MMOs in China Joystiq
interviews Hoyt Ma of The9 talking about bringing the MMORPG World of
Warcraft to the massive Chinese audience: "Korean-style games were
dominating in China before WoW -- games with 2D graphics that require a lot
of clicking like Diablo. WoW is one of the first western-style MMORPG games
with 3D graphics, so there was that 2D mindset to overcome. But there were
other barriers. WoW requires middle to high-end PC configurations, as well
as a broadband Internet connection, and cost is a major barrier to Chinese
gamers. Another issue was the perceived complexity with the interface input
- Chinese gamers were used to the Korean games where you just click the
mouse. However, during game testing, we discovered that newbies could pick
up WoW within 5-10 minutes, so user friendliness was a very important
consideration."
Red Cross Shacknews'
Q&A with David Pratt of the Canadian Red Cross discusses the stink they
are raising over the illegal use of the Red Cross logo in games. "Yeah,
we're in touch with certainly the American Red Cross and others. Hoewver
[sic], I want to emphasize this as strongly as possible, this involves
people in the pdocution [sic] of toy kits, people in the medical profession,
doctors and dentists who are appropriating the symbol for their own prupose
[sic], people who repair computers who use the red cross as their symbol.
There are literally countless examples. Any any given time within the
Canadian Red Cross, we're dealing with over 100 cases. It doesn't involve
just the games industry, it is cross-cutting, and even actually some
governmental and non governmental organizations. "