SMASH THE FOREIGN LEVEL DESIGNERS AND THEIR MARKETING LACKEYS
China quits flirting with blocking foreigners from their online gaming market and just flat out says “yeah, you ferengi aren’t welcome“.
China’s video game industry regulator the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and copyright watchdog issued a circular on Saturday prohibiting foreign investment in domestic online gaming operations through joint ventures, wholly owned enterprises and cooperatives.
The new directive also disallows foreign firms from indirectly influencing Chinese gaming firms through agreements or technology support.
It remains to be seen how this will effect large joint ventures already in place in China. This blog implies that part of the issue is a turf war between two powerful government agencies.
Interestingly, a Ministry of Culture (MoC) official “expressed his shock” (link in Chinese) at GAPP’s latest announcements, saying it clearly violates the State Council’s earlier guidelines. It’s quite rare to see different branches of the government argue in public, but the MoC will probably take some further actions to protect their turf.
That same blog also includes quotes to Chinese market commentators saying that at a minimum this means another closure for World of Warcraft while they pay the correct bribes get their paperwork in order.
In any event I’m sure this was all a pleasant surprise for all the Westerners in town for GDC China this week!
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Wait – what? They’re upset because foreigners come onto their games and gold spam? Is that they’re saying?
“In any event I’m sure this was all a pleasant surprise for all the Westerners in town for GDC China this week!”
The last pleasant surprise in China for all the Westerners in an enclosed space was only lifted after fifty-five days.
I’m not really sure what their beef is either. Productivity impact of people distracted by World of Warcraft? Desire to make it very, very hard for the West to pay back the incredible debt we’ve accrued with them? Resolution of a stream of complaints about Chinese gold farmers ruining foreign games? Worries about westernized thought entering the mainstream? All of the above?
@geldonyetich
Do they really need a reason? Maybe it’s just one of those not-too-subtle chest-puffing power plays that the Chinese love to do from time to time.
Geldon: basic protectionism. They want to keep the online gaming industry in China (and its profits) in Chinese hands.
That and the bribes, Scott. It’s my understanding that man government officials now see the entire computer gaming industry as a “free money money tree” venture.
The Gold farmers were handing out some of the best bribes in China.
Poor Chinese players, that’s all I can say.
The WoW Chinese players are just going to go to the Taiwanese servers. AGAIN. Really, whatever they do for forbid that is just going to be hacked. And besides, there’s several Korean MMOs that they can play.
Protectionism never works because the industry is just going to be underground.
What do you really expect from Communists?
Officially the Tienanmen Square Massacre wasnt a bad thing remember.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SB70mWXrzEE
In fact what I just said is so bad bad that this blog cant be seen in China.
I guess the only people on this world who care what goes on in fucking China are Americans.
“Officially the Tienanmen Square Massacre wasnt a bad thing remember. ”
Officially, it’s more like not a thing at all.
“I guess the only people on this world who care what goes on in fucking China are Americans.”
Oh, the rest of the world is concerned as well, but nobody has quite the weight of Americans when dealing with China.
As if this blogger would be concerned about the politics and lives of chinese people. They are good enough for him to post a yellow press style nerdrage about chinese online gaming regulations.
Um…
I’ve known for a while that this blog is blocked in China (and has been for years). I know this because I know several people who work in China in the gaming industry.
I also have a slight bit of knowledge of the history and politics involved: http://brokentoys.org/2006/01/12/the-second-opium-war/
My point wasnt that you of all people didnt know about China and Communism. I just like to point out when I can how western money and technology empowers neo-communist oppression.
I’m not so sure the term neo-communist oppression applies quite as well in the realm of gaming as it does cultural genocide. But, yes, however little related this would seem to be to the topic at hand, we do have a nasty habit of outsourcing our future to save a quick buck.
Turf wars in china are settled with kung fu fights.
Blizzard should have invested in some shaolin masters.
This is an interesting way of dealing with the surge of online games. If it’s clear that foreigners are profiting off the hard work of your countrymen in one industry, the best way to prevent it is evidently to make the entire industry unprofitable.
The clear winners here… the eastern European gold farmers.
Oh come on. Blizzard unveiled their Pandaren vanity pet not too long ago. How can that not be enough for China??
“Oh come on. Blizzard unveiled their Pandaren vanity pet not too long ago. How can that not be enough for China??”
Will play any game with a Chinese server that allows players to acquire a Llama Dolly.
