Monday, November 06, 2006

Chinese Gamers Protest Japanese Flag in Game

Now this is a weird sort of deal that actually affected Netease's (NTES) top line this quarter.
In addition, our revenues from online games were affected by increased
competition, particularly from free-to-play games offered by some of our
competitors, and in-game protests by certain users of our Fantasy Westward
Journey game who mistakenly identified an image in this game as being a Japanese flag.


Wow and this accidental flag adding even led to some conspiracy theories that led some Chinese gamers to think that NTES was actually taken over by a Japanese company.

Netease (Nasdaq: NTES) gamers are protesting an in-game image on the
wall of a building that resembles a Japanese rising sun flag, reports Beijing
Evening News. The offending image appears in Netease's bread and butter game
Fantasy Westward Journey. The image touched-off deep-seated anti-Japanese
sentiments in many gamers, and on July 7 almost 10,000 gamers have gathered at the location to express their disapproval. According to the report, some
protestors have even speculated that the image was added as a result of some
change in the shareholder structure of Netease.


I guess some gamers will believe anything.

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