China - catch all

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Curious about Chinese life? Politics? Business? Economics? Society? Video games? Let's talk.

EDIT: thread's dead, nothing to see here folks... move along. Anyone has China (PRC, that is) questions feel free to PM me.

I'm curious about the video game situation in China. How big is LAN gaming? What's the bandwidth like? How's piracy and how is it affecting the gaming landscape?

In my experience, it's mostly internet cafes and PC gaming. Their MMO's are generally not subscription based either. I probably have more to say about this topic, but I should probably wait until I'm done studying for my final exam

LarryC wrote:

I'm curious about the video game situation in China. How big is LAN gaming? What's the bandwidth like? How's piracy and how is it affecting the gaming landscape?

When I studied at Bei Da we would game at a net cafe by the hour. I had internet in my dorm room (international student dorms) but it wasn't good. Most of the Chinese students on campus didn't have internet access at all. Piracy is HUGE. On the weekends I'd go to the Pearl or Dirt market to pick up pirated games, movies, and the like. I didn't know anyone who would pay for a game. Renting time for a computer at the cafe and using games (I don't know if the cafe paid for them) is super common.

Hi LarryC,

your questions make me think I should do a longer post just laying out everything I know about gaming in China. For now I'll be brief, and please assume I have a very limited knowledge of the whole situation.

1. LAN gaming--as far as I know, unheard of. PC gaming is primarily done in internet cafes, but is growing as an at home activity. Most of that gaming, however, is MMO-based or are casual games hosted by large internet companies like Tencent or Netease. Social gaming is also big, on SNS like Kaixinwang and Renren wang (facebook clones). All of these require internet connections, so they could never be played on LANs. Where it might exist are for CS and Starcraft fans, who could run their own servers, but I don't know popular it is to bring computers over to a single location to play on a LAN. My guess is LAN gaming is limited at best.

2. Bandwidth is low. Download speeds are so-so, with DSL connections in Beijing ranging from .5 to 8Mbps. I'm guessing most people have either a 1-2Mbps connection, as anything higher gets prohibitively expensive (8 is about $85 a month). Upload speeds are much worse, generally maxing out at either 384 or 512Kbps.

DSL is the most popular connection for private homes, but there are also residential connections for many apartment complexes. The speeds aren't much better though, and I find connection consistency is worse. This makes it very difficult if you want to run any kind of server. Universities and businesses have faster connections, but I don't know anything about the speeds. I once taught at a uni in Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, where I had 400KB/sec upload AND download. I guess connectivity out there was rather sparse.

My connection in Beijing is at least good enough to play games like COD/BF2 with people from Japan, Korea, Hong Kong and I think Taiwan as well.

3. As far as I know, piracy has pretty much destroyed any chance of a software industry in general, but gaming is doing very well. MMORPG's are a dime a dozen, and most rely on microtransactions for revenue. WoW is an exception, as it requires pre-paid charge cards to play (no monthly subs). Other virtual world and social games also rely on the microtransaction model for revenue, since there's no value in the software itself. So I guess you could say that piracy has shaped the business model, and perhaps even the kinds of games people play.

The downside is there's just no way small independent PC game developers could carve a niche out for themselves.

sidenote: consoles, with the exception of one of the Nintendo's DS's, are all banned in China. Gray market consoles are extremely easy to come by, and no one cares about them. As a gamer this is good, because it also means no regulation, and almost any game I want to buy is readily available--even real ones for the PS3, which hasn't been effectively hacked yet.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

sidenote: consoles, with the exception of one of the Nintendo's DS's, are all banned in China. G

Wow. Really?

I guess it makes sense after that scene in Halo where Master Chief makes a lengthly speech about the importance of free speech and the Mandate of Heaven.

Here's my question: What do the people of China tend to think about the United States? Attitudes towards war?

Grubber788 wrote:

I guess it makes sense after that scene in Halo where Master Chief makes a lengthly speech about the importance of free speech and the Mandate of Heaven.

Also that part where he mocks all the Chinese soldiers and everyone has a good laugh at the expense of their culture.

Are you Communist?

goman wrote:

Are you Communist?

Are there any of those left?

Paleocon wrote:
goman wrote:

Are you Communist?

Are there any of those left?

You notice I capitalized the word.

goman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
goman wrote:

Are you Communist?

