digitaldust

I’m off to New Zealand by way of Malaysia. Be back in the new year.

Some good numbers from the International Heralid Tribune about full time Chinese gamers.

• Online gaming worth US$3.6 billion
• 100 million people go online to play computer games each month
• estimated 100,000 full time chinese game labourers

That’s a huge chunk of any game world being made up of farmers. In the article one of the sweatshop managers reckons that at any point 40-50% of online players might be farming.

“We could take over the world, the virtual world, that is,” One manager said.

And as always the publishers try to crack down on it. If you want to change things redesign the games… get away from a 25 year old game design with roots in pen and paper. Put the gold down and step away from the MUD.

Great mashup of Google maps and NZ Land Information free sat maps.

infographics.co.nz