pointing out games, mangas, animes as the root of all evil is not something we couldn't expect anyway..
The root of the problem is the chinese government itself...
Problem is in your head, boy.
The problem is in your testicles boy.
Why would people play games all day hmmm....?
Maybe the problem is not the game but the system the people work in maybe?
Let people do what they fucking want to escape their shit hole of a meaningless life.
Regradless of you being a online gamer/ a factory worker/a billionaire everyone if the same.
Only thing that matters in life is your happiness. Do e/e that makes you happy in this world. If that means playing a game for the rest of your life then so be it.
I know that another mangaka has been lost to NicoNico as per the article below this on the main page.
I wonder how many are lost to WoW and the like.
I tried playing Lineage 2, WoW, and Eve Online
What ppl find so appealing about thoose games? I never had a patience to level up to at least 30 lvl. ITS FUCKING BORING.
I hate thoose games and I hate mmorpgs, and I hope all thoose fags will just die of starvation.
It's fukken boring, especially when you're farming.
And they're earning money, you idiot. They do it for living, for f00dz, dude, since $140-$240 in China is a good salary, actually.
$140-240 might get you along (barely) in a smaller city but in Beijing and Shanghai you're stuffed... 5 years ago maybe, but living costs have increased dramatically in the past few years.
Dude, don't confuse "living" like normal folks do and "surviving" like those marginal guys do.
Don't haev to pay credit for the car and other consumer crap, cause they've none. Don't haev to buy D&G or cat food.
$140-240 is enough to eat well, even in beinjing.
I personally had a good meal for $2.
So if you buy raw and cook - that's even cheaper.
You don't haev to live in the center where the shops and f00ds aren't for the poor, as well as rooms to rent.
wow, you posibly the only chinese person on this sit that sounds like a real person and not simply propaganda agent, i congradulate you
I'm from Russia actually.
It just happened that I had a trip to China last summer.
Life there is cheaper then life in Russia (which is cheaper then life in EU/US/Jpn). So are the salaries.
Yea I know! China has cheap and great food. Even in Shanghai. I went there last year too and for 4 yuan I could get a nice bowl of noodles that would cost as much as $7 in my country. And it doesnt even taste as nice as the cheap china one. Only bad thing's the oil, fucking oily all the food.
Yes $140 - 240 is enough to eat well, but to live well thats different.
China life is cheap because china is in Communism,
therefore is all cheap and payment is low...
to get addicted to online games you still need to be able to actually make some kind of friends. people failing this wont experience any fun at all.
same here. The thing I hate most about Asian MMOs is that, they require you to do a lot of grinding to advance ONE level.
Other than that, the character designs are moe.
That's right. Most, if not all, Asian made MMOs emphasizes the grind to level, not the grind to get better equipment.
"And they’re earning money, you idiot"
Im talking about general mass of players who swarm WoW servers like roaches. 55,500,000 chinese playing mmos judging from the post, and you telling me they all earn money? you are the idiot, idiot.
55M of players is obviously a fake, if you count the numbers. Look, the majority of MMO players are males, there are >~600mln of males in China, + 100mln females. eq 700mln of possible players. Now, take the age group, and we have 200mln left. From this age group we sort out folks who have no internet access (that's China, dude!) We'll have approx. >50mln of possible players. If they all play MMO, u still don't get 55M. And it's impossible that all just play MMO.
About 10M it would be, I suppose.
And if there's 500K-1M of "farmers" it would still make a great amount.
Not 55M though.
Now, the "farmers" do that for money, that's their only source of income. The rest? I don't know. Some "china" new form China sound fishy. "China" news from Japan sound are even more.
The life in China isn't that cool that you can afford playing MMO instead of working, really. You'll have nothing to eat and the salaries aren't high.
What about the "3 lows" - I suppose that's true.
well as for me i still love mmorpg's(those with content atleast)
i cant afford to buy a console like the xbox 360 or any handhelds for that matter..
i know im poor ~_~
Gey a job, you three Low.
