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Dystopia Online
Missed this the first time it went around, so those of you who religiously read Raph Koster’s site (you should!) already saw this. (I noticed it when a link popped up on Quarter to Three.)
MMOs are pretty popular in China these days. And Chinese players already have a bit of a reputation. As this blog for expatriates in China put it:
“Chinese gamers are an unwelcome species on European and American servers,” said a game manager who once worked on World of Warcraft. Chinese players always have ways of quickly ascending levels that leave European and American gamers in the dust, and on group missions they do not like to respect the tacit rules of profit division. For those “pedantic” European and American gamers, Chinese players are like fearsome pagans. “European and American games do not encourage unlimited superiority of power; they put more of an emphasis on balance and cooperative support.” The former WOW manager said, “Perhaps this is because of the influence of traditional culture and the current environment; truth be told, Chinese gamers are better suited to jungle-style gaming.”
I couldn’t make any of this up.
An online game manager recalled that he once received at the company a gamer who had money but no patience. This gamer came with an inquiry: could he simply pay to purchase high-level equipment? Everyone at the company had a good chuckle at that. Now, the manager sighs regretfully: they did not realize that the gamer represented an immense business opportunity. ZT Online, on the other hand, saw it and achieved success.
Nope. I couldn’t make this up at all.
The game is the brainchild of Shi Yuzhu (史玉柱), an entrepreneur who struck it rich marketing a vitamin tonic called Naobaijin.
No, really, I am totally not this creative at all. For every Western MMO pundit who’s complained about how MMOs use variable level reinforcement or play on the gambling impulse to keep players literally addicted… no. They don’t do that. Because these guys do. And now you can see the difference.
“Gambling” means “opening the treasure chest.” Gamers can buy keys and chests from the system for cheap: one yuan per set. When the key is applied to the chest, the screen will display a glittering chest opening. All kinds of materials and equipment spin inside the chest like the drums on a slot machine as the wheel of light spins. Where it stops indicates what you’ve won. Chests will frequently contain the high-class equipment that gamers desire, but the spinning light wheel always passes over them.
This system was the most diligent gaming system Lu Yang had encountered: it kept people’s hands full with its frequent updates. “You spend money for a sense of security, or you save money and get bullied,” said Lu Yang. “Take one day offline, and you feel like you’ve been left behind. It’s really tiring.” She felt that she was a donkey being led onward by a carrot; there was always some strong “power” before her beckoning her onward, but there was no end to the long journey. And she gradually came to abhor the animosity that permeated the game. RMB gamers who held a grudge wanted to fight to the finish over every little thing. They constantly fought over control of NPCs, assaulted each other’s faction heads, and ceaselessly attacked their opponents’ caravans. In the PK arena they delighted in slaying their enemies. They even saw the top position in the chest rankings as a goal to be taken.
If a gamer can open 5,000 chests, another can definitely open 5,001. They called this crazy style of play, “Spending to buy your anger.”
The system continued to update and new ruling techniques emerged without end. Even on the traditional monster-slaying missions, the system moved to allow clans to seize the power to kill a boss from each other. As the ruler of a kingdom, Lu Yang had to lead her troops; if she faltered, some infuriated subordinate was sure to complain.
This is the second most popular MMO in China. World of Warcraft is #3.
Imagine if World of Warcraft did this. Imagine if World of Warcraft had the money from doing this.
Imagine if someone wrote a news story about it.
Imagine if Blizzard decided to shut it down.
One of the aphorisms I like to toss around when doing stand-up pontificating (it’s like stand-up comedy, but usually less funny) is that in MMOs, Asia is about five years ahead of the West.
I’m hoping I’m wrong.
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about 2 years ago
I hope you’re wrong too dude, ugh. If there is one thing that will make me quit playing MMOs it is having to pay money to be on par with lazy fucks.
about 2 years ago
I do not think American audiences would find this kind of thing appealing. The article mentioned that, but in an “American gameplay tastes are inferior” kind of way.
about 2 years ago
Solution: two servers. One where you pay to play, and the other where you play to pay.
about 2 years ago
Read this when it came out, there was a discussion about it on rockpapershotgun.com as well. It’s an amazing article, anyone that decided against reading that 10k words article should reconsider. It’s very fascinating.
