EQ1 - Chinese Game "Addiction" Blocker Hacked : EQ1 EverQuest 1 News

The Chinese government may want players to know "when is when" for videogames, but one Chinese gaming company is making sure that doesn't stop hard core players from playing all they want and making some money for themselves in the bargain.

In China, the government is trying to implement a system in MMOs where after three hours of play, the less experience you get, dimishing to zero after the fifth hour. Currently the system applies to players under the age of 18. One of the companies in the trial phase of this "anti-addiction" program is Shanda, which publishes "Magical Land."

It was discovered that Shanda is doing a little more than testing the government's program -- they are implementing a little money making scheme of their own.

The news site Danwei has a translation of a news story from the Chinese site IT68's report:

"...the reporter discovered in the course of investigation that after the fifth hour, the majority of players did not elect to go offline and rest; rather, they chose to use a "1.5 experience boost card" tool in the game. After using it, their characters could continue playing without regard for the anti-addiction system, and gameplay experience and rewards would return to normal.

It is notable that this tool is not visible on the official website. Because Shanda has set up the market for gaming equipment in nearly 1G worth of client space, people who are not players of that game cannot readily discover it. As a result, most people only know that the game is testing out an "Online gaming anti-addiction system" but are unaware of its actual effects.

Although Magical Land is a free game, purchasing a "1.5 experience boost card" tool requires spending RMB, at about 0.9 yuan for every point. Each experience card allows play to continue for six hours into unhealthy gameplay time; so long as the gamer does not care about such a small expense, he can continue to play whenever he wants, causing the online gaming anti-addiction system to fail, and at the same time, bringing Shanda a fair amount of money."

The IT68 article, which is in Chinese, concludes that perhaps Shanda supported the addiction controls enthusastically because they had the tools to subvert the system already in mind. According to the translation of the IT68 article, Shanda's PR department had no comment on this allegation.

Asian gamers come under much more government control than do U.S. players, but that is not to say it couldn't ever happen here. What is for sure is that there will always be someone, somewhere, ready to take advantage of people's desires if there's money in it.

http://publish.it168.com/2007/0429/20070429004701.shtml