Are there any of those left?

You notice I capitalized the word.

In fairness, there probably are quite a few Communists left. They mostly live in Russia though and spend all day reminiscing about the "good old days".

LobsterMobster: hard question to pin down--lotsa people, lots of different views, sometimes views that seem completely at odds with each other. One melodramatic example is how Jewish people are respected and have a friendly history with China, as it was place of refuge during WWII. At the same time, you find Chinese people that have a great admiration for what Hitler did in terms of building up Germany into a powerful fighting force, and for all the technology his war machine inevitably created. A Jewish teacher I worked with once during roll call on the first day of class had a student announce his "English" name was Hitler. Awkward, to say the least.

I don't know if this puts the US in good company, but there does seem to be an admiration for the military might we wield. I think that may be part of what drives the government to build its own military--not necessarily that they want to fight or even defend themselves from the US, but that they want to be like us.

They also admire the openness of our media when they see how theirs works against them: the recent flooding that killed over 1,000 people is an example. Chinese media were prohibited from showing images or providing significant coverage of the tragedy, but when boston.com published a full photo spread that wasn't blocked by China's internet censors, Chinese people found these and left a barrage of comments on the site, mostly bemoaning the fact that they had to go to an outside source to see images of what was happening in their own country.

At the same time, they feel our media greatly distorts China's image, and rightly so. Chinese media does exactly the same in the opposite direction. I think you would actually get a pretty decent picture if you combine what you read in both outside and Chinese newspapers. This was most apparent during the Tibet riots and later Uyghur riots in Xinjiang. Whereas Chinese people felt like the Western media was given unprecedented access to report on those situations, the US and other countries felt like they hardly got to see anything. Both stories are pretty much true.

Attitude towards war:

Generally against it. You come across people here and there who are kinda war nuts like you'll easily find in the US, but the mantra these days is harmony, harmony harmony. It has become a complete joke to many Chinese, who use the word 'harmonize' whenever a website is shut down, for example, but I think it generally describes the attitude China has taken toward the world. China likes to argue against interference in internal affairs (it includes Taiwan in this category, of course), and even though that's an official stance, I think it tends to be the attitude of most people you'll come across. Much of the older generation still have very clear memories of what war (I consider the Cultural Revolution a kind of civil war) did to China, and most of the younger generations have seen such great progress because of the economic reform policies, so for both, stability is still greatly desired.

I should probably say that my pov is pretty Beijing-centric, however--haven't lived in a small town since 2005.

Paleocon wrote:
goman wrote:
Paleocon wrote:
goman wrote:

Are you Communist?

Are there any of those left?

You notice I capitalized the word.

In fairness, there probably are quite a few Communists left. They mostly live in Russia though and spend all day reminiscing about the "good old days".

Okay I'll be more descriptive. The Communist Party controls the country. I asked if he was part of that Party.

On Wiki it says there are 77 million members. So I doubt it. Oh wait - He might not even be a Chinese citizen.

It's my understanding that Xinhua is China's state-run English-language newspaper. What are some good English-language news sites for China that aren't managed by the government?

Thank you for the response, Mao. I found this part particularly interesting:

I don't know if this puts the US in good company, but there does seem to be an admiration for the military might we wield. I think that may be part of what drives the government to build its own military--not necessarily that they want to fight or even defend themselves from the US, but that they want to be like us.

I've never heard of a country building military parity out of admiration rather than pure tactics or politics. It's an interesting concept.

As for the Communism thing, it was my understanding that China moved to a primarily capitalist economy while retaining some of the Communist structure and terminology. If that's the case, I think we need to be careful to draw a distinction between social Communism and economic Communism, as the two are surprisingly not co-dependent.

My wife's friend from Shanghai recommended China A-Z by May-lee Chai and Winberg Chai as a light and easy introduction to a broad cross-section of Chinese history and culture. I'm about half-way through it now, and it's very interesting; it covers everything from restaurant etiquette to popular Chinese films to an overview of the Cultural Revolution. It's fascinating stuff.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I've never heard of a country building military parity out of admiration rather than pure tactics or politics. It's an interesting concept.

Outside of the military need, which we greatly exceeded, don't you think a signifigant part of both the US and Russia cold war build-up was patriotism and national pride? We had enough nukes to destroy the world many times, but we kept building other stuff anyway. The arms race wasn't just about nukes.