Get*
~_~
I personnally play MMOs for the interactive aspect. I can meet lots of people who enjoy the same things as me.
These games are also very rewarding. Achieving a certain level or a certain quest that took hours to get is really rewarding.
Too bad you don't have enough patience to enjoy these games. Some of them are very well made.
As for chinese trying to ban mmos, good luck with that. They sjhould probably offer them better job, better salary and get rid of the overall poverty in their country... MMOs shouldn't be their main concern...!
What they need is girls!
Unfortunately, due to the one-child policy, there aren't nearly enough to go around. As objectifying and cold as that sounds. (To any female readers, I apologize.)
There are actually set to be several hundred million more men than women in China at current rates.
Awwright! Time to get my pimp-mobile. *bow chicka wow wow*
Oh believe I had friends there, the guy who tried to hook me up on L2, gave me lots of money, bought me best equipment available and helped me level up to make things easir, bringing me to the most interesting parts of Adena with his friends. And you know what? It was still boring as hell, I have MUCH more fun hanging out with friends in rl, fucking my girlfriend, playing my guitar and riding my bike. You know, the stuff boys usually do?
I'll give you points for the Alpha Male attempt, but given where you are posting, your friends likely list their favorite food as pocky, your girlfriend is a dakimura, your guitar has only four strings, and your bike still has training wheels.
I can say I'm pretty fortunate then. Every time I enter a MMORPG, I meet some new people within a week and find myself in a rather trigger-happy guild. Most of our time is spent on raking up the head count while undermining all efforts from the other side. It has been a blast.
Nothing beats going into a battlefield with at least another two people to watch your back and then pick off our enemies and generally frustrate them.
Anonymous
"but given where you are posting"
Yeah, cuz I love anime. I'm wathcnig 1-2 episodes every day, and I spent about 10 mins every day, reading news about anime to sort out the good ones. It's not a big influence on my personal time. So what? Doest it mean I'm a fag already? If you say yes, I'm done talking here.
^^^^win
Ah, crap, didn't refresh. I meant Anon
Pillow... you are on good way to ruin your life, your time, money and your social feelings. You are one of that people who send mail to neighbour who is 50m distanced from them...
(but that is your income, not my)
I was never as bored playing a game as when I played WoW. I had a free 14 day subscription from a friend, who talked about how awesome the game was. Bullshit.
I also tried it with a friend who loves the game. I stopped playing it at the 4th day.
Big deal, ha!
They shouldn't even bother baning.
Well, this woun't last long, you know. Since we're on the verge of world war 3, financial collapse and other things nice withing next 5-6 years. When there'll be nothing to eat, it might occur to them that in order to survive you haev to actually produce something. (or haev tons of strategical nuclear weaponry, marionnette regimes all over the world, jet fighters, submarines, heavy boats equipped by tactical missiles and other cool stuff, and, what is most important, da FRS where colaguys from rockfeller, warburg and other cool clans make colour paper called "dollar" that can be printed at great amounts and exchanged for real things)
Low age, low income, no education? Great! Chinese factories need guys who can do a hard and dirty job for a penny. Cannonfodder is another thing needed.
I find it funny how you can spell "strategical" correctly, but fail at spelling "have".
well, it's better than being a factory worker (more fun too ^^)
who knows, china could monopolize on this by having gold and item farmers in a gaming factory and sell that instead ^^ i heard it's been done before
How is grinding levels any different from working in a factory?
You're theoretically having fun.
I mean i've heard of operations where they take kids into warehouses full of computers and make them MMO for gold and rares and then resell them for actual cash.
I'd prefer to play games too if all I had to look forward to in life is earning shithouse money building ipods for those imperialistic american dogs...
A significalnt amount of chinese production is consumed internally. They have no problem in making it 100% and living in stand-alone mode provided that they have some resources imported from africa, mid-east and russia.
