An exploration of virtual experiences and environments in and about China.
Ladies and gentlemen,
On your left, China. And on your right, USA. They are the default male avatars from Cyworld China and Cyworld US respectively.
(The original Cyworld is one of South Korean’s most popular portals/social networks; they now have branches in China, Japan, Taiwan and America.)
I assume the Chinese avatar is a port, if not direct copy, of the Korean one; anyone care to confirm?
Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) 奇迹世界, a South Korean "action" massively multiplayer role-playing game developed by Webzen and licensed to leading Chinese game operator The9, was recently voted "Most Anticipated Online Game of 2006" by Chinese gamers. (Link to Chinese article). SUN is currently in closed beta in Korea. It will be in open beta on May 15, and testing phase later this year in China. It’s a popular game; there were 999 slots for the first closed beta testing, and over 300,000 people applied for them. Webzen says:
With the number of current
subscribers at over 1 million, many are curious to see what sort of new
record will be seen during the open beta in May.
As you can begin to see, this is not a minor issue, as the opening of an MMORPG might be in the U.S.. In China this will be a big deal in the mainstream media, the chat rooms and forums, on television and in advertising.
link to Chinese SUN site
If you’re in the mood for general Chinese gaming industry stuff, check out this recent Gamespot interview with Lisa Hansen of the gaming research and consultancy Niko, on Niko’s bullish outlook on the market.
The leading Chinese search engine, Baidu, lists top searches of the day just the way Google Zeitgeist does. Link to today’s top keywords. Arrow indicates growth rate, followed by number of searches, and my translations.
1 mp3 ↑ 99199
2 qq ↑ 78692 [QQ is China's most popular instant messaging platform]
3 电影 ↑ 72689 [movies]
4 跑跑卡丁车 ↑ 72299 [Popkart "Crazy Racing" game, found here]
5 小说 ↑ 68450 [novels/fiction]
6 音乐 ↑ 60760 [music]
7 游戏 ↑ 60152 [games]
8 迅雷 ↑ 59328 [Thunder, a download manager, found here]
9 劲舞团 ↑ 57656 [Audition beta Chinese version of the Korean dance game, found here]
10 nba ↓ 44572 [NBA...yes, the same NBA]
What’s so striking is that a brief parallel Google search for the English names of two of the keywords, even with additional keywords, yields little or nothing. I couldn’t find anything on Popkart at all, while a search for Thunder eventually led me to some comments on message boards. Audition turns up on a few specialty gaming sites such as Raph Koster’s, or posts on the Chinese gaming industry at Pacific Epoch. Of course, a more strenuous search would probably yield more results, but it just shows where some of the gaps lie.
Check out Jim Rossignol’s wonderfully rich description of gamers and culture in South Korea. Can’t wait to spend more time in China this year to dive into China’s gaming culture. Written for PC Gamer (UK), via Terra Nova.
Seoul, South Korea. To a fanfare of Asian nu-metal and the sound of a thousand screaming fans, a young Korean man enters a dazzling arena. Like an American wrestler at the heart of a glitter-glazed Royal Rumble, he strides down a ramp towards the stage. Adorned in what appears to be a space suit and a large white cape, he heads out to meet his opponent on the stadium’s ziggurat focus. Amid a blaze of flashbulbs and indoor fireworks he climbs the steps, and is exulted by the thronging crowd. Only twenty years old, and with no less than half a dozen TV cameras tracking his progress, this bizarre figure seems to be unfazed by his predicament.
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