Netease? More like NetPlease!

Women say I have a terrible sense of humor. I tell women they lack fortitude and more than a few mind grapes.

Netease, however, possesses a feature that are inherent in most men and women. Laziness. No sign that the new WOW servers will be up and running on time? Maybe that's just typical Chinese fear of making public announcements about complicated and possibly controversial issues, and everything is actually fine. Or maybe things are a mess, in which case I would still bet the farm that they're up and running as scheduled simply because Chinese are good like that.

The real kicker, according to the article, is that

A poll of some of the subscribers points to some interesting information, 53 percent of players said they would return, 26 percent wanted to observe the handover of the servers and then make a decision while 21 percent said they wouldn’t return to the game.

So the delay, however intentional, could have serious repercussions to that 11.5 million players figure, quite a few of those players are in China

That last post was ugly, but this...

I admit, looking at my last post in a browser window, that it's damn ugly. The AO2 photo on the right and the embedded video below with some weird gap between them. Horrific. Don't ever hire me to be a web designer, I have no eye for aesthetics unless they're blonde.

But there's something uglier out there, it's called piracy! No actually piracy's kinda cool, but what's not cool is something I like to call 山寨*. I invented this term all by myself, honest! I DID. Shut it. 

Okay, so no I didn't. But I'm jealous that someone else did and is probably making millions off of it. So I'm going to create my own, phonetically similar term, 删窄. I'm sure it means something similar and not "delete narrow" or other such nonsense. 

Why do I feel I can get away with this? Probably for whatever the reason The Nine, a Chinese gaming company thinks it can. Until recently The Nine was responsible for bringing WOW to China, but then for reasons never given out loud Blizzard decided to change partners and go with Netease. This was bad news for The Nine, since most of their revenue depended on the cash cow that WOW is. So like any good Chinese business that lacks any idea about what innovation means other than "COPY THE THING THAT MAKES THE MONEY", The Nine, moving with surprising agility, already has a page up for their own game, presumably an MMORPG, called "World of Fight". No I didn't mistype that. 

Actually it's an awesome name for a game. Sounds like the best boxing/wrestling/mma game ever right? WoF!

http://www.wofchina.com/

Did you just click on that and think what I think? Yeah, that font looks similar, color scheme kinda familiar... nope, doesn't ring a bell. Well good luck to ya, The Nine. The game's not out yet, so there's a sliver of a chance that you're taking your game in a very different direction, but personally I hope you can 删窄 your way to success.

*山寨, shan zhai, a term made recently popular in China, literally translates as "fortified mountain village", but refers to locally-made knock-off goods that rip off famous product designs in an attempt to make them their own. For several great examples, check out this slide show from Auto Shanghai: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/picturegalleries/5208546/Chinas-copycars-familiar-looking-vehicles-at-Shanghai-Auto-2009.html

(thanks Bad Power via Wall Street Journal,  VG247 via Gamasutra!)

just a little UPDATE: according to Kotaku's post on the same subject, The 9's website could be referring to an upcoming MMO from EA, who has some shares in the distributor. But World of Fight? Really?

StarCraft II beta in China???

Pigs have just flown out of an ass somewhere. Ok, not yet... it's still just a rumor, but wouldn't that be crazy? Why China? Chinese don't play StarCraft, they play CS and WOW. Korea or the US would be more logical testing grounds, so I'm not sure I buy this.

(Thanks VG247 and Qj.net)

Sorry I was busy playing online games and didn't notice that

The Anti-online game addiction system proves to be effective in China! Or so Xinhua says, stating that:

The number of Chinese online game players under the age of 18 has declined to 15 percent of total respondents in 2008 -- a 7 percent drop from the 2007's figure of 183 million -- according to a nationwide survey by the China Youth Social Service Center release on Wednesday.

Yes, online gaming addiction, a distinctly Chinese and Korean phenomenon thanks I think to their love of Internet cafes, is being crushed. That's good for humanity probably, not so good for Blizzard as it tries to bring WOTLK into China, whom it must convince is, although extremely popular, not habit-forming whatsoever. Haha sure, Blizzard. Good luck with that.

(thanks Xinhua via Gamesindustry.biz via Joystiq!)

No Skeletons in China!

China has now rejected Blizzard's second application to sell Wrath of the Lich King in China, citing "content that didn't meet requirements, including a city raid and skeleton characters"

Yes, skeleton characters. If I sit and really think about this for long enough, I bet I could figure out some really good reasons behind the skeleton fear, like if the Hu-ster had skeleton nightmares growing up during the Cultural Revolution (there were lots of skeletons back then!), but doing so would hurt my brain a lot and probably give me a stroke.

More likely China is just finding excuses for awhile to keep this foreign product out because they know how popular it is, and the government tends not to like anything that popular because it could somehow create a unified demographic that would then be difficult to manage. I understand this thinking, I know there are some crazy motherfuckers who would probably team up in WOW to try to kill virtual capitalist-roaders. So good on ya, China for stapping this potential problem balloon in the rubber skin before it explodes in a nasty yet kinky mess of shredded latex.

(thanks JLM Pacific Epoch via Massively.com via Joystiq.com)