I could see how Chinese could see and aspire to be as "great".

If I understand correctly, this is a little different from nationalism. It sounds like they want to be like us, not that they want to be strong because we're strong. There's a subtle difference there which I find interesting.

When will the PRC remove the 1300+ missiles pointing at Taiwan? And if Taiwan were to declare independence, what would the PRC do?

LobsterMobster wrote:

If I understand correctly, this is a little different from nationalism. It sounds like they want to be like us, not that they want to be strong because we're strong. There's a subtle difference there which I find interesting.

Yeah, sometimes you can hear the expression: "Surpass England, Catch up to America."

It's a bit of a holdover from the Opium War.

I'd echo the earlier sentiments saying that the Chinese generally admire America, which is in stark contrast to certain prevailing racist attitudes towards other nations/regions, like Japan, Africa and France. I mean, everyone's got a different opinion, but China is not a country where Americans need to pretend to be Canadian, especially if you happen to speak Chinese.

Good sources of English coverage of China is a project I'm actually working on for work.

Chinadigitaltimes.net is definitely one. Also:

www.danwei.org
www.chinasmack.com
www.chinahush.com
www.zonaeuropa.com
www.chinadivide.com
www.chinalawblog.com

And then any of the blogrolls on those sites are worth exploring

Dirt:
Probably when Taiwan officially accepts the offer for reunification. I don't have a clue what China would do if Taiwan declared independence.

And, while I do stand as a much revered dear leader to many, and was at worst only 30% wrong, he who channels my grand bravado, cunning wit, and infectious paranoia is in fact a US Imperialist Running Dog by birth.

I like this "Dead Historical Figures As Guest Lecturer" thing. Can someone find Thomas Jefferson, give him a computer and point him towards GWJ? I think he could clear up a LOT.

Mao: Current Chinese attitudes towards Japan, especially having recently leapfrogged them in economy-size?

I, for one, salute the wisdom and the foresight of The Chairman: the vaunted American imperialism is indeed but a paper tiger, after all.

It's interesting to note that the modern day PRC is much like the ROC under Generalissimo Chiang. Had Chiang won, China would (likely) not have fallen into totalitarianism, but it would have been just as authoritarian. Modern day China is something Chiang would have liked to see and that Mao would disapprove of.

Honorable Chairman,

Be honest, that was a bs call DQ'ing the Korean women's short track speed skating team, wasn't it?

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

I, for one, salute the wisdom and the foresight of The Chairman: the vaunted American imperialism is indeed but a paper tiger, after all.

I hate paper tiger. It defeats rock lobster. But is in turn defeated by scissors lizard... This is a conundrum.

What do you think the real Mao's legacy will be in future?

Buahaha, I know Chairman Mao's dark secret, but alas, I've been sworn to secrecy.

Grubber788 wrote:

Buahaha, I know Chairman Mao's dark secret, but alas, I've been sworn to secrecy.

Does it have to do with the Chinese women's short track speed skating team?

Prederick wrote:

I like this "Dead Historical Figures As Guest Lecturer" thing. Can someone find Thomas Jefferson, give him a computer and point him towards GWJ? I think he could clear up a LOT.

Mao: Current Chinese attitudes towards Japan, especially having recently leapfrogged them in economy-size?

"Guest Lecturer"? That sounds awfully close to calling me an intellectual, which would be infinitely insulting.

This news is still bit fresh to me, and I haven't seen much of a response online. Since it doesn't come as a huge surprise, except that it happened a bit sooner than expected, I don't think it changes much. There hasn't been that much vitriol against Japan lately, however, since Koizumi stepped down and the Yasukuni Shrine visits have ended.

Paleocon wrote:

Honorable Chairman,

Be honest, that was a bs call DQ'ing the Korean women's short track speed skating team, wasn't it?

I'll defer to your sig on this one. (Since we all know which is the real Olympics anyway)

goman wrote:

What do you think the real Mao's legacy will be in future?

That I founded modern China, before killing a lot of people out of paranoia. The latter won't set in for a few generations.

Grubber788 wrote:

Buahaha, I know Chairman Mao's dark secret, but alas, I've been sworn to secrecy.

It's funny that you think you'll be leaving this country alive

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