I do not think that this is the future of MMO’s here in the West. There might come a similar games like this, but it won’t be getting close to the scale of ZT Online. And there will always be good alternatives. I think there are also some cultural differences that make this sort of stuff much bigger in the East than in the West.
about 2 years ago
“I hope you’re wrong too dude, ugh. If there is one thing that will make me quit playing MMOs it is having to pay money to be on par with lazy fucks.” – Bonedead
That’s just classic.
I know after a ten hour day at the office, the first thing I want to do when I get home is put in a few more hours of work on a game I pay $15 a month for.
about 2 years ago
Well shit man, maybe you shouldn’t be such a newb or something :p
Meh, I work 40 hours a week and can manage that much game time in the same week, AND I live with my girlfriend. You can have all the things that make you happy if you really want them. Why shouldn’t you have to work to get phats in game? Why should the other players suffer because you make yourself suffer an extra 2 hours at work? You could say that you don’t make your schedule but you did choose your job. If I really wanted to get extreme (and slightly retarded) I could say you’re too lazy to work in game just like you’re too lazy to find new work IRL so that you can work in game. But I won’t do that, because I really do love Mr. Jennings, in a totally non faggoty way.
<3
about 2 years ago
I don’t even have words to describe it.
Well… maybe a few consecutive cuss words, but the rest is just unfinished, poorly thought out knee-jerk reactions and racist comments.
about 2 years ago
Very compelling article. Thanks for bringing it up.
But while this ZT Online might look to Western audiences like a first-rate money-fleecing venture, what really irked me (according to that article) is that “the system” is basically set up to prevent any other type of gameplay from taking place in the game so as to maximize revenue, and that any attempt by players to circumvent it will lead to more changes designed to thwart their efforts. Completely different from, say, resetting a map to instill new life into an old game (Shadowbane).
I can’t avoid thinking of those mining and logging companies who paid their workers with company scrip only redeemable at grossly overpriced company stores, basically turning them into indentured servants.
This omnipotence of “the system”, on its own, would quickly lead to its demise in Europe or North America, where “open-ended” now seems to be the norm. (Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Western approach to MMO, from the players’ perspective at least, seems to be that the developer-god is expected to leave his creations alone after the sixth day.) The constant climate of wars would quickly lead to the departure of PvE players, the restrictions on trading introduced to make items binding would quickly dispose of economic players, and so forth, leaving only the small subset of players with some amount of disposable income and whose sole interest is only in PvP.
And if a certain subset of players are taking up arms against, for example, something as trivial as Funcom’s Age of Conan forum policy (where it is verboten to even bring up the subject of board moderation), or that old EVE scandal involving a developer giving goodies to his corp, one can imagine what the reaction would be to putting a character in jail for 8 hours just for questioning the rules of the game. But then, as the story seems to indicate, for every rebel there will be 10 people just willing to play ball just to gloat that they have killed the Queen.
In other words, forget it. It’s (no pun intended) Chinatown.
I’m not sure, though, that this sort of thing isn’t creeping up in the Western world. I’ve never played it, but isn’t Entropia Universe essentially the same thing?
It might also be worth discussing the popularity of Shadowbane in Asia after it turned free to play, and the unsavoury race-based aspect it had taken on. What was said of “cn/kr” players there was almost exclusively derogatory. The problem, unfortunately, was that too often those “cn/kr” players, when seen first-hand, fitted the stereotype in every way, the type of thing that would leave you apprehensively wondering what would happen when China became a full-fledged superpower with those gamers perhaps occupying positions of power.
about 2 years ago
You all laughed at me when I said allowing money into MMOs was a bad thing.
YOU LAUGHED.
about 2 years ago
Me for one will NOT spend time on grinding after work, that is why I create bots.
And to the same degree I will not play a game that requires me to constantly pump out my hard earned cash into it, unless the game is just that exciting.
about 2 years ago
Just think of it: “If Blizzard lets this patch go live as-is, I’ll happily take my $32,000 to its competitors, tyvm!”
Even if subscription gaming is “inferior,” I will gladly wallow in the muck. Also, I will buy a new car.
about 2 years ago
Wow, pretty intense story.
Lots of folks here saying this couldn’t happen in the West. But they are wrong. It already has, just in a slightly different venue. M:TG, the original game with real cards and real people facing each other across real tables was/is set up pretty much the exact same way. Competitive gaming where you pay the house for the toys to play with. As always, only the house wins in the end.
