Chen Tianqiao, the founder and chairman of Shanda, a leading Chinese online games operator, says the company plans to launch a title similar to the role-playing Second Life.
Not in itself a bad idea. It expands Shanda beyond the swords-and-sorcery ‘massively multiplayer online role-playing games’ that have made it China’s biggest internet company.
Second Life, founded in 2003 by San Francisco-based developer Linden Lab, is a massive success. It is not just individual players who use it, some of the major companies have now set up shop. You can play it and feel like a property developer in that you can develop and trade virtual property and live an internet version of modern life. Not for everyone but it is a major force on the Internet.
Chen Tianqiao said, ‘We are moving to diversify our games. The only thing we care about is what users like, so we are also having a try . . . at this Second Life kind of direction.’
None of which can be cheering for HiPiHi, a Beijing-based start-up that is also developing a Chinese copy of Second Life.
HiPiHi has already begun limited testing of its game with about 2,000 registered players. But Shanda has the power to create an almost instant large virtual community of millions of players.
Couple of problems: online sex and gambling.
Some of the action on Second Life (between, but of course, adult consenting partners) come squarely under what the Chinese government calls ‘decadent’ content. And in the same way that share market investment has become a sort of gambling, so is the trading that goes on in Second Life. Either the game will be severely modified and made toothless — which will lose much of its appeal — or it runs the risk of incurring the wrath of the government.
Source: The Financial Times