Chinese Government Cracks Down On Foreign MMOs?

Thanks to The Korea Herald for its article regarding the battle for the massive Chinese online gaming market. Apparently, "Korean companies controlled more than 70 percent of the Chinese online game market last year in terms of revenue", but: "Last July, China's Ministry of Culture imposed a new regulation on 'Internet culture supervision,' which forces online games and all other programs transacted via the Internet to be reported to the ministry for content supervision." Due to this move, "foreign Internet content providers... [are] required to earn an ICP (Internet content provider) license... NCsoft has not received its license for 'Lineage II' as of yet." In conclusion, it's actually suggested that "worst-case scenario would be a quota on the import of foreign games, according to some analysts."

Comments

Export bnetd to China.

[Anonymous Coward]

So Vivendi-Blizzard acts like a jackbooted thug and pulls bnetd, and that's OK. But a sovreign nation tries to control what goes on it its own borders, and Slashdot is up in arms.

Re:Export bnetd to China.

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting a story is not "up in arms", especially if it never sees the main page.

Lineage 2 sucks, I'm glad China forbids that peice of trash game.

Democratic China MMO

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess having available the "Democratic China MMO" in which Fulan Gang was allowed was going a little bit too far. Something had to be stopped.

Oops. Misread it

[AtariAmarok]

I thought at first that is said "China cracks down on Foreign MAO's"

Re:Oops. Misread it

[Anonymous Coward]

I was wondering why my little red book was falling apart.

Mafia

[curtisk]

You don't do business over here, unless you partner up with our businesses, you scratch our back, we scratch yours

Will Richard Garriott and NCSoft find a panda head in his bed next?

Re:Mafia

[Herkum01]

You don't do business over here, unless you partner up with our businesses, you scratch our back, we scratch yours

Should have read, "unless you partner up with our business, at which point we attempt to steal everything from you." Chinese partnerships are notorious at attempting to shaft their partners, including other chinese. The difference between the chinese partners and foreign ones is that a chinese partner will expect it.

More likely they will come up with some regulation that they will pass some rule, that will be ignored but most chinese anyways because it can be very hard to monitor individual gaming. They will probalbly concentrate on controlling the money flow from those gamers.

I am sure that you will find the game in the cyber cafe's so there will not be a limit on distribution, hard to limit software piracy in China, it will all come down to the money, where it goes.

Re:Mafia

[saden1]

China is so full of shit. They signed up for WTO membership which means they can't do things like this. I'm sure the Korean government will file a complaint with the WTO.

The Chinese can't have it both ways.

Re:Mafia

[dave1g]

Just wondering, does anyone know how succesful WTO complaints are?

I know the US got slapped on the wrist for steel tariffs, but it sounds like China does this stuff all the time, and I never hear of any disciplinary actions taken by the WTO.

Re:Mafia

[saden1]

They are successful in the sense that they take sides in a complaint and demand that problems be remedied. The problem is, everyone can appeal and that process takes forever. Usually countries settle their differences amicably but in the case of US steal the EU actually took steps to levy heavy duty on some US imports with the support of WTO.

p.s. I get mod points on a weekly basis and I never manage to use them all. Oh and your chance will be better if your karma is excellent.

Re:Mafia

[dave1g]

Yeah I noticed that if I dont metamoderate religously im more likly to get mod points..which seems contrary to what they tell you, I get them atleast once a week these days
How do you get past "good" karma?

Re:Mafia

[saden1]

The system is very random in the way it hands out mod points. You really can't know who gets them but I suspect that you have a better chance if your karma is “excellent.” The only way you can get “excellent” karma is if people moderate your posts as insightful and interesting, or informative. I’ve never actually done meta-moderation but once or twice. It is kind of a pain in the ass and I don’t have the patience for it.

p.s. make good posts and I'll mod you up.

Re:Mafia

[Duncan3]

The Linegae 2 devel code was already "accidently" leaked to blackmailers once by the Chinese team...

But even if you're not doing business there, they will steal it anyway, so it's not really a choice.

Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because the Chinese suffer by not having free access to goods does not mean that the answer is to punish Americans by cutting off their access to goods.

pinkos

[minus_273]

heh what can you expect froma leftwing gov

unfair

[Anonymous Coward]

Would this not constitute an unfair trade barrier?