China to Invest Heavily in 'Healthy' Games

In the wake of a new body in the Chinese government set to determine the healthiness of video games, China has pledged to invest 240 million dollars in healthier online games. The "PCBang" phenomenon so popular in South Korea is spreading into China as well, making this a big industry for the government to be subsidizing. Commentary on the social implications of online games is available at TerraNova as well.

Healthier Video Games?

[jxa00++]

We wait in anticipation for the Chinese version of DDR online...

Re:Healthier Video Games?

[node 3]

We wait in anticipation for the Chinese version of DDR online...

I think we now know the method used by those scientists who predicted those (15?) Californian earthquakes.

My new game

[Anonymous Coward]

How will they rate my new game, where you battle your way past hundreds of Falun Gong members, then capture the Dalai Lama, and later conquer Taiwan?

Bleah

[admanb]

Not to be cynical, but how much of that $240 million will go into the pockets of goverment officials rather then development? Ironically, one of the games mentioned in the links (Three Kingdoms) has already been created - as a strategic game involving diplomacy AND strategy, anyone think their version will be anywhere near as interesting? *sighs* Sounds like the basic lot of "educational" games: lame concepts, badly designed, and boring as hell.

Re:Bleah

[L7_]

Oregon Trail was none of those things.

Re:Bleah

[admanb]

Sorry, I didn't mean to generalize all educational games. Just the average ones.

Transformative power of official subsidies

[CodeWanker]

Speaking as a cranky conservative, involving the government will turn PCBang into Fingerbang.

Lei Feng: The Game

[Lu Xun]

If anyone ever plays the game based on the life of Lei Feng, I have one piece of advice. Watch for landmines.

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lineage II - Chinese Release Date Announced.
http://www.gametab.com/news/164835/

"Healthy games" stand a chance?

South Korea

[Itstoearly]

South Korea has always been huge into these kinds of games. In fact, they got 2 of their own DDR arcade machines (DDR 3rd Mix Korean version 1 and version 2) complete with Korean music implemented into it. Incidentally, the US almost got it's own DDR arcade version, too (DDR USA), except the government wanted to lable DDR arcade machines as juke boxes, which would create all sorts of liscencing entanglements which would make these $12,000 machines even more expensive for arcade owners. Some DDR USA machines can still be found around the country, although very rare, leftover from field testing.

Tai Chi

[YOU LIKEWISE FAIL IT]

Perhaps we'll get a version of the Chinese Governments 48 posture reformulation of the Yang style. The beauty of a martial arts game based upon Tai Chi is that you wouldn't need a fast computer to run it.

YLFI

So when I put quotation marks around healthy...

[hal2814]

...I mean fat. (like she's a "healthy" girl) Are these new games going to be fat or am I missing something?