I mean, frankly, they don't give a damn bout ipods and other shit, my dear. That's a by-product of their industrialisation.
Oh, yeah, and they have a small trade surplus ('bout $2'000'000'000'000 kept in US T-bonds and other garbage-papers)
Awesome article.
It remembers to my days on FFXI mpking chinese farmers, calling GM on them, and so on.
Such fun days. But to see that there are 55M of them doing this stuff is totally crazy, I really never thought there were that many.
Even counting all the major MMOG (WoW, Lineage 1-2), most other games don't break 500k, but I never thought there might be that many "under the radar" games that will account for enough people to work on this,
I know all these farmers work in shifts, sometimes they work with many characters at the same time during 8-12 hours when someone else takes over, they will never leave that camping place, that fishing spot, or that x place without their bots ready to get some loot to sell.
Going by this site: http://www.mmogchart.com/Chart4.html there were 17M subscriptions on MMOG by 2008, this only counts paid accounts, so free games aren't included, same as anything similar to http://www.gaiaonline.com which should be a great source of income for those people.
Even so, I still find that 55 million amount, to be very, very high.
Anyone else have any thoughts about this?
55M is actually pretty reasonable. WoW alone has close to 12M (admittedly that's worldwide). And some of the other games like Fantasy Westward and Legend of Mir that aren't that popular in the western countries have millions of subscribers in China. Maple Story is supposed to have something like 87M accounts (source: http://gigaom.com/2009/02/01/top-10-money-making-mmos-2008/ )
Latest estimate pegs the numbers of Chinese gold farmers alone at 1 million: http://www.netharuka.com/games/a-million-chinese-gold-farmers/
Dude, I've been tripping to beijing and areas around during last summer. I had some free days there to walk around buying anime-stuff and cheap gadgets. And my friend took me to a place with MMORPG-farmers (we were actually going for the whores, but decided to see the ugly part of china). That's usually a small firm with 50-100 dudez in, and their life is hell. They "work" 12 hours "farming" in a stinky, hot and small rooms with 10-20 pc's, taking shifts. A modern form of slavery in hell.
I don't really think there are 55M of them.
And for each dollar they earn, the guys with higher ranks make $2-$5, and european/usa gamers buy that shit for even more.
You know, it is better working in the factory. I've been to one of samsung's factories in China, and I must say folks there have it good. Not a dream job, but you don't need much education for assembling a notebook. (And lots of workers on the assembly line were females by the way)
well china is a perfect target because they have HUGE population and their economy is BOOOOMING O_o
but if banning them >_> that's not good anymore. it's like making their citizen animal. no freedom
it's not like those gamer have no common sense >_> me myself is a gamer, and becoming less as i grow old
The problem with MMOs is they can be addictive and a welcome escape from a depressing reality (no job prospects or career in your future). I wish China great luck with their initiative, but unless they shut down the internet completely in China, it will fail. Interactive online gaming is a global trend in the younger generation in most post-industrial countries today and trying to stop it is like a single man trying to cut down an oncoming tsunami with a sword.
I can understand how the so called "three lows" in China might gravitate towards online gaming and stay online as much as possible. If their real world prospects suck, what would motivate them to want to sign off and happily work in a factory?
Despite the censorship in China, I'm also pretty sure some of the wealth and affluence of other countries filters through the internet (not to mention wealthy citizens in China)to give three-low youth ideas of what kind of lives they *could* be living- depressing them even more.
MMOs are great fun and nice for social networking if you keep it balanced with real life responsibilities, but it can also consume your life. I've seen it first hand. I have a couple friends the last few years who have disappeared into WoW. And losing their job and cutting off from RL friends- with all these fails in RL, what motivation do they have to venture out of their MMO? None.
And if some of those MMO three-low can marginally support themselves via gold farming, they will never leave the virtual world.
TLDR:
China will have a tough time making any real headway against this trend.