Moving Beyond the Neon Lights in Chinese Gaming

In China, it's the glitzy cities that get the attention — Shanghai in particular is the city that garners the most attention in scholarship (and frequently in the press). I was somewhat relieved to see that this is not confined merely to China specialists, but game industry watcher types as well — the most recent 'China Angle' column at Gamasutra looks at games outside of the publicized hotspots, where large portions of the user bases are found. Giant Interactive, developer of Zhengtu Online, recently purchased a stake in one of China's largest social networking sites, in an attempt to grow their market. But that's not the only way companies are trying to acquire ever greater number of players, oh no: More »

Zhengtu Tearing Up the Chinese Market

Steve at PlayNoEvil is, I think, as interested in the Chinese MMORPG Zhengtu Online as I am: the game is breaking (or re-writing) a lot of MMORPG rules and currently ruling the domestic MMORPG roost in China. While nosing around PNE, I discovered that — on the heels of the announcement that Zhengtu hit over 2.1 million peak concurrent users — China Daily took a look inside Giant Interactive (developer/operator of Zhengtu) and its tracksuit-wearing CEO. Of particular interest are their marketing strategies: More »

'Online Gaming Grows Up' - Gambling and Pyramid Schemes!

Giant Interactive's Zhengtu has been getting some attention lately, mostly for its unholy mix of gambling, regular MMORPG high jinxs, and RMT - now they're getting ready to launch a new game, Giant Online. The hook? 500 RMB in virtual currency (almost $70) incentive to sign up and play. Steve at PlayNoEvil says: More »

Zhengtu: Where RMT, Gold Farming and Gambling Reign Supreme

I was thrilled to come across a most glorious article on Chinese MMORPGs (specifically, the wildly popular Zhengtu Online), translated to English from the original that appeared in the Southern Weekly. As Steve at PlayNoEvil sums it up, "While wimpy Americans can whine about "cheating" in online games, quibble about Real Money Transactions (RMT), complain about gold farming, gripe about power-leveling, and otherwise aspire to a mythical "purity" of game play, the most popular game in China, ZT Online, from Giant Interactive has embraced all of these things.. and online gambling to boot." More »

Steal Code in China, Get Jail Time

Chinese game companies have been going after law breakers pretty aggressively, at least when it comes to domestic problems - a former Giant Interactive employee who was accused of stealing code from Zhengtu, one of China's really popular MMOs, and reselling it for 130,000 RMB (a little more than $17,000 USD), found himself on the losing end of a court case. A year and a half of jail and a 50,000 RMB fine was his punishment; two of the people he sold the code to (and who went on to resell the code) were sentenced to jail terms, as well: More »

Malaysia, Taiwan, and Singapore Getting Zhengtu

Zhengtu Online - one of the most popular MMORPGs in Mainland China (so popular the government even labeled it dangerously addictive last year!) - isn't content with mere Chinese dominance, oh no. The Zhengtu Network is partnering with Taiwanese and Malaysian companies to expand service into Southeast Asia. In typical fashion, the companies couldn't just leave praise of their game to 'It's so awesome we're more popular than Warcraft,' but have to put a particularly positive spin on things: it's not just an MMO, it's a tool to teach Chinese philosophy! I can't figure out the particulars, but I would run screaming from any game that heavily involved the teachings of Kongzi. Maybe it's just me: More »