“网瘾战争 War of Internet Addiction” — Are World of Warcraft’s Travails In China Much More Interesting Than Google’s?
Google’s recent moves in China have captured global attention about censorship and Internet controls in China, eliciting protests from inside and outside China.
But there is a much more entertaining protest about China’s web controls circulating on the Internet–”网瘾战争 War of Internet Addiction”. It is an hour long video, “shot” almost entirely with in-game video from World of Warcraft, satirizing the government’s attempt to “harmonize” China’s Internet with forced installations of “Green Dam Youth Escort” and the travails of Chinese World of Warcraft players over the last several months. It is quite brilliant.
You can watch the original Chinese on Tudou here or an English subtitled version on Youtube: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 (part 6 starting around minute 7 has the most obvious speech against Internet controls) Part 7
The background material, including the script, is available here (in Chinese). UPDATE: the background material on Google Docs now includes English annotations for all the references at the end of the document. The team has been busy adding to this living project.
The film tracks the fight between The9 ($NCTY) and Netease ($NTES) over the renewal rights to Activision Blizzard’s ($ATVI) World of Warcraft, the requirement that skulls be removed from World of Warcraft (hence the Skull Party), the bureaucratic battles between GAPP and the Ministry of Culture over the re-approval of WoW in China, the money-obsessed Uncle Yang and his Internet addiction camps and electro-shock therapy (see this forthcoming Feb 2010 Wired article on China’s Internet addiction camps), and the attempts to impose “Green Dam Youth Escort” software on Chinese web users. The movie concludes with an impassioned speech calling for Chinese World of Warcraft players to end their silence and raise their hands in protest to fight attempts to harmonize China’s Internet and keep them away from World of Warcraft, followed by an agreement between the warring bureaucracies-GAPP and MOC–to put aside their dispute and go after Netease for more money.
I think this more effectively challenges and potentially undermines the powers behind Internet controls than anything Google has done; many more Chinese likely care about censorship that affects WoW and other online games than care whether or not Google.cn stays online in China.
I doubt this video is good for Netease and its ongoing issues with GAPP over World of Warcraft. The company that may end up laughing the hardest is The9, in spite of the cutting portrayals of its Chairman Zhu Jun and CEO Chen Xiaowei.
“War of Internet Addiction” is a great look into the push and pull between Internet regulators and netizens in China, and the very legitimate cynicism so many Chinese embrace.
UPDATE: Rose Lu of Phoenix TV has an interview (Chinese only) with the filmmaker, known as 性感玉米 SexyCorn ( @CorndogCN on twitter). A couple of highlights:
He made the film with 100 volunteers and they spent no money other than WoW fees.
He no longer plays on the China WoW servers, in spite of the discrimination against Chinese players overseas and the lack of rights he has playing on WoW servers outside his own region.
He makes the point that even though the film takes place in WoW it is about much more than just a game:
这个影片，让不懂游戏的人流泪，是因为大家的互联网处境都一样-The film makes people who dont understand games shed tears because all of us on China’s Internet are in the same boat.
“War of Internet Addiction” is a much more eloquent, and likely impactful, protest against Internet censorship in China than Google’s moves.
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments.
Related posts:
- ”网瘾战争 War of Internet Addiction” Wins Top Prize at 2010 Tudou Film Festival
- Sinica Podcast: Beijing’s Ambivalent Relationship with the Internet and Zhang Wuben’s Mung Beans
- Best Article So Far On Netease’s Problems Getting World of Warcraft Approved In China
- Update On Netease and World of Warcraft in China
- New Report On China’s Online Game Industry-$3.6B in 2009 Revenue, $9.2B By 2014
With the respect and eyeballs brought by this video, Tudou may be the one that laughs at last.
[...] introduces an online video called “War of Internet Addiction” which a satire on the government’s [...]
[...] questi giorni circola in rete un video di ben un’ora che, attraverso personaggi e ambientazioni di WOW, fa una parodia dei tentativi del governo di [...]
[...] for millions of Chinese youth (killing World of Warcraft would be “deprivation”, per this film), and naivete in the belief that the Chinese government and the Communist Party (CCP) would be [...]
