Ah, I see. Unfortunately reliable information about Chinese gaming and gamers isn’t very easy to get. Most of what I thought I know came from Malaysia and Philippines, since it is easier to access. This has been very enlightening, thank you!

Wow, interesting! Thank you for your reply and corrections, even though I didn’t really answer your questions, which I suppose I should do now (I apologize for my rudeness)!

1. I personally have high interest in the 90s and 2000s eras. For me, I consider that time period the High Age of gaming; so many amazing masterpieces released then which haven’t been beat by new entries yet, in my opinion.

2. I am not sure about sensitive topics or rules here, I think as long as it is about games its probably fine.

3. I think they are fine to post here, you could probably post them in retro games communities also, but again I think as long as it is about games it is probably fine. Your previous posts were most likely removed because many people on Fediverse communities are very aggressive towards AI or LLM usage of any kind and for any reason, so the removal was not likely about the content but entirely about the AI usage.

And speaking of Legend of Mir, how did its popularity in China compare with Ragnarok Online?

Not exactly the question, but I am curious to know:

If someone were to make a new video game console that would appeal to Chinese gamers that remember that time period, what features would they want to see? Would they look for things like affordable price and easy to pirate software at the loss of things like hardware performance, like how it used to be in the past? Or would they care more now about getting cutting-edge graphics and all the newest games at the loss of the old games or a higher price? Would they even want a console now, or just stick to their mobile devices/PC? Would they want only Chinese and Chinese language games on the platform, or would they want an interchange of all games, Chinese regulations aside?

And two slightly different questions that are related to gaming in China more broadly than this small historical era (please understand I am not trying to offend anyone, I am curious and want to make sure I am not spreading misinformation if I ever talk about this topic with others, so I apologize in advance if I say something offensive, I don’t mean to):

I have played some mobile gacha games and am aware of the Chinese playerbase. The Western playerbase often considers them hostile, and when the two interact online it typically is hostile. The Chinese players seem to get more free stuff: more costumes, more free gacha pulls, more updates, while us in the West get less free stuff but our content is less censored. In the Western playerbase, we generally see Chinese players call us names, insult, etc, and I am curious to know why this happens. Are they trying to protect the game content from a perceived threat, is there a misunderstanding between the two? It makes me sad that two regional groups of people that play the same game would be so hostile to each other, when in theory they both play the same game and should be able to get along. Has it always been like this with online games, going back to old MMOs in China? Of course there are examples that make me happy, like how Helldivers 2 Chinese players in general get along with Western players and the other way around. But with mobile gacha games specifically, such as NIKKE, Genshin Impact, and others, the players seem to act exactly the same. Do you have an idea of why that might be?

Another one I have is about cheating. Most cheaters that us in the West meet in online games come from E Asian and SE Asian regions, is that just a coincidence? Is it a cultural difference? I read online in a forum thread once that in Asian countries, particularly China, children are told about the “child from another family” that is always better than them, and that if a cheat tool is available for a game, the “child from another family” is going to win with it so you have to use it too, or something like that. Is this true, or just one person’s experience?

What’s the problem? That’s what all video games from almost every studio has been for the last like, 15 years. A completely different game with a recognizable brand name slapped onto it. Mainstream consumers don’t care apparently.

I am assuming this means they are planning on adding a “free with ads” tier to Xbox Cloud Game Streaming. Which doesn’t really bother me that much if its a free tier. But if they add this to paid tiers or full games that would probably lose them a lot of goodwill that Asha seems to be pretty keen on regaining lately.

People haven’t lost interest in gaming. The entire global economy has gone to crap. People dont have the disposable income they used to have, and food, gas, and utilities are more important to buy than video games.

Many people have moved to PC gaming because they already have a PC and Steam and GOG have very affordable games and vast libraries to choose from that isn’t available on console, most of which are unlikely to have performance problems on their device. PC also has the most discount sale events for games, I am pretty sure.

If they could actually afford it, gaming spending would be higher, especially on walled garden consoles. Guaranteed.

I am curious to know what exactly the copyright infringement was? There are a vast myriad of Tetris clones, none of which the Tetris Company have taken down. Copyright isn’t something you can pick and choose when to enforce it, copyright holders are legally obligated to enforce it on every infringement, or they lose the copyright. Was the game using Tetris IP music or something?