China declares victory over online game addiction

China's General Administration of Press and Publication claims that the government's anti-game-addiction program is proving successful, as evidenced by new statistics released by the China Youth Social Service Center this week.

According to the CYSSC, the proportion of people under the age of 18 playing online games has dropped 7 percent, to 15 percent of the total online gaming population in China. Fewer kids playing online games apparently translates to less game addiction.

The program requires online game producers to discourage online play for more than three hours by reducing game credits by half after that period. In addition, players are required to register with their real names in order to verify their age.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

China declares victory over online game addiction originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:10:00 EST. Please see their terms for use of feeds.

http://feeds.joystiq.com/~r/weblogsinc/joystiq/~3/jTRnYSvHizo/

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Study: Gold Farming Employs 400,000

[reposted from Kotaku]

Manchester University have published another study looking at developing nations where the poor earn money by gold farming or powerlevelling in MMOs. The estimate is half a million people do the work for pay, a supermajority of them in China. Of the online toilers, 400,000 are involved in gold farming, the rest powerlevelling and other services.

The study's author admits that precise estimates are not possible because of the underground nature of the activity. But it's at least a $500 million global industry as of now, with organized crime snaking its tendrils into the business.

The growth is entirely predictable and not really a new phenomenon, when you think about it. "When you get people with more money than time and time than money the two will find a way to meet," said Stephen Davis, of game security firm Secure Play.

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/372869009/study-gold-farming-employs-400000

Bringing Acclaim Back From The Dead

[from Kotaku]

There's a tidy piece up over on Gamasutra, detailing Howard Marks' plans to resurrect the Acclaim brand name. While the original company went bust in 2006, Marks plans on capitalising on the brand name to leverage titles that are less about cartoony basketball players and more about...pony-based MMOs. Acclaim circa 2008 are all about free-to-play MMOs, nickel-and-diming you with microtransactions, getting into Facebook gaming and capitalising on the rise of the online gaming scene in markets like China. Might not sound like much, but the last time Marks decided to revive the flagging fortunes of a former big name in the industry was in 1991. When he and Bobby Kotick dug Activision out of the grave. That seems to be working out OK

http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/318831154/on-bringing-acclaim-back-from-the-dead

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