2 September, 2006

Last week one of my clients had an event in one of Beijing's largest and slickest Internet cafes. China has something over 120 million Internet users, and the visit to the  Internet Cafe was a good reminder of what most of them are doing there: playing online computer games. There were a couple of hundred people in the cafe while I was there, and with the exception of two people using the stations to watch DVDs, everyone else was using them to play computer games. There was no surfing, no email, no VoIP, no Internet supply chain management. There was lots of Counter Strike and, especially, World of Warcraft (the most popular online game in China).

So much for the government's fitful attempt to use an engineered "fatigue system" to persuade China's youth to go do something --anything-- else. Instead, it seems the government has taken an "if you can't beat them, join them" approach. It has decided that, if China's male youth are going to do nothing but play online computer games, they might as well play some socially redeeming games. It can't all be cleaving skulls in twain and rescuing buxom nymphettes in leather bikinis (although it's not hard to see the appeal). Thus government's answer has been to support the  development of a game featuring "Chinese heroes" and designed to teach socially redeeming values.

To which we must offer a hearty, best of luck with that! But don't get your hopes up.

--more at CNET Asia--