Massively^™

"So I've got a great idea!" says executive Bob at Electronic Arts, "Lets license out the Dungeon Keeper property for an MMORPG!" John, who happens to be a puppet on Bob's hand, says, "That's a brilliant idea, old chap!" The apparently British imaginary friend makes an awkward smile. Bob continues, "We'll give it to a Chinese developer who can release it all over the Asian markets." John the British puppet responds, "Wonderful, will you bring it to Western markets?" Bob replies with, "Who cares?" and they both laugh -- at least in Bob's twisted mind.

This is honestly the only sequence of events that, in our minds, makes sense when considering the fact that Electronic Arts has licensed out the Dungeon Keeper property as an MMO to Chinese-based developer NetDragon Websoft with the intent to eventually bring it overseas. While we're sure it'll do fine in the eastern markets, it just baffles the mind to think that EA is taking an RTS title originally designed for the west -- the original game was steeped in British humor -- and having an eastern developer create an MMO out of it that will more than likely appeal primarily to easterners only.

Perfect World International, the English-language version of the popular Chinese MMO of the same name sans "International" and plus a "2," has moved into its open beta testing phase. The beta test features two servers -- one PvE and one PvP -- and characters created in the testing period will be kept through the live launch of the game.

Like most Chinese games, PWI is a microtransaction-based MMO, but it was originally slated to be a subscription-based game. It got all the subscription-based-game-type triple-A graphics and game design treatment, so it should appeal to Western users more than most Eastern free-to-play games. At least, that's the company line.

Features include mounts, marriage, PvP territory wars, and pretty much every other staple, all in a Chinese mythology setting. It's been in closed beta testing for only a few weeks. There's no official word on the live date for the post-beta version yet.

[Via 1UP]

The team at World of Kung Fu have sent word that their free-to-play martial arts MMO will officially launch on the 1st of August, a mere week from now. To prepare for the launch, a new patch has gone in today that expands the game's playable area by 25%, with 8 additional areas to explore. The patch also features new quests and an increase to the level cap, and an extra server has been added to accommodate newcomers.

We're sure that many of you haven't seen this title in action yet, so we've embedded a short gameplay clip from Youtube. The game strongly adheres to its ancient Chinese setting, and players must specialize in particular weapon styles such as Spear, Hook, and Broadsword, and hone their Kung Fu while traveling through Zhong Guo (better known in the western world as China). With the release of the latest patch, and the launch next week, this might be a nice title to check out -- especially for those WAR-waiters and AoC-leavers.

There's been a recent personnel change to China's leading distributor of online gaming. The9 Limited has recently appointed Mr. George Lai as Chief Financial Officer after the resignation of Mr. Tony Tse, due to personal and family reasons. Mr. Lai brings several years of experience to the table, having worked previously at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu since 2000.

The9 Limited operates licensed MMORPGs for Chinese players, including World of Warcraft, Hellgate: London, Ragnarok Online 2, Huxley and many more. The9 Limited is also developing various proprietary games of their own including Warriors of Fate Online and Fantastic Melody Online.

Chinese virtual world HiPiHi has reopened registration for beta accounts. If you want to give this a spin, you will be pleased to know that you can now perform account registration in English. Unfortunately, it seems that you'll still need to either read a few words of Chinese or have a fine-mastery of educated guesswork to handle the user-interface.

We spent a few minutes in HiPiHi today. Within our first couple of minutes, we got our leg humped by some kind of transforming robot, and then someone tried to push us into the sea. Technology is awesome.

If you're feeling brave and would like to have a look at this virtual world in beta, give the signup a whirl. Be warned - the viewer download is at least 20 times longer than the download for Second Life, so find something else to do while that is happening.

Can you imagine one million people doing anything simultaneously? This is one of those fascinating statistics like how a child is born every 3.6 seconds or someone eats meatloaf every 4.9 seconds. Never mind the fact that those previous stats are completely made up, World of Warcraft recently achieved the astounding feat of one million concurrent players in China. Not only is this a testament to the network stability in China, but it's also a new record for the game since it's launch in June of 2005.

