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Gaming with Gamers -- A Growing Rights-Conscious China

The Chinese government is easing the anti-addiction online game policy after an influx of complaints by online gamers. In October 2005("Are Online Gamers in China a League of Their Own?" October 4, 2005), the General Administration of Press and Publications in Beijing proposed a set of anti-addiction policies which place a five-hour consecutive playing time limit on gamers, minors and adults alike. Trespassers of the regulation will be penalized by losing their virtual weapons/points, or being automatically logged off. As a result, adult gamers protested with their virtual weapons – emails. On March 22, the agency announced a new system. Effective this June, adults are exempted from the time limit but gamers will have to enter authentic ID information in order to play online games. On one hand, the new system will grant access to parents to find out what games their children are playing and their online status. On the other hand, the public security department will authenticate the ID information and points will be voided if forgery is the case.

However, the policy may not have much teeth since registered gamers seldom use their real names and age. Consequently, it is still not clear how effective the authentication process will be. Also, granting access to parents may just spoil the fun of the massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG). More importantly, what kind of protection is in place to prevent an outbreak of identity theft?
Does such move indicate that the government is easing or losing control? Only time will tell whether it is one or the other, or both. But what is exciting to China is the growing of right consciousness among Chinese citizens and that their voices are being heard. Perhaps the Chinese government is finally letting the parents be the monitor of their children rather than it being a parent to its citizens.

The Art of Games: A Balancing Act

It is equally exhilaration to see Daniel Auteuil as well as the Prince of Persia on the silver screen of Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center.  Semper Ubi: Ubisoft and the Art of Games, sponsored by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris and French Cultural Services in New York was debuted at Walter Reader Theater last night.  Hollywood-styled CGI animation and in-game footage of five new games (Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones [looks very interesting], Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood, Tom Clancy: Ghost Recon, Project Assassin [debuted in Tokyo Game Show in September] , and Peter Jackson's King Kong [a bit boring]): created by Ubisoft were previewed and followed by comments from the game designers and producers.

Colonel John Antal, the producer of Brothers in Arms, brought up an interesting point regarding game design.  He complimented on how game designers have reacted to the suggestions of players via their communications in message boards.  He contrasted the builder v. player relationship with that of filmmaker and moviegoer, where the communication is minimal.  Antal’s comment brought back Charlie Nesson’s enlightening remarks at the recent State of Play III conference.  It is encouraging to learn that game designers do listen to popular demands, but one should push beyond the level of dialogue pointed out by Antal in order to increase the educational value of games.  Again, it is a balancing act of responding to the preference of the players without compromising the level of creativity of the designer.  Brothers in Arms – Earned in Blood as a military action games seems to have gotten raved review among all WWII series.

According to Antal, designers were given military training for two days, his research team interviewed almost all members of the 101st Airborne  Division who are still alive to find out how the battle took place, and the map was drawn with extreme accuracy  to that of Sainte Marie du Mont and nearby towns based on photographs from the US National Archives.  .All in all, it is encouraging to see the level of authenticity and educational value of this game while being an immersive one.

State of Play III: To Some a Conference, To Me Heaven*

The wisdom Charlie Nesson imparted at the  State of Play III struck the core of the reason for all the intellectual and constructive exchanges during the three-day conference.  At the Law in Virtual Worlds panel on Saturday, October 8, Nesson took the audience into a different realm of the law in virtual worlds.  Other panelists discussed the common theme they drew from the holdings of seminal cases like Grokster, BrandX and Marvel v. NCSoft.  Nesson refrained from discussing the ‘excrement’ of the Supreme Court, instead he contemplated on the relationship between games/game builders and the law.  He quoted journal entries from Edward Castronova’s famous paper on Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier to illustrate the emotional experience of learning, such as

Journal entry, 20 April, I have made my first kills, mostly rats.  They did me a great deal of damage and I have been killed several times.  I do return to life but it is a pain to go through.  Nonetheless, I have to attack the rats.  I need money to buy edible food and water, and rat fur, and other similar junk, is about the only thing I can get my hands on that the vendors will pay money for.

Nesson also believes that learning is addictive. To him, the Avatar is learning and the game builder is teaching.  So it is as important for court decisions to be correct as game builders building what is right.  He further cautioned law makers and judges to make law slowly so that they can catch up with their understanding of the virtual world.  He stressed that it is of utmost importance to teach children the difference between real and virtual world because there seems to be an increase in acceptance of the merging the two.

