China Cracking Down on QQ Economy

Via /., The Wall Street Journal Online reports on the Chinese government's concerns about the QQ coin.

Created by software company Tencent for their QQ instant messenger, the QQ coin is now used by many East Asian online service providers, including MMOs such as Tencent's own "R2Beat," as currency for the purchase of service time and virtual items.

Then last year something happened that Tencent hadn't originally planned. Online game sites beyond Tencent started accepting QQ coins as payment. The coins appeal as a safer, more practical way to conduct small online purchases, because credit cards aren't yet commonplace in China.

At informal online currency marketplaces, thousands of users helped turn the QQ coins back into cash by selling them at a discount that varies based on the laws of supply and demand. Traders began jumping into the QQ coin market as an opportunity to make a quick yuan off of currency speculation.

State-run media reported that some online shoppers began using QQ coins to buy real-world items such as CDs and makeup. So-called QQ Girls started accepting the coins as payment for intimate private chats online. Gamblers caught wind, too, and started using the currency to get around China's anti-gambling laws, converting wins in online mahjong and card games back into cash. Dozens of third-party trading posts sprouted up to ease transactions, turning the QQ coin into a kind of parallel currency.

It can't be easy, trying to segue from Authoritarian Socialism to Authoritarian Capitalism, at the very moment that technology is destroying both traditional Authoritarianism and traditional Capitalism.

Rink.

PS: You find the best things on the Internet. I was Googling "MMO QQ" to find out which MMOs accept QQs, and I found a scientific paper, "Naked singularities, event horizons, and charged particles," which contains the phrase: "when the inverse square gravitational and Coulomb forces are exactly equal, giving the condition Qq = Mmo..."

MMO Hackers Give A Pound of Flesh

The Chinese version of Korean medieval action MMO "Cabal" has made an interesting offer to hackers.

Players banned for using cheating hacks can get their account back -- if they donate a pint of blood.

Over 120,000 players have been banned for hacking, and so far 100 have taken the company up on the offer.

Moliyo, the company behind "Cabal," made the offer to “create a civilized society, and enhance online gamers' appreciation of social responsibility and public welfare,” according to 17173.com(Putonghua).

Chinese hospitals have had trouble getting blood in recent years, after scandals in which donors and patients contracted HIV.

On a personal note, it's scandalous that U.S. hospitals have so much trouble getting blood and platelets. If you're not donating on a regular basis, you need to start. (The answer is "yes," I do. Platelets. Takes two hours. You get to watch a movie, and they give you a cookie.) And if you're not willing to donate organs, then you are a scumbag.

Via Boing Boing via Texyt.