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Kotaku East
Why Sina Weibo Is Better Than Twitter (Even Though They’re Pretty Much The Same…)
In 2008, Facebook was banned in China. Almost exactly a year later, Twitter was banned as well. With the removal of the two biggest social networking companies from China, many imitators tried to fill the void. No single one social network was able to completely fill the void left behind by the forced departure of…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
iPhone-Stealing Monk Sentenced to Prison
Last year, a young monk in his early 20s was arrested in the Qingpu district of Shanghai for stealing from another monk. Among the items he took, was an iPhone. According to recent reprots, this monk was sentenced to one year in prison and fined 6,000 yuan (about $946). According to court documents, the young…
By Eric Jou -
Anime Super Fan Carries Swag All The Way to Greece
Chinese gamer and Saint Seiya superfan, Le Shui (not his real name), recently finished one of his life’s goals, to travel like the Saints in Saint Seiya to the Sanctuary of Saints in Greece. However unlike normal fans who traverse to the ancient temple in Greece, Le Shui bought with him a piece of swag…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
I’m Confused, A Chinese Game With Iron Man And Kratos Can’t Be Bad Right?
Sick of playing Chinese games that involve historical fantasy or martial arts fantasy, I set out looking for a new type of Chinese online multiplayer game to play. Unfortunately, The Legend of Shengdao wasn’t the game to help me escape a sea of mediocrity, despite its crazy visuals. At first glance, The Legend of Shengdao…
By Eric Jou -
Guy Returns Stolen Spacebars to Internet Cafe
Over the last few a days a story about a Chinese man returning stolen spacebar keys to an internet cafe has captured the attention China’s online gaming message boards. The story is exactly what it sounds like: a Chinese man stole spacebar keys from his local internet cafe seven years ago and out of the…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Retired School Principal Inspires Other Retirees To Save Internet-Addicted Youth
Playing hooky is pretty common. I did it, and I’m sure some of you have too. Interestingly enough in China, one 84 year-old retired middle school principal has actually made a hobby out of catching students cutting class. Retired junior high school teacher and principal Xu Dezheng has been visiting internet cafes over the last…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
China, You Are Allowed To Make TV Shows Based On Video Games.
Earlier this month, we reported that the Chinese State Administration for Film, Radio and Television (SARFT) came out with six guidelines that could affect the future of Chinese television. Those six guidelines included a ban on the creation of TV dramas based on online video games. Now it appears that SARFT has come out and…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Why Video Game Gambling Machines Were Destroyed In China
Last week, we posted some pictures that appeared on WIRED of Chinese cops burning and destroying gambling machines that look like arcade cabinets. Gambling is illegal in China, and it is constantly being cracked down on. Video game arcades as well as internet cafes are often covers for gambling. Just this weekend, 30-plus people were…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
The Chinese One Piece Game I Wish I Never Played
The Japanese manga and anime sensation about pirates, One Piece, is very popular here in China—so much so that it almost spawned a theme park. Perhaps it is because that I that I actually enjoy One Piece that I found its latest offering in the form a Chinese licensed (which may turn out to be…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
A Look Inside the Smoky World of Chinese Internet Cafes
Chinese internet cafes get a lot of bad press in Western media, most of which involves young people gaming for days on end and then passing… But while the cafes are seedy places, they aren’t exactly bad. Nearly everywhere you go in China that has a steady internet connection, you will find an internet cafe.…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
That Jet Li MMO Isn’t Half-Bad
Chinese company Woniu.com recently came out with a new martial arts based MMO call the The Ninth Sutra （九阴真经). Despite looking like every other martial arts based MMO ever released, the one thing that set the The Ninth Sutra apart was the fact that they were able to use martial arts expert Jet Li’s image…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Forget the Booth Companion Insanity, What Makes this Game Expo Are the Gamers
Every year over the past decade, China Joy has been delighting video game fans in and outside of China. The most memorable parts of the show that are caught on camera often focused on the booth companions and some times the games. What gets left behind by all the glitz and glam of China Joy…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
China Bans TV Shows Based On MMOs
Currently Chinese TV viewers (myself included) have very limited options when it comes to what to watch. The government run China Central Television (CCTV) currently offers 22 channels of mindless drivel, revisionist historical dramas. The other twenty-odd provincial Satellite channels only offer mildly entertaining reality TV shows. But with the new guidelines that leaked out…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Man Sells Family Fortune To Play MMO, Then Claims He Was Robbed
A Chinese man in the northern Shandong province of China sold off 38 kilograms worth of gold bars to fund his online gaming habit. In order to explain why the family fortune was suddenly missing, he went to the police to report that he was robbed. Midday on July 30th, the man, surnamed Yan, reported…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Sorry China, No PS Vita for You (Yet)
The PlayStation Vita was released in Japan nine months ago and went sale around most of the world by this past spring. However, there is one market that the Vita hasn’t been announced yet: China. Earlier this year there was speculation that Sony was in talks with telecom company China Unicom about releasing the system…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
China Can’t Get Enough Kinect Clones
It seems China can’t get enough of motion control gaming, so much so that another Chinese company has come out to debut their own camera capture motion device, the i-move. Spotted in this year’s China Joy gaming expo, Shanghai Motion Technology company’s i-move takes two things that are constantly copied in China and merges it…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Check Out Jet Li’s New Kung Fu Fantasy Game
Chinese game company Woniu.com (Snail net…) announced at the China Joy game expo this week the official release of their Chinese fantasy style wuxia mmo called The 9 Yin Sutras (九阴真经). The game at first glance looks like pretty much every other martial arts fantasy style MMO on the Chinese market these days but the…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
The Company Running Diablo III in China Accidentally Outs Itself
Earlier this month the official Chinese webpage for Diablo III went online, it created speculation that the game would be operated in China by long time Blizzard collaborator NetEase; however, NetEase and Blizzard have declined to officially announce it. Over the weekend, a series of micro-blog posts suddenly went up on NetEase’s official Sina Weibo…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Check Out Taipei’s Underground Video Game “District”
Many of my expatriate friends call Taiwan “China-lite”, and to me, that really makes sense. Taiwan, unlike the Chinese mainland, is run by a democratically elected government, it doesn’t censor its internets like the mainland does, and most importantly for a gamer like myself, you can legally buy video game consoles. In Taipei, the capital…
By Eric Jou -
Kotaku East
Jackie Chan Allegedly Missed Being In Aurora Theater
Sometimes when something tragic happens in the United States, Chinese media (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) will jump at the chance to somehow relate it to something happening in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Despite the gravity and the horror of what happened last Friday in Colorado, the Chinese media have done it again, this…
By Eric Jou
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