In times when courts are still struggling in their quest out of the maze of the virtual world, where monstrous game builders are hiding behind the veil of the notion of business model to defend themselves, and savvy gamers are stealing copyrighted materials, Nesson’s idea of social responsibility rests not solely on the courts but also that of the game builders, and that is what makes him a visionary.  Undoubtedly, the comments of the rest of the panelists were more than insightful, especially that of Susan Crawford and Ann Bartow,  Nesson’s wisdom is axiological to the discussion of law in the virtual worlds.  Foresight like that of Nesson is appropriate to be found in SOP III because it is itself a colloquium filled with dialogues ahead of its time.

* Luck
Langston Hughes (1902 - 1967)

Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.

To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only heaven.

Are Online Gamers in China a League of Their Own?

Singapore will be the only stop in Asia for the Cyberathelete Professional League (CPL) World Tour 2005.  The tournament will to be held at the Padang ( I was there for a Linkin Park concert last summer) from October 14 to 16; and Keystone Law Corporation is the offical law firm for the tournament.  The champion in each stop (host country) will receive US$ 15,000, while the winner of the grand final enjoys a $150,000 bounty.  The sport of professional gaming has entered the mainstream without a hiss.  Perhaps this is the beauty of a free world where anything is possible. Compare to the new regulations on gaming in China, gamers around the world seem to enjoy a type of freedom that they do not know it could be lost. 

According to the General Administration of Press and Publication in China, Chinese online gaming market generated RMB 3 billion (US$304m) in sales revenue last year, and the forecast for 2005 is RMB 11billion (US$1.4bn).  On August 23, new regulations were promulgated by China’s Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Information Industry to prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from playing online games involving killing others.  This might not have disappointed most gamers, but the new regulations further targeted the players of  massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG) such as World of WarCraft and Legend of MIR II. by requiring online game operators to install timing mechanism to automatically log players off of online games once they have exceeded a set number of hours of continuous play.  For example, gamers’ in-game characters will be severely limited as well as the value of their virtual goods if continuous play time exceed five hours.  There are situations where gamers will be forced to take a three-hour break before they can login again.

The saying, “do everything in moderation” is applicable in most things we do in life.  Parents of teenage gamers in South Korea and Japan maybe overjoyed if their governments will impose limit on continuous playing time.  So, what is the role of the government in regulating the “freedom to play”?  Is China over-regulating the gaming industry? Should the government play a parental role?  If not, will gamers have the discipline to protect their well-being?  What a fine line to draw and who can draw it well? 

Chilling or Protecting: New Regulations for Online News Services in China

Yesterday, the State Council Information Office and the Ministry of Information Industry introduced new measures on regulating online news services in order to combat the publication of false information, pornography, gambling and violence by online news sites.  See http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-09/26/content_3543389.htm.  The new regulations came into effect immediately.  A spokesperson with the Information office stressed that the new regulations are aimed at deterring the dissemination of unhealthy news stories.  Under the new regulations, online news site which publish false information will be fined up to 30,000 Yuan (USD 3,700).  According to Xinhua, “the regulations provided that news sites set up by news organizations but publishing not just their own stories, and sites by other organizations featuring news stories must get approval from the State Council Information Office. Sites by news organizations that only carry their own stories should register at the main office or provincial information offices.”

This is not the first time that the Chinese government promulgated regulations to monitor the information dissemination on the Internet.  The first of these rules were enacted in 2000 but were quickly outdated by the tremendous growth of the Internet.  Currently, there are 103 million people who have Internet access in the mainland, as compared to 135 million in the U.S. 

While the intention of the new regulations is to make online news more reliable, the definitions of the elements of the rule remains nebulous.  For example, Xinhua pointed out that only "healthy and civilized news" and "information that is beneficial to the improvement of the quality of the nation, to economic development, and conducive to social progress" should be published, but the definitions of these terms are lacking. 

In order for the new regulations to have teeth, law makers will need to provide more guidance and clarity to the public.  Otherwise, well-meaning regulations like this will be misused to chill the freedom of information and speech in China which is vital to the growth of a civil society.  Regulations like this should undergo strict scrutiny by the courts rather than to be manipulated as a pretext to serve a different end.