South Korean gamers stage online massacre of Chinese
Feb 25th, 2006 | by Neil Barton | Posted in entertainment, games | Comments Off
Chinese-Korean relations have their ups and downs, but it’s been a long time since they resorted to violence to settle scores.
However, in cyberspace South Korean gamers are ganging up to obliterate the Chinese, whom they view as greedy and rude.
“If we don’t kill the Chinese they will grow up to harm Korean players,” wrote Fifth Finger, a Lineage player, on the game’s message board. “They’re just logging on to Korean servers to make money.”
South Korea is a pioneer in the online gaming market, which is led by NCSoft, the maker of games including Lineage, Guild Wars and City of Heroes.
In Lineage, which has more than 3m subscribers, players in the form of knights, wizards and elves chase monsters who drop money and other valuable items that increase players’ strength, such as swords and medicine. These items can be sold for real money through online trading sites.
However, there is an etiquette to be followed: players interact along the way, but you are not supposed to take things dropped by someone else’s monster.
Many young Chinese are joining South Korean matches because that is where the most items are traded and where the most money can be earned. But players say they do not follow the unwritten rules.
“They enjoy the game and they think Korea is cool and they also like earning a little money,” says Sunny Choi, a South Korean gamer who speaks Chinese. “But they don’t understand the manners so Koreans are killing them – it’s a tragedy.”
