Real World Anger Affecting MMOG Reality?

We reported late last week that FFXI was under a DDOS attack. The Japanese origin of the title may be the reason for the attack, as Ludonauts asks the question of whether chinese crackers may attacking the game because of political frustration. From the article: "Discussion on the Allakhazam forum points the attack at Chinese protesters angry about the deletion of references to Japanese war atrocities from history textbooks: the DDOS attacks began on April 9, the same day as the protests in China. In FFXI, this issue is linked to the question of 'gil-sellers,' players who farm in-game resources for real-world cash, who in FFXI are usually characterized as Chinese: many who are suspected of being gil-sellers have placed comments in their searchable information fields like 'Resisting all Japanese goods, long live the People's Republic of China.'" Commentary available from game girl advance, Broken Toys, and Terra Nova.

Comments

From behind the Great Firewall of China...

[MMaestro]

The Japanese are attempting to impose their imperialistic reign over China once again! Let us rise together and fight off the evil aggressors as our ancestors have done before!

/sarcasm

Its humorous to see how a lot of posts here on /. seem to have this idea that the Chinese are seriously informed about what they're 'fighting' (read: rioting) for. China is still a Communist country with a censored press and is subjected to a censored internet (something few outsiders could probably comprehend). Regardless of what it looks like from the outside, people need to think of what the average Chinese citizen sees from the inside. Once you do that, its not TOO much more difficult to see why the Chinese would/are doing such things.

Japan is attempting to join the security council at the U.N. China is the only MAJOR U.N. player in Asia (Russia doesn't count since its focused domestically and to its southwest right now). Throw in political (North Korea), economic (U.N. sanctions on China for human rights issues to cut competition?) and historical (WWII fears) and you have a nasty case of mass backlash.

Pot vs Kettle

[sockdoll]

Two nights ago at dinner my 12 year old son asked me that, if the Chinese were so upset about missing accounts of Japanese atrocities against the Chinese in Japanese textbooks, were they (the Chinese) reporting their own atrocities against their own people in their own textbooks? A basic study of the events leading up to the Cultural Revolution, and on through the events at Tiananmen Square in 1989, provides plenty of material for writing about domestic Chinese atrocities.

While living in Taiwan in the late Eighties I had to spend a few hours in a cramped air raid shelter in downtown Taipei, because the authorities there felt that the Communists might use the protests at Tiananmen Square as an excuse to move against the student's supporters on Taiwan, and retake the island.