Chinese Gov't Demands More Regulations, Socialist Values For Local Online Games
The Chinese government will enact regulations requiring local game operators like Shanda, NetEase.com, and Tencent Holdings to emphasize socialist values in their games and hire specialized staff to monitor their content.
China's Ministry of Culture told operators that they must re-examine their games to limits obscene and violent content, the number of virtual marriages, and player-versus-player combat. NetEase.com CEO William Ding said that while he's unaware of all the new restrictions, his company is willing to comply.
"Over this year, China's online game industry has grown at a rapid pace," the ministry said in a statement released last Wednesday and translated by Reuters. "But the current product offerings are not up to standard, and the cultural content is lowbrow and having a negative effect on the healthy development of the industry."
Earlier this month, China's General Administration of Press and Publication in the country ordered NetEase.com to halt its local operations for World of Warcraft and stop accepting new accounts due to what the regulator described as "gross violations" of rules". The conflict seemed to stem from a power struggle between GAPP and the Ministry of Culture over control of online content.
The new regulations also come as a newly released report from Beijing-based data analysis firm Cnzz.com predicting that China's online game market will account for half the global market, generating 41 billion yuan ($6 billion), by 2010. That amount is more than double the online game revenue the company generated in 2008 (20.8 billion yuan, $3 billion), according to an earlier report by iResearch.
Cnzz.com's report adds that two-thirds of China's 338 million Web users are also online gamers. The firm expects the local online game industry, which currently makes up more than half of the total Internet economy, will grow at a rate of 20 percent in future years.
