International Law

Gov?t Gets in the Games Biz

By Stan

It’s always fun when a government tries to adopt new tech or fashion to appeal to youth. Usually this is an embarrassment, once in a great while it is marginally successful (e.g. the America’s Army FPS).

The WSJ blog tells us of the Suzhou government’s attempt to get in on the gamey goodness:

As part of their homework, kids from the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou city have been assigned to kill monsters.

Sword of Justice is an online role-playing game jointly launched by the city's prosecutors and education officers. The game is intended to instill proper ethics and respect for the law, using a medium familiar to China's videogame-crazed youth. (Report in Chinese here).

Good for them for trying, I suppose. Knowing what it costs to produce a high-quality game, however, I think a municipal project like this is a bit too ambitious. Kids have access to really great online games these days that have production values in the millions of dollars — it’s hard to compete with that unless you can pool your cash with other cities, the central government and/or private enterprise. Cutting a deal with a "patriotic" high-end Chinese studio would be a good start.

Anyway, I would most like to hear honest reactions from kids. That would be highly entertaining, and of course this is why you will never see something like that in the news. To drive home my point, here’s a quote from a user/kid that made it into the article:

So far, the game has gained popularity among students. 'I learnt a lot through playing the game. For instance, I always win when cooperating with others to fight a beast. It reminds me of Lesson Nine in our ethics course—man cannot live without the community,' said seventh grade student He Jiaheng.

This is a good little student who gave the right answer. But there is no fun in hearing a kid toe the party line. I suspect that he was actually thinking "This sucks balls" (or the equivalent) but is wise enough at his young age to withhold that particular judgment. Another possibility is that the quote was made up entirely.

By the way, I remember downloading and playing America’s Army back in the day. It sucked balls too, but the production values were impressive and it looked pretty slick.

© Stan for China Hearsay, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us

Full post as published by China Hearsay on March 06, 2009 (boomark / email).