So will it happen in online space here as well? Probably not in the same form, at least not to the same generation of players. Once burned is twice shy and all that. But something like it is sure to come around again and fleece the next generation of innocents/noobs who come to play a casual game, get sucked in by power of defeating some foes while burning for vengeance from being pwned by others, and eventually find themselves dumped in the gutter with their pockets emptied.
about 2 years ago
I’m scared.
about 2 years ago
This story pretty much has it all. Fascinating stuff.
about 2 years ago
Y’all debating the morality of casino operators. The name of the game and the nature of it does not matter, just how fast you can fleece the marks out of their money, and as much as possible without driving them off. The GAME/phat lewts/PK prestige are like the cabaret floor shows to designed to draw the punters in.
For all you westerners claiming to see the coming of the western MMOG apocalypse ~ Such hardcore RMT fleecing at the ZT Online will not come to the US or the West in general. For one thing – when real $$$$ is involved, Americans have their own charming quirks – CIVIL LITIGATION. Exploding stars? And I lost $500? Ganked for $1000? Fuck that! SUE!
Also, the crap shoot of opening $$$ purchased chests to get a chance at phat loot? That is online lottery aka online gambling that is illegal in the states. RMT stuff can be translated into taxable online revenue – so we need to add the IRS into the mix. Lots of legal federal landmines.
So yeah, keep it on perspective. Lots of stuff won’t fly in the West and ZT Online opening in the states will make America’s sue happy lawyers very happy.
about 2 years ago
Would a WoW player buy this for $.50? Even if you could only buy 1 per day? ($15/mo)
Quagmirran’s Chest of Lazy Loot
“Chance of heroic drop from this boss, epic gem, or 20-slot bag.”
(vendor would sell QCLL and its ilk to anyone, but higher chests like Felmyst’s require gear tier to buy)
I think so.
There’s a lot of gray between casino-only-no-hard-work and we-hate-all-RMT-except-WTCG-but-won’t-ban-buyers. A *lot* of gray.
Double the income plus a little extra hook to keep subscribing to get more rolls of the die. Tempting.
about 2 years ago
If Blizzard put in a means for people to bet on Arena matches RIGHT NOW, real money or not, that crap would be huge because, and I’ve said this before, people are crazy.
about 2 years ago
I would think any Western game that used a similar RMT set up would probably attract government attention as a form of online gambling.
Micro-transactions and RMT are not going to replace subscriptions in the western market until players feel they get a better benefit from those payment methods. At the moment most players like to know there is a limit to how much they have to spend on a game each month. A lot of people are fearful about RMT based games taking large amounts of money from them, especially if they really got into the game. Basically I don’t see RMT becoming popular until Americans have better control over their spending habits.
about 2 years ago
For my part I prefer to focus on stuff like the potential for dynamic histories of various exact copies of a virtual world (MMO). Where history is determined by players. In other words, parallel worlds without players would have, theoretically, the exact same histories, even if it were measured in millions of years.
That to me is MMO. Until such a time arrives I will have to continue with the Soul-Caliber-MMO-pwns-your-noob-roll-playing-games joke.
about 2 years ago
I like the comparison of a previous commenter with Magic: The Gathering. The end result is very similar. Lots and lots of money, the only difference being you didn’t have to keep playing to keep going – of course, you needed some skill and familiarity with decks to play, but you didn’t need to play x hours a day. But, of course, you did need to bust some rather large amounts of cash to have a hope of playing competitively.
So the economics are similar, I think, but the timesinks are most definitely not. Other games, like WoW, have similar timesinks but dissimilar economics. So we’ve gotten both parts of it, just in different games.
about 2 years ago
Take out the random element and this sort of thing is very feasible in western markets.
The biggest problem is liabilty. When you start selling identifiable goods to people instead of just selling them a service, you are opening up a lot of doors that you might not intend to go through, but some one else might.
about 2 years ago
A curious aspect of eastern gamer culture is that most of them play MMOs in semi-public settings, whereas the lan centers of the west seem to be mostly dominiated by FPS games. I wonder if peer pressure contributes towards that need to overachieve. The article certainly makes it sound like its being used, quite effectively.
about 2 years ago
If you can’t cash out your game money for RL cash, it is not gambling. No where in the article does it mention the ability to pull money out of the system. By the definition of gambling you have to have a chance to make a profit. Games of chance in Second Life, where you can cash out is gambling. Purchasing a chest in a system where the money only goes in is not gambling because no matter the outcome, you will not make money.
about 2 years ago
This has been done in the West long ago, just not with graphics. It’s called Achaea.