World of Fight becomes World of Fighter becomes WTF?

On May 6 I wrote about The 9, a Chinese gaming company that was the WOW distributor for China until this month, and its teaser page for a new MMO in the wake of losing the WOW account. The page used fonts and images eerily but not surprisingly reminiscent of WOW and perhaps other games as well. Needless to say, I was pleased (I bathe in pleasure bubbles every time I get a chance to knock a Chinese company for creating knock-offs).

And my pleasure deepened, because the title of this yet to be released MMO was World of Fight--you see, Chinglish is another veritable source of profound joy in my life. Just today I walked past a young man wearing a t-shirt emblazoned boldly with the words, "Are you ready to Ruck?" And yes, I knew at that moment, I was ready. Ready to Ruck.

*ahem* so World of Fight is kind of a Chinglishy name, but I find it kind of catchy as well--three monosyllabic words that get straight to the point: this is a world, and in it there be fighting. I decided to check up on this site today, and what do I find? They've CHANGED the name to World of Fighter, no "s". So close, China, yet this is terrible, making no sense at all. At least World of Fight meant something, stirred my cranium in some way to think, "ah, this is an interesting title!"

And the screw turns further. The name is changed; but so is the page itself. While the WOWish font remains, the black background is adorned only with two pillars guarded by what I can only assume to be dwarves and a classical Chinese building in the distance. Suddenly the title appears, and then Chun Li, Ryu, Ken and several other characters I presume to be from various Japanime fighting games.

WTF? Capcom? A partner? Perhaps. But seeing as The 9 is partly owned by EA, wouldn't that be some sort of conflict of interest? Or maybe not? I don't know. It does seem odd to me that The 9 would so brazenly use what are certainly trademarked images to promote an as yet unexplained gaming concept.

One other note--World of Fighter might just be a tagline. At the end of the Flash intro you see the Chinese characters "名将三国", and I think this could be the Chinese title, but 三国 or "Sānguó" refers to a period in China long ago known as the Three Kingdoms, and is a popular source of stories for contemporary creative works in China. So it could be some sort of fighting game set in that period, but that still doesn't explain the appearances of SF characters--If anything, it only confuses the issue. Most likely, as is often the case, The Nine thought, "hey, those are fighters! And we're creating the world of fighter! They will communicate a sense of fight that we wish to convey and attract many audiences and mad money in no time!" Most likely.

Pictures (click for full size):

(World of Fighter)

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?