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Chinese Bureaucrats Duel Over Right To Regulate WoW
upto0013 writes "Chinese bureaucrats are battling each other for the right to regulate World of Warcraft. They hope to gain the political clout and the revenue that comes along with controlling a new industry with potential for explosive growth. 'If you supervise a more dynamic area with a lot of growth potential, you have more budget and more administrative muscle,' said Edward Yu, president of Analysys International, an Internet research firm in Beijing. 'They see this pie is getting bigger and bigger, so it is no wonder different administrations are fighting over pieces of that territory.' It's absurd how orcs and elves (and Moonkin) can affect so many different faraway places."
they really want to stop any anti chain chat in game and they want to tax the gold farmers.
Can they fight within the game so we can all watch?
(So. Would being mod'ed a "troll" be good or bad for this thread?)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
My first mental image was a conference room full of bureaucrats and a duel flag dropping down in the middle.
Or two opposing teams of bureaucrats playing a Warsong Gulch match.
Hmm. Does anyone else think this could be the next big MMO? "That's not a red health bar on the boss -- that's how much red tape you have to cut through!"
OK, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Western reporters in Beijing are total dumbasses. They constantly write stories colored by their own blinders they're not even aware that they're wearing. The story doesn't even mention that WoW/Netease problems getting a license in China has been going on for a while now and is nothing new. It's not really even a story, just a space filler - bureaucratic turf wars between communist ministries are news now? Anyhow, I just wanted to mention whenever you see that line at the top of the story, immediately mentally activate your BS detectors. If you want China news, there is no shortage of primary sources in English. Even my own small city district has its own website, with a translated English page. Here is a much better story from Shanghai Daily, which lays out the issue in a much clearer fashion:
Compelling story, eh? This is typical of what comes out of Western media in Beijing.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
OK, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Western reporters in Beijing are total dumbasses. They constantly write stories colored by their own blinders they're not even aware that they're wearing.
So, pretty much like every reporter and newspaper?
/roll 100
The agriculture regulatory agencies want to have their say in the matter so they can include gold farming in the next Five Year Plan.
Blizzard and their Chinese partners haven't found the right people to bribe yet.
Or maybe they found the right people, but they're asking too much for CWoW to be profitable?
________
Entranced by anime since late summer 2001 and loving it ^_^
The BBC, for one, is renowned for its objectivity and lack of bias.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"It's absurd how orcs and elves (and Moonkin) can affect so many different faraway places."
A truly obsessed WoWHead would know that the proper term is "Boomkin."
Does this mean I can play as a Chinese bureaucrat now? And I guess the special spell would be Silence your opponent.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Actually, I had some in depth talks with some friends from China about WoW.
They still only have level 70 because the government STILL hasn't "filtered" every last quest in WotLK for any themes that might contradict the Chinese government policies. I'm dead serious. The "censorship" is that horrific.
Not only that, but there are some really weird censorship issues you wouldn't expect. For example, there are no undead in Chinese WoW because the Chinese government won't allow any human bones to be shown in the game. So anywhere you see a skeleton, it had to be removed by Blizzard.
Seeing that they are both rogues (politicians) we'll have to wait and see who get caught out of stealth first.
* anyone who thinks China is Communist doesn't understand either (a) the meaning of communism or (b) history.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The state controlled media has assured us of their lack of bias from of an investigative report they did on themselves assuring us they were unbiased.
Isn't this just a cynical way of describing ones "perspective"? Every mind perceives the world from it's own perspective, has it's own world view coloured by it's experiences.
Sure you can compare perspective to "blinders" and call those people "dumb asses" but they are the same blinders worn by your dumb ass.
...will the Chinese WoW turn into Evony?
For a really simple counterexample to the claim that the BBC is unbiased, what's the BBC's take on the television licence? Would they be indifferent to being thrown to the wolves of capitalism?
This is government at its simplest and most honest: the struggle for power and influence, consequences to the people be damned. Let those who would expand the powers of their own governments forget this at their peril.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
US bureaucrats are also falling over each other to regulate whatever they can because it gives them power. Bureaucracies work the same the world over, communist or not.
Just out of interest...have you *ever* been to China, or the US?
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
The BBC as a company is different from the BBC as a broadcaster. The broadcaster may well be unbiased while the company protects its own interests. The difference is obviously that the broadcast is public and the company affairs are behind the scenes.
