Shanghai Sometimes Seems Like a Virtual Cyberpunk City Made Real -- Likely Why Chinese Prefer Fantasy Games

This is not a screenshot from Half Life 3 or a Second Life cyberpunk city like Insilico -- it's just the building across the street from where my girlfriend and I got a drink recently. (This one, as it happens.) Which is to say yes, Shanghai often seems like a dystopian sci-fi city, caught between hyper-futurism and pollution approaching catastrophic. (Though most days, I should add, the pollution doesn't seem so bad and the view is just fine.) Many people have made this observation about modern Chinese cities, yes, but having worked in China's game industry for the last half year or so, I can add a relatively new thought to this point:

When it comes to hardcore games, Chinese generally prefer fantasy themes, especially in their MMOs (think World of Warcraft, and many other local MMOs in a similar vein), with heroes in medieval worlds that are green and verdant and untouched by technology. Meanwhile, in Europe, the US, and Japan, dark, cyberpunk-themed games like Deus Ex are much more popular. Which isn't surprising, when you see photos like this. Because if you see something like this from your office window every day, do you really want to see more like it when you finally have some time to play?

Photo by Rachel Kennedy of MOH Magazine.

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Comments

[Hitomi Tiponi]

I don't buy this Hamlet - the liking for fantasy-inspired games is generally Asia-wide. I believe a lot of this is developed from Chinese cartoons and Japanese Manga and other cartoon media. There is less of a desire for full reality in other media there, with more emphasis on expressions and emotions, than in the West. Chinese films have always had less of a realistic feel - just thing of the over-choreographed fight sequences - and are more focussed on the awkward decisions needed to stay 'good' rather than blasting the bad guy.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

In the Western MMO space, dystopian themes haven't really captured a big piece of the market. Fantasy and space opera predominate. They're more visible in single-player, but those are finite stories with an end, not typically virtual places you inhabit for months or years on end. It works for FPS, but then, any backstory that leads to unending pointless conflict works for FPS. Intricate narrative just gets in the way of fragging.

Dreary and downbeat are dreary and downbeat wherever you live.

[Wagner James Au]

"In the Western MMO space, dystopian themes haven't really captured a big piece of the market."

True -- and that's why I said games and mentioned the single-player Deus Ex. Games like that are popular in the US/EU and Japan (the fully developed world) in ways you don't see in China.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

As far as the single-player market goes, I'm not surprised that the standard trope of a cyberpunk milieu, subversive action against an inequitable, monolithic, corporatized central authority, plays better in the West.