Chinese company trying to wrest back market share from Korean online games

Beijing Perfect World launched the official website of their new game, 誅仙 Zhu Xian, which is styling itself as one of my favorite forms of modern-day Chinese entertainment: the historical drama. I have a serious soft spot in my heart for the Chinese and Taiwanese historical miniseries, soap operas, movies, and now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth it to throw my hat in the arena of computer gaming for this. Taking its inspiration from a best-selling novel of the same name, it's part of a whole resurgence of the 武俠 wu xia genre ("martial [arts] heroes"), which has been popular for over 2,000 years. Probably the best known story of this type (in the West) is The Water Margin, which the Suikoden series takes some cues from. (/Chinese history geek)

Mr. Zhu Qi, the Vice-President of Beijing Perfect World commented, '''Zhu Xian Online' will inherit the fantasy features of the original fiction, presenting players with the most beautiful and mystical sceneries of mainland China, while offering a breathtaking interactive journey of soul-searching and swordsmanship training. The game will present the ''Zhu
Xian'' world exactly the way it is according to the original fiction, attracting both book lovers and online game fans alike.''

While several foreign online games have been scheduled to launch in China in 2007, Beijing Perfect World chooses to debut ''Zhu Xian Online'', a self- developed online game of unique national character, having seen a market vacuum in online Chinese games.

I always like to see games that harken back to these sorts of roots, which is probably why I have a secret addiction to the samurai hack 'n slash genre, but more classical art forms are ripe fodder for games if done right & I wish there were more games taking advantage of the stuff that has been out there for centuries. It sure looks pretty from the screencaps on the website, and I'm curious to see if a Chinese company can go head-to-head with the wildly popular Korean and Western MMOs & come out on top.


Beijing Perfect World Launches Official Website for New Hit 'Zhu Xian Online' [Xinhua via PR Newswire]