The chairman of the BBC called for the abolition of the TV license last week, in favour of having the BBC funded out of general taxation rather than a specific levy. The BBC has, in the past, covered stories of people protesting about the TV license and has included quotes from people opposed to it. Any time a public figure criticises the BBC, you will find a BBC story covering it, usually giving someone at the BBC an opportunity to respond, but not generally weighted towards the BBC. For some examples, look at this story and this one.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Modern China ain't communist by any real meaning of the word.
In otherwise functional nations (not broken ones like Somalia or North Korea), daily life is pretty similar for people who tow the line. There really cannot be too much dissimilarity between the humdrum of the average worker between equivalent societies. People eat, work, commute, sleep, etc.
Where societies diverge is usually in how they deal with problems and people who don't tow the line for whatever reason. That's where China becomes a scary place... nothing says oppression quite like killing a dissident with hours of torture by cattle prod... vaginally. (Source of that is somewhere in this really, really long series.)
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
It's accepted insanity. But it isn't the Chinese.. it's everyone. People accept crazy things when they are desensitized to them. Security theater, windows, death, living in garbage, and so on.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
This is about who gets to be in a position of demanding bribes to allow WOW in their country. This is about good old fashioned greed and doesn't have a damn thing to do with Orcs or Elves. Since this is seen as potentially very lucrative, people will fight to be in a position to exploit this. It's fundamentally no different than any other fight for territory.
I know the game is far from over, but I have seen the start of a movement of people just fed up of playing so much for so long, and wanting something different...WoW had its day, and even though I am a die hard fan, have my account and play alost everyday (.5 to 1.5 hours) I have to say I think WoWs days are limited, they are taking too much time between expansions (being the limit for lvling is rumored to be 100) so the next expansion is lvl 80 - 85, instead of the usual 10 lvls.....I think this is a mistake on their part, trying to milk even more money from their already broke players.
25$ character transfer, 25$ character name change, then 15$ per month to play, 50$ per expansion or game.....it adds up quick as being the most expensive game to play EVER. If they would relax on certain issues such as 25$ name change or server change, but put a cap like max 1 every 6 months or something like that...people might be interested in trying out different servers, or factions, or maybe someone has gotten a bad rap, so the name change gives them a new slate to make new friends again...
The Chinese want to try and make money on the WoW economy, yet they do not understand they are maybe 3 years too late.
WoW will have problems getting to lvl 100 with keeping players interested. The latest world events is a cool concept, but not enough to keep players plugging 15$ per month....for the same content.
Protip: Roll a flavor of the month class. I don't know which one it is but you can count the nerf threads on the wow pvp forums to figure it out.
Ummm, your ignorance is astonishing. Or your hyperbole.
If you're trying to draw a parallel between the Chinese Gov't and US Gov't because of some difficulty you had with taxes or some annoying permit you were required to get (probably by your local Gov't, and not even the Fed)... ahh, why am I even bothering trying to answer this rationally. Dude, read a book. I'd start with the dictionary and the definition of the "Authoritative." Then try reading a year's worth of articles about life in China. Then, reflect on how much of that information you wouldn't be reading if you lived in China (or what hoops you'd have to jump through to read it, and what consequences there would/could be for disseminating it.)
Then, put your money where your mouth is and move there and take your flippant attitude toward gov't with you. Please, express it loudly and unabashedly as much as possible. And then, after ten years, let's have this discussion again.
Go back and re-read some of my previous posts on Slashdot and you will find the answer to that.
In short; yes I live in Houston and take a trip out to Shanghai once a year for two weeks. I've also been to other cities such as Chongqing and Chengdu. I have yet to visit Bejing however.
Life is not for the lazy.
So; if a Western gamer spots a Red Chinese chekist in-game and chops him down, is it considered an act of war?
];)
Regards;
Shut up foo! (new window)
Actually, information blocking is rather unsuccessful today because of the widespread use of internet and cheap cell phone plans with internet access (which is darn expensive in Canada). People have been using "same sound words" in Chinese and many other literature/language related methods to bypass automatic filtering or terms catching. Basically, because of the huge numbers of Chinese words that sounds the same or mean the same with or without combinations, it becomes impossible to catch until the authorities know those terms and interpret those terms in person. By then, new terms would have come out already... Not to mension Chinese is all over the world and communication between those inside mainland and outside of it allow information to flow in and out efficiently. And then people often uses some programs to bypass the great firewall and read those sensored stuff anyway. At least i know friends who do that and ahve no problem getting information everywhere.
