Below are a couple of stories from the Far East, cleared from the Terra Nova in-basket: Vietnam restricts online play; Habbo China pairing online and real-world purchases.
"Vietnam joins China and Korea in taking Action on Gaming Addiction (06/02/2006)."
-This follows earlier regulations in China. A trend?
"Habbo China to Match Real and Virtual Purchases (Wed, 05/31/2006)."
-Pacific Epoch (06/05/2006) suggests items as flowers, clothes, and movie tickets as candidates. Is this new? Is there something more to this than just another vending channel?
Follow Steven Davis' links (above) for more detail and discussion.
Just to note that in Vietnam, essentially the sole MMOG played at all is Vo Lam Truyen Ky (http://volam.com.vn), a Lineage I type game with an hourly subscription model, played primarily in net cafes.
Implementing these design restrictions really only affects this one local game publisher, VinaGame.
Posted by: hikaru | Jun 05, 2006 at 13:30