Invite colleagues
New rules from the Ministry of Culture bar Web sites from running, publishing or offering links to games depicting mafia-like gang violence. The notice says there will be “severe punishment” for sites that violate the ban.
In news on the Chinese blogosphere, it is being reported that the Ministry of Culture pointed out in the notice that gang-themed illegal online games seriously threaten and distort the social laws and ethics of China, and these themes will bring bad effects to young people. Therefore, the ministry asked local departments to investigate these online games immediately.
Three of Oak Pacific Interactive’s social networking online games, including Mop.com’s “Jiang Hu”, Kaixin.com’s “Godfather”, and Xiaonei.com’s “Gu Huo Zai” were closed in this campaign; and another gang-themed SNS online game named “Ren Zai Jiang Hu” was also closed at the same time.
China’s online game industry is expected to swell by 30 to 50% this year alone, with sales revenue reaching from 24 billion yuan ($3.51 billion) to 27 billion yuan. It has about 200 million online game players and more than 330 million Internet users – the largest number worldwide.
So I guess my copy of “Gangland II” is forbidden now…
Source: Yahoo! Tech
Written on Wednesday, 02 September 2009 13:56 by Matt McDougall