Amid unfounded allegations that these were all gold sellers, the fact of the matter is that gold sellers go where the money is: the European and North American servers. Regardless, this new record is quite a feat and we now anxiously await the next record-breaking event. Most random duel requests in a second? Most uses of the word "noob" on one server? We shall see.

China has always been a market that businesses have stumbled over each other to secure. Students of history might remember how Coca-Cola was one of the first companies to recognize the fact that a country with a billion people is a country with a billion potential customers, and was literally right on the heels of President Carter when negotiations relaxed the restriction of foreign goods in 1979. So too are MMO makers starting to realize the enormous potential of an increasingly connected Chinese mainland. Sure, World of Warcraft's 10 million subscribers seems good now, but what happens when a game comes along that captures the attention of the Chinese market, estimated to grow to 59 million in 2008?

Unfortunately for developers in the U.S., Korea, and elsewhere looking to cash in on this burgeoning market, recent regulations imposed by the Chinese government will allow domestic Chinese gaming companies to effectively postpone the release of foreign-developed games indefinitely by submitting a complaint to GAPP, China's censorship agency. Curious that they'd run a protectionist racket on an industry that they recently likened to "spiritual opium," but the Communist government didn't take power in order to be a bedrock of consistency.

The political science major in me is actually excited by this prospect, because it means that MMOs are likely about to enter into the field of political discourse. Just as they do with farm goods and automobiles, it might not be too much of a stretch to imagine U.S. politicians publicly wrangling with Chinese officials to allow American MMOs unrestricted access to the Chinese population. In the next few years, it's possible your Congressman will talk, at length about World of Warcraft or Warhammer Online in front of one of the chambers of Congress. And this time they'll actually be speaking in favor of the game industry. What a thought!

If you're looking for a game with a Chinese-wuxia-esque twist, you'll be interested to know that Zu Online will enter its open beta testing phase this evening at 8:00 PM EST. Poke around the official website for the client download (which can even be acquired via BitTorrent, if that's your sort of thing!) and for instructions for the actual launch when it comes. All the old alpha accounts are getting wiped just prior to the beginning of the new phase, so the servers will be a level playing field for new players.

If you're not familiar with the game: it's a Kung Fu MMO which features player flight and group-oriented story quests as major selling points. It also has a really neat, stylized cell-shaded look -- something that when you think about it seems like a really good match for the genre.

Animated, story-driven Wire Fu -- how can you possibly go wrong with that?

China's relationship with MMOs goes much deeper than just RMT scams. In his latest editorial on the Chinese game business for Gamasutra, Shang Koo gives an appraisal of the public offerings of NetDragon and Giant Interactive, two of the premier Chinese game publishers to emerge from the recent gaming boom in the East. Giant Interactive, which is set to premier on the New York Stock Exchange starting this Wednesday, is the publisher responsible for Zhengtu Online, the second-most popular game on the continent since it was released last year. NetDragon, which itself is set to appear on the Hong Kong stock exchange this Friday, developed Eudemons Online and is working with Ubisoft on the upcoming Heroes of Might and Magic.

Koo looks at the ways that game sales are affected by the differences in the developer/publisher relationship in China, and forecasts gloomy days ahead for companies trying to license their titles in the enormous Chinese game market, which today is largely dominated by home-grown titles.

Zu Online, a new, free fantasy MMO being developed by Onwind Digital and brought to the 'states by IGG, has entered its alpha test. Sporting a unique and surprisingly stylistic hand-drawn style, Zu is heavily-steeped in Chinese mythology, shirking the typical elves and orcs fare for a focus on Buddhist monastic tradition.

Their website, which is curiously hard to navigate and chock full of good old fashioned engrish, claims that "hundreds of thousands" of people applied to be part of the alpha, and only five hundred made it in. Those lucky few will get an added treat from Onwind and crew this weekend, as all alpha testers will receive a princely 30 gold!

And hey, for a free game, it sure is pretty. If they work on localization a little bit more, Zu Online could very well be a hit . We'll see.