I guess that depends on the area you live in and what class you're in.
... in general middle class or above. Companies that hire these level of people generally treat their workers in a relatively reasonable way. And they often have a good chance to earn a lot in mainland also.
Normally, if you move back to China from say USA or Canada, you're probably some business people or finance people or
So long as you don't try to anger the government, life in major cities are not so bad (except the housing price is... horrible in the top major cities...). I mean, seriously, normal people don't counter the government much anyway in their life. As long as the governments don't really hurt your benefits, you can easily give it a go.
Now, situation may not be so good for those below middle class... which is where most the problem is... I believe. And that's another story.
The fact that this comment is moderated insightful is quite indicative of the ridiculous anti-China bias present in all Western countries and promulgated by all Western media. Perhaps it's because we are out-competing you in the global economy, perhaps it is some fear of "communism", perhaps it is straight up racism.
It's really easy to seem insightful when in reality you're spewing garbage if you're surrounded by people who agree with you.
I can tell you with certainty after living in both China and the USA that the denizens of neither country care about China's "human rights". "Human rights" is simply a sort of straw man for the Americans to beat on, the real objection the Americans have is that they don't like the trade deficit and would rather see China impoverished, Chinese competitors erased, and manufacturing and tech jobs back in America. People in China don't care about freedoms if the government can guarantee their economic well being, on which progress isn't uniform but is there. Real complaints about the government from within China always result when someone is getting cheated out of money or property, perhaps due to government red tape or corruption.
How about the BBC becoming a private business and having to compete just like any other private business? I assume that the BBC is interested in good use of taxpayer funds rather than just a selfish enlarging of the pool of funds to which it has access.
Human rights is a very real issue in China (morally/ethically), so I wouldn't down play it's value. I do agree however that it's being trumpeted to cover up the fact America is vastly in debt and facing some serious economic competition. It's all sour grapes really.
As for caring about freedoms. Well, I'm sure that might be true of the Mao generation. However, the people that I've had a chance to talk too (they all spoke English) were University students and under 30. Every one of those in that group value freedom very much. They want the same or similar rights and freedoms that westerners do. It won't happen over night like in some revolution or something. Rather, it will happen very very slowly as the younger generation start replacing the older in government. Power still corrupts, but so far they are making progress which is always a good thing.
Life is not for the lazy.
So, I'm curious. Did you cut and paste from your subject line or did you mistype China twice in a row?
The first seems really, really lazy to me, but the second seems statistically unlikely.
I claim the right to regulate China.
It's really getting out of hand with all this communism crap.
It would be really nice to see the people rise up and feed barbequed party members to starving North Koreans.
They could set up a nice free republic and we could see what quality craftsmanship the Chinese really can do when not enslaved by greedy Government/ Businessmen.
Then we could do the same here.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Oh, that was meant to be 'anti-China'? I was wondering wth this "chain" thing was... and I can see why they would want to tax gold farmers.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
(Honestly though, this is a non-story: Several government department have partially overlapping areas of control so they argue about which one has the control on those areas. Those things happen a lot, especially with the internet and other new technology. In other areas those fights have already been settled a century or so ago.)
It's not really a non-story when last I heard, there are something like 6 MILLION accounts in China. Even if each of those only pays $1 a month (they're charged on a different schedule to us) that's a $72M/year business they're talking about. No wonder there's a turf war over who 'owns' it legislation-wise.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Yeah clever. Why don't you move to China?
I own an apartment in Beijing, I speak the language, I am married to a Chinese. Which all goes to show that I have done my homework; I have experience. Do you?
People - and expecially in the US - I'm sorry to say, tend to judge others exclusively from their own background, without trying to understand what the actual differences are. Thus, "it must be bad to live in China" - because you can't earn as much money as in America and you don't have the same sort of freedom as in America and so on. However, if you talk to people, as I have, you find that they don't see it that way.
My own background is that I am married to a Chinese - ten years, now - and have family there, both in Beijing and in the countryside. They are not fabulously rich, but they don't complain; most of the older generation have lived to see their country going from a war-torn hell-hole to a modern society, and even the poorest have seen clear improvement. Nobody is saying that the work is done, but they are happy with things so far, and they are convinced it will get better.
