14 DAY TRIAL // Following recent comments from the government related to the fact that more and more of China's teenagers are “addicted” to online games that expose them to material unsuitable for their age, the videogame developers in the communist country are scrambling to adapt their products to the concepts presented by the ruling party. Such veiled censorship will probably mean that less Western made MMOs will claim big subscription numbers in China.
CDC Games, which is based in Beijing, has announced that it plans to launch a line of “green online games”. The weird concept has come to name in China a genre of games that feature no violence and no sexual references. The company also says that such online games will be non-addictive.
CDC Games made its announcement through the Publishers Association of China Game Committee, an organization that seeks to promote all green games. Their stated aim is to “purify the Internet environment” and to create more games that are “healthy” as far as the Chinese community is concerned.
CDC Games has published titles such as Special Force, Yulgang, Shaiya, Mir III, Shine and EVE Online and these are claimed to already be “green”. John Huen, who is the Chief Operations Officer, said that “Online games are cultural products enjoyed by people so they must be entertaining, but we also believe that some portion of these online games should be educational and set moral examples for the growing new generation of the country”.
The problem with such an announcement and such a move on the part of a developer of online games is that it sacrifices credibility for the fact that MMOs are somehow addictive and deliver content not suited for its audience. There's also the possibility that a Chinese move to restrict the content available in MMO games will mean that soon such measures could be proposed in North America or in Europe.