Online Gaming Continues To Soar In China

Posted by simoniker on Friday January 2, 2004 @11:42AM from the hup-hup-and-haway dept.

Thanks to EvilAvatar for linking to a ChinaDaily.com article discussing the further rise of online gaming in China. According to the story, "the All China Sports Federation recently recognised video gaming as a sanctioned sport", and it's also noted that "the China Center of Information Industry Development (CCID) estimates that there were 19 million online gamers in China at the end of 2003. This year the number of users is predicted to explode to 32 million and will continue growing to 48 million by 2005." Notably, it's also revealed that China's leading MMO title, "The Legend of Mir II has an estimated 250,000 to 300,000 ACUs [Average Concurrent Users], attracting some 650,000 simultaneous users during peak times. The [Chinese distribution] firm's owner, Chen Tianqiao, is listed as China's second richest IT entrepreneur, with a cool RMB 4 billion [$500 million] in the bank."

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Only one video game can be considered a sport by Pluvius · 2004-01-02 13:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Dance Dance Revolution. Anything else doesn't involve athleticism, and thus would not be a sport. Certainly not MMORPGs, unless they made one with a Nerf sword you can swing that sends signals to your computer.

That said, I can understand why people might want to sanction MMORPGs under a sports authority (especially in China, where everything is bureaucratic). They just aren't sports.

Rob