I have been to Xinjiang and Tibet; as far as I can tell, these are not oppressed people with no rights; but there are people who won't accept a place in Chinese society, no matter what - those are the socalled "dissidents". They are about as opressed as the "muslim dissidents" in UK; and just like in UK, the vast majority of the ethnic minorities are not part of that, they just want to make a good life for themselves, so they integrate into society.
The Chinese are building a modern society in their own way; they are immensely proud of the fact that what they are is of their own making. As an American, you should be well placed to know how much that means.
That would clearly cause conflict with their mission as a public service.
Thus, we have bias.
You seem to be mistaking reporting bias with corporate interest.
BBC programs are required to be objective and unbiased, and it seems they live up to that requirement more than most broadcasters.
You seem to be mistaking reporting bias with corporate interest.
No. I consider corporate interest ("corporate" in the sense of group not in the sense of corporation) of a news media organization to be a subcategory of reporting bias. And I am not mistaken in this consideration.
BBC programs are required to be objective and unbiased, and it seems they live up to that requirement more than most broadcasters.
I don't even see the point of making statements like the above. It doesn't matter what they are "required" to do. Being funded by a particular tax introduces a bias in their outlook that can't be removed with a "requirement". For some reason, I routinely read on Slashdot, smug yet naive boasting about the unbiased nature of the BBC and I just grew tired of it.
As an aside, I've googled "BBC bias" and have come up (though trivial effort) with several examples of BBC bias, including favoring "political correctness" and "liberal culture", a tendency to assign racists to the right hand side of the political spectrum, and slanting the coverage of some religious groups.
This mirrors the stereotypical whining of "liberal bias" often seen in the States. But if you think about it, everyone employed at the BBC is paid in large part from a tax. Why wouldn't they be so biased? Oh yea, that "requirement".
Many of the above cited sources are heavily biased (eg, as you'd expect of a blog that specializes in finding bias, real or otherwise, in the BBC), but they do illustrate the point. The BBC is indeed biased as you'd expect of a human organization. Honestly, the BBC has relatively low bias for a news organization and a government organization, but it is foolish to use the term, "unbiased" and I really wish slashdotters would stop annoying me with that term.
"corporate" in the sense of group not in the sense of corporation
Three guesses what the "C" in "BBC" stands for.
I consider corporate interest of a news media organization to be a subcategory of reporting bias.
WTF?
And I am not mistaken in this consideration.
Wow. Feeling self-confident today, aren't we?
I don't even see the point of making statements like the above. It doesn't matter what they are "required" to do. Being funded by a particular tax introduces a bias in their outlook that can't be removed with a "requirement".
You seem to have a propositional fallacy.
As an aside, I've googled "BBC bias" and have come up (though trivial effort) with several examples of BBC bias, including favoring "political correctness" and "liberal culture", a tendency to assign racists to the right hand side of the political spectrum, and slanting the coverage of some religious groups.
Way to go. You link to an article by News Corp, the largest, most biased media organisation in the world which jumps at every chance to take a stab at the BBC.
Your other links are to a blog that is fixated on the BBCs coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, despite being the only major western news organisation with an extensive network in Palestine.
But if you think about it, everyone employed at the BBC is paid in large part from a tax. Why wouldn't they be so biased?
People will have a personal opinion, but that needn't influence their work. That's more or lesswhat being objective means.
The BBC is indeed biased as you'd expect of a human organization.
Your assumption of inherent bias is dangerous and simply untrue. When senior figures attack their organisation they do indeed give them adequate coverage, as illustrated by the articles linked earlier on in the thread.
I don't even see the point of making statements like the above. It doesn't matter what they are "required" to do. Being funded by a particular tax introduces a bias in their outlook that can't be removed with a "requirement".
You seem to have a propositional fallacy.
Only if the statement isn't strictly true.
That would clearly cause conflict with their mission as a public service.
Once upon a time, all corporations were viewed as having a public service responsibility. [sigh]
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
And it isn't.
I don't disagree regarding your take on bias at the BBC, but your links could be a little more robust. Wanting to see "both sides" of an anti-poverty campaign, global warming, and multiculturalism doesn't strike me as an intelligent argument for bias.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.