14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the Chinese Ministry of Culture has sent out a letter to a variety of videogames developers and operators, inviting them to take greater care related to the content which is being offered, especially if their games are played online.
The letter is quoted as making references to the content not being “up to standard” and operators are said to be creating “low-brow cultural content that is having a negative effect on the healthy development of the industry.” This comes after a recent move by the same authority let to the closure of 45 online titles which offered experiences which were said to be “healthy” and “encouraged players to engage in illegal activities such as drug trafficking and prostitution.” Earlier this year, the biggest subscription MMO in the world, World of Warcraft, has been suspended in China because of the fact that another Communist agency, the GAAP, considered it to be operating illegally.
The Chinese online gaming market is said to be worth about 4 billion dollars, with about 50 million players regularly playing an MMO. The market is growing very fast, at about 50% in one year, which means that a lot of MMO operators are eager to get into the market and attract as many players as possible to their product. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist government officials seems more interested in making sure that the content offered is not in any way harming the public.
The Chinese moves, which are mainly targeting MMOs created outside of China, might also be seen as a sort of protection measure. The bans and the veiled threats are a way for the government to actually allow indigenous companies to create MMOs that can capture the market and profit from it while keeping out Western developed videogames by deeming them to be “unhealthy.”