Great article over on the Escapist by Greg Pilarowski covering the topic of foreign game companies trying to do business in China. Greg focuses his attention on the recent Blizzard/WoW fiasco and provides some insight into the tangled mess that is Chinese law. Read it here. Greg is Spicy Horse’s (excellent) legal counsel in Shanghai – you can see more about his practice here.
Tag Archives: china
Slowly Disconnected
Here in China we’re being slowly disconnected from the outside world. Flickr, Twitter, multiple blog sites, and other news/social networks are being disconnected from our “feed”. The outside world is fading into the distance. Why? Because the anniversary of this: The Tiananmen Square Protests I presume they’ll re-connect everything after the “danger” of social outcry has passed. Who knows? In the meantime, I’m heading off to Thailand for a week – it’s been quite a while since I had a decent vacation. Please, don’t burn anything down while I’m gone.
In the event you’re curious about where I stand on this whole Tiananmen thing, read THIS. Nicely sums up my sentiments.
Online Gaming in China
US-China Today has an interesting article discussing online gaming in China. Seems I contributed some quotes to the piece, along with some Alice sequel artwork. While we’re making the new Alice in China, it’s not targeting at the China game market – nor is it in any way online. But hey, we’re here, we’re making games, and I guess we get to say something about Chinese gamers and their gaming habits.
From the article:
As in other East Asian nations, Dibbell explains that gaming culture has penetrated mainstream Chinese culture in a way still unseen in the U.S. “While in Shanghai, I viewed a television commercial in a taxi cab for Cola-Coca with a World of Warcraft tie-in where as this would not happen in the West,†Dibbell said. “The online gaming phenomenon is clearly more integrated in Chinese daily life.â€
Spicy Leads the Way
This article on Microsoft.com mentions Spicy Horse as a studio “leading the way” in Episodic Games. Cool! Read it here.
Shanda Talk Investment Strategy
A quick but interesting link to some insight coming out of Shanda at the Game Business Law Summit in Dallas: Speaking on a panel about games in Asia during the Game Business Law summit at SMU in Dallas, Shanda’s deputy general counsel, Jerry Zhang, discussed three keys that his company uses to invest in the future. Read the article to learn what those three keys are.
China Game Boom
A new Interfax China report presented by Research and Markets reveals that China’s online games market has “entered a boom period.” The report, China Online and Mobile Gaming Industry, 2008 – 2010, states that sales from online game operators totaled RMB 10.57 billion ($1.55 billion) in 2007, and that figure is expected to reach RMB 12.67 billion ($1.86 billion) in 2008 and RMB 18.21 billion ($2.67 billion) in 2010.