On Chinese Internet Cafes, MMORPGs, World Of Warcraft

Thanks to Always On Network for its analysis of China's MMORPG-hungry Internet cafe denizens. According to the piece: "Pacific Epoch estimates that of the U.S. $2 billion-plus that online gaming will generate in China this year, about $1.2 billion will flow through internet cafe coffers." However, since "China is growing so fast and its citizens are becoming wealthier", changes are in motion: "One internet cafe owner explained that SARS prompted a large number of newly wealthy Chinese to go out and buy computers... [and many] don't play games at the internet cafes anymore because they can now do so in the comfort of their own homes." Blizzard's ravenously-awaited World Of Warcraft is now hoped to revitalize the Chinese online gaming scene: "Although never officially announced, [Chinese online company] The9 is rumored to have paid up to U.S. $12 million for the right to operate WoW in China."

Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of them chinese mmorpg players are just plain evil.
Ever play lineage 2 on the North American servers?
Mean folks

Re:Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. 2 Things ruined lineage2 for me: an increadibly boring level grind coupled with the most basic AI ive ever seen. The second is all the chinese. All they do is farm gold to sell it back to us on ebay, and they will use whatever tactics avaliable to them. Ive had chinese follow me around for hours, trying to steal me kills individually. Ive had chinese dwarves follow my groups, spoiling all our monsters for items, which kept our own groups dwarves from doing the same. I could go on and on, bu

If you wanna stop the problem....

[jameskojiro]

Fight Fire with Fire.

Spread anti-communist propaganda through the use of chat scripts. That way the chinese government will ban their connections, problem solved.!

prices

[Turn-X Alphonse]

but how much will China censor it or bump the price up?

Re:prices

[gl4ss]

my guess? the price will be cheaper.

you know, market discrimination... they're wealthy sure, but to hit the market at maximum they would probably need to put the price down a bit if they're wishing to hit people who would play from cafe's(for people who don't own a computer that is).

Re:prices

[Anonymous Coward]

The price will be WAAAY cheaper, speaking from experience. (I live in China)

Legit copies of games in China are dirt cheap by US standards. You take the price in US$ and divide it by 4-8 and you'll be looking at the average price of a game in China.
(e.g a game that costs US$50 in the US will be US$12.50-6.25 in China)

Of course, the game will be in Chinese.

It provides less incentive for people to buy the pirated copies.

My guess is that the MMORPG subscription fees will fall accordingly.

As for censorship? They didn't censor Warcraft III, why do it with this?

Re:prices

[DAldredge]

They will do it for the same reason they level churches they don't link.

Because they can and it reminds their subjects that they are incharge.

freedom is gaming

[Lu Xun]

I wonder how much of this new found computer use will be put toward free expression, and how much will be beating on weakling monsters somewhere on a level treadmill. Will games provide a way to get around China's internet firewall? The rise of home-use computers will at least make the process of monitoring more difficult, even though the survelliance cameras in webcafes are given little notice by the staff anyway.

my guess is price will be about the same

[jbellis]

those who can afford their own computers can afford the normal subscription fee; the majority will play from internet cafes which always pay more for a license to resell, as it were.

GOOD!

[Cutriss]

I can't WAIT for World Of Warcraft to come out in China. I'm no racist, but I'm absolutely sick of the Chinese players farming for money to sell on the web [ige.com] that are plaguing Final Fantasy XI right now. I hope they decide to move on to bigger and better things and leave our servers alone.

We can only hope Blizzard gets a clue

[vehn23]

I have played many bnet games and am now in the WOW beta. All I can say is if Blizzard has the kind of CS policies that have plagued their other games WOW will be an unmitigated disaster. Of course the standard arguement is since players will be paying a monthly fee for WOW, you won't see the utter lack of interest and bug fixing/patching that Blizzard has shown on their free bnet titles like Diablo 2 - but all we can go on is their past performance. Right now I'm not holding my breath. They need to a) ban ebay sales immediately and threaten account removal for them, and b) make and enforce area-specific servers. No asians on NA servers, and vice versa. I really hope this all works out as the game itself is terrific.

Re:We can only hope Blizzard gets a clue

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

How did this get modded informative??? This is the same bullshit whiney complaints that troll every other board in MMO existance.

Ban eBay sales? Yeah, that'll do a whole (ige.com) freaking (playerauctions.com) lot (irc, aim, make friends, etc.). Not to mention the fact that a couple MILLION dollars are made off eBay sales every year, soon to reach into the hundred million mark. Area specific servers? What for? Are you racist? Because that's the only reason I see for telling people they HAVE to play

Re:We can only hope Blizzard gets a clue

[KeeperS]

All I can say is if Blizzard has the kind of CS policies that have plagued their other games WOW will be an unmitigated disaster. Of course the standard arguement is since players will be paying a monthly fee for WOW, you won't see the utter lack of interest and bug fixing/patching that Blizzard has shown on their free bnet titles like Diablo 2 - but all we can go on is their past performance. Right now I'm not holding my breath.

Utter lack of interest in patching? Blizzard? Are we talking about the same