So one branch of the Chinese government got paid off by The9, but there’s another branch that needs to be paid off as well?
Obviously Longsack has a beef with anyone who likes free markets.
If the USA pulled the same stunt I bet China would be up in arms.
I’m not sure anyone in the USA would notice if Perfect World was banned.
“”Um…
I’ve known for a while that this blog is blocked in China (and has been for years). “”
Scott…
No offense, but what the fuck are you smoking?
Greetings from Guilin. Accessed your blog just fine from Beijing, too. Living in a Chinese household where I’m the only foreigner, standard Chinese internet, nothing fancy.
“”So one branch of the Chinese government got paid off by The9, but there’s another branch that needs to be paid off as well?”"
Sigh, no. And yes. Sort of. The two branches are sort of fighting over who gets to control this turf (and thus its revenue). Blizzard picked what will undoubtedly be the winning side (Ministry of Culture are the proverbial Heavy Hitters, GAPP is the Tito Jackson to their Michael), but in doing so (for the release of TBC) they did an end-run around GAPP in such a blunt way that it didn’t allow them to save face. This is GAPP slapping them back.
The ground rules for doing business in China aren’t that hard to understand — it’s like any major American city in a neighborhood where the police aren’t the only power brokers and you have to play nice. If you’re going to pat someone on the head and say “Run along, you don’t matter”, as Blizzard did to GAPP when making payouts to allow the TBC release, you’d better be sure you don’t need them for anything later on. Whaddaya know? They’re still making expansion packs, they’ve still got to make payouts to get them into the market, and they’ve made themselves enemies. This is going to cost them far more to handle than if they included GAPP in the initial round of payouts and built up a relationship. Not only will GAPP get their pound of flesh in the end, the Ministry of Culture will expect Blizzard to cough up more protection money as they temporarily fix Blizzard’s problems…
Of course, this should make you wonder a bit — Even if Blizzard is this pants-on-head stupid when it comes to doing business in China, treating it just like doing business in Europe or America, why are their Chinese partners, who at least in theory have the know-how to avoid these problems, standing for this?
Well, here’s merely an educated guess — As of April 2009, Blizzard switched from The9 to NetEase, complicating their life immensely. NetEase is a major player too, but it’s sort of like telling the gang you pay your protection money to that yeah, it’s been great and all, but I’m going to go with that *other* gang now.
It could be that. It could be something else. But the bottom line is, Blizzard hasn’t displayed savvy in the Chinese marketplace. And as anyone who’s done business there can tell you, their prevailing mindset is, “If you’re not savvy and you get screwed, you deserved it.”
If you find that unfair, well, there are plenty of other countries for you to promote your product in.
“”This is an interesting way of dealing with the surge of online games. If it’s clear that foreigners are profiting off the hard work of your countrymen in one industry, the best way to prevent it is evidently to make the entire industry unprofitable.
“”
Wrong read on the situation — online gaming is huge in China (Hell, even the auntie at the tiny bodega down the street from me has an old rig going where WoW’s running while she sells soft drinks and ice cream. I couldn’t tell at a glance if it was gold farming on American servers or playing legit). World of Warcraft is a major player, but it’s not a market-expanding magnet for people new to the genre like it is in the West. WoW being shut out really would be a net gain for the rest of the industry. It’s not completely zero sum, but it’s definitely toward that direction.
Blizzard has a problem to fix, and if they fail (which I highly doubt they will), they wouldn’t even have the consolation of “But you’re all totally missing out!” to fall back on.
I can only go by what people tell me! Maybe since Obama was elected I was deemed socialist enough to de-firewall.
What’s most likely is that it had something to do with your blogging software switching at some point. Certain blog-sites are blocked en masse (like blogspot), others aren’t (most major blogs). No real rhyme or reason to it, except perhaps that blogspot is owned by Google and Baidu (AKA China’s Google) is doing what it can to needle Google lately. Sometimes a site will be unavailable for a few days at a time, completely without relation to its content. When it comes to websites in English, they really don’t screen for content or even care to try — they know that worrying about the English-language internet is a losing battle, what they really care about is controlling the ability of Chinese people to organize themselves via the Internet for real-world action. Wikipedia’s article on the Tiananmen protests loads up just swell here. (The same article on the Chinese version of Wikipedia, not so much.)
Sounds likely, I was using wordpress.com as a blog host for about a year.
Still a disappointment that my meandering MMO musings didn’t somehow mysteriously anger the Beijing overlords, though!