SexyCorn said:声明一下，<网瘾战争>是立足于09年魔兽世界游戏玩家对于迟迟不更新版本的怨念所制作的恶搞娱乐片，说出一个WOW玩家的真实想法，最后一段是Cos漫画七龙珠的元气弹情节，请大家不要太过深挖，否则只会害了作者及创作团队。
他也说“这个影片，让不懂游戏的人流泪，是因为大家的互联网处境都一样”。 他到底是啥意思？
因为中国的互联网封锁很严重，youtube和twitter和其他一些重要的资讯交流网站出于政治原因都被封杀了。
Can we talk about a digital genocide? 1.63M players killed in one sweeping move on Nov 17, 2009 ^_^;
[...] Bishop, who saw this a few weeks ago, wrote an excellent summary of the story. The film tracks the fight between The9 and Netease over the renewal rights to Activision [...]
[...] navigate the language barriers and cultural in-jokes, read the in-depth analysis by DigiCha and Youku [...]
[...] navigate the language barriers and cultural in-jokes, read the in-depth analysis by DigiCha and Youku [...]
[...] de Chinese Overheid. De film wordt dan ook belangrijker gevonden dan de 3D film Avatar. De website DigiCha legt uit waar de film zich tegen verzet: “The film tracks the fight between The9 ($NCTY) and [...]
[...] to catch all of the inside-jokes and references made in the film. To help, some viewers including Bishop, Kuo and other reviewers and gamers eagerly dissected the film and documented their analyses on [...]
[...] to catch all of the inside-jokes and references made in the film. To help, some viewers including Bishop, Kuo and other reviewers and gamers eagerly dissected the film and documented their analyses on [...]
[...] details, but some other people already did. Check this Wallstreet Online article. DigiCha has an article with more references. Kaiser Kuo also commented on “war on internet addiction”. Apart from a moving, well [...]
[...] and the Ministry of Culture. Veteran expat twitterer / blogger @niubi has a nice summary post of the video. (Part 1 of the video on Youtube, with English subtitles, is [...]
[...] and the Ministry of Culture. Veteran expat twitterer / blogger @niubi has a nice summary post of the video. (Part 1 of the video on Youtube, with English subtitles, [...]
[...] Home-living Animal has a resemblance to another amateur film, The War of Internet Addiction, which touches on the recent ban on the World of Warcraft game. But for many people, it is seen as a [...]
[...] Home-living Animal has a resemblance to another amateur film, The War of Internet Addiction, which touches on the recent ban on the World of Warcraft game. But for many people, it is seen as a [...]
[...] curta “Animais Caseiros” é parecido com outro filme amador, “A Guerra do Vício em Internet” [en], que fala sobre a recente proibição do jogo online World of Warcraft. Mas para muitas [...]
Excellent entry! I'm been looking for topics as interesting as this. Looking forward to your next post.
College Research Papers
[...] فيلماً صينيّاً آخر من الأفلام غير الاحترافية وهو فيلم حرب إدمان انترنت. وهو فيلم يعالج مسألة الحظْر الذي فُرِض مؤخّراً في [...]
[...] itovizany amin'ny horonantsarimihetsika tsy matihanina mitondra ny lohateny hoe Ny ady amin`ny fiakinandoha amin`ny internet (War of Internet Addiction) noho ny fandrarana ilay kilalao vidaka World of Warcraf [...]
[...] Home-living Animal assomiglia ad un altro film amatoriale, The War of Internet Addiction, [in] che tratta della recente proibizione [in] del gioco World of Warcraft. Per molti, tuttavia, [...]
[...] Home-living Animal assomiglia ad un altro film amatoriale, The War of Internet Addiction, [in] che tratta della recente proibizione [in] del gioco World of Warcraft. Per molti, tuttavia, [...]
[...] wrote a long post on the ”网瘾战争 War of Internet Addiction” back in January. I think it is such an [...]
[...] wrote a long post on the ”网瘾战争 War of Internet Addiction” back in January. I think it is such an [...]
I know a few friends of mine that actually had a lot of trouble with WoW and growing an addiction for that game… Imagine that one of them actually rang a friends door bell at 2 in the morning asking for a spare part for his damaged computer:))
wow is not a game, its an addiction. So many friends lost to it..