A NEW LEASE ON LIFE
China's new virtual worlds hope to take on Second Life—and real life
2007年11月02日 Adam Hsu & Alex Pasternack that's Beijing
Some time earlier this year, a newbie walked into HiPiHi World, China's first very own virtual space, and found a group of loitering veterans – or, to be exact, their digital bodies. Amidst the refined Chinese temples and stunning ocean views, the visitor expressed his disappointment, in terms uncommon to this newfangled utopia. "What a crappy world,"said the newbie. "Where are all the games? What's there to do here?"
The small crowd patiently explained that, unlike the massive multiplayer games that have taken China by storm with their monster-slaying and dungeon-raiding (see "Monster Mash,"p26), the new world offered nothing less than the chance to re-imagine one's worldly existence. "We build things here, we don't destroy them,"one user said. It was a eureka moment. "There's no killing here,"the newbie said. "I think I'll come back."
Online gamers aren't the only ones getting hooked. Swarms of students and businessmen, housewives and giant Internet companies and even the Beijing government are venturing into what's known as the "metaverse,"a term borrowed from Neal Stephenson's 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash to describe the internet's newest frontier. This isn't a mere fantasy game: it's a parallel world where users go to make the stuff of real life – friends, money, fashion, houses, love – and where they go to escape real life too.
Virtual life begins with the creation of an avatar – an on-screen representation. From there, users can meet others, practice languages, get married, sell crafts (real or virtual), and attend business school. On Second Life, the most popular of the Internet's metaverses, Chinese avant-garde artist Cao Fei made a virtual name for herself last year as China Tracy, whose online exploits were shown at the Venice Biennale. And Anshe Cheung, the avatar of Hubei-born Ailin Graef, perhaps Second Life's most famous user, made the cover of BusinessWeek for earning a cool million US dollars, mostly by selling real estate to users too inexperienced to build it themselves. Virtual economies might sound unlikely, until one realizes that self-reinvention is a serious business.
"Is it possible for HiPiHi, which already has 30,000 users, to attract attention from the media, commercial institutions and even governments around the world if it is merely a game?" -HiPiHi CEO Xu Hui "
"It's a way for people to liberate themselves and build their confidence,"says David Wolf, the CEO of Beijing-based Wolf Group Asia, who occasionally roams Second Life after work. "Some people, especially Chinese, might feel like they're socially awkward,"he says. "But once they get online they become these social butterflies who crawl out of their shells and really start experimenting."
"On the 2-D Internet, your identity is based in text,"says Anding Zhang, a virtual explorer who has written extensively about Second Life and who now works for HiPiHi, the Chinese company. "But in the 3-D virtual worlds, your identity depends upon your skin, your clothes, your property rights, your dog."
And now, your Chinese. If Second Life is populated by only the occasional virtual Chinatown, the Beijing-born HiPiHi World turns the whole metaverse Chinese. With capital investment over USD 3 million and interest from foreign companies like Intel and Google, the software is already stirring buzz as Second Life's main competitor and potentially as China's biggest foray into "Web 3.0."And though it counts thousands of beta users, the virtual world hasn't even officially opened yet (a public test is scheduled for later this year).
Just don't call HiPiHi a game, at least not when talking to founder and CEO Hui Xu. The 39-year-old Internet entrepreneur likes to point to companies like IBM and Reuters, which have set up offices in Second Life, as well as governments like the Maldives, which maintains a virtual embassy there. "Is it possible for HiPiHi, which already has 30,000 users, to attract attention from the media, commercial institutions and even governments around the world,"he asks, "if it is merely a game?"
Though Hui resists labels like "China's Second Life,"HiPiHi has a similar premise: As in Second Life, "residents"are able to talk to each other, set up businesses, form rock bands, build estates, and acquire land. One distinguishing feature that sets virtual worlds apart from previous role-playing games is that users own the property rights of anything they've created. That turns virtual communities into virtual economies (as part of its business model, HiPiHi envisions sharing advertising revenue with residents, besides selling products itself). Trade is allowed, and money is real; in Second Life, users can convert their Linden Dollars to actual US dollars at a currently stable rate of LD 270 to USD 1.
In HiPiHi, however, concerns by the central government over the impact of virtual economies on real ones have put plans for a currency into a holding pattern – but one that its founders say could end by early next year, when the world opens to the public. They already envision HiPiHi as a testing ground for China's future entrepreneurs. "A lot of young men spend a lot of time on multiplayer online games,"says Zhang. "But this platform now gives them a new chance to do business."
The Chinese virtual world differs from Second Life on a cultural level too, primarily targeting Chinese and East Asian users. Though an English international version will be released this month, founder Hui is adamant that the community embrace "Eastern"culture and values. Whereas the world of Second Life is littered with Beijing-style real estate development, the users of HiPiHi have created a virtual idyll, with an emphasis on feng shui and traditional landscapes. "People sit beside water, talking with friends, watching the clouds,"says Zhang. "That's not something I see a lot in Second Life."
But as in reality, China's first virtual world is subject to the whims of the marketplace. Amidst concerns that rampant real estate development could ruin HiPiHi's harmonious society once the population explodes, Zhang explains that property regulations will be released soon, and zoning will mostly be left up to residents to determine through monthly town-hall meetings. "All those communities will decide their own rules,"he says. The rest will be left up to the Chinese government: It has laid out rules against violence, pornography, and political taboos within the country's online worlds.
Despite the restrictions, the central government is far less suspicious of the metaverse than it is curious. "Governments are increasingly exploring these worlds and trying to understand them, not shutting them down,"says Wolf, the tech consultant. This year the Beijing government hired Swedish software company MindArk, the creator of online world Entropia Universe, to fashion a China-rooted virtual space. The project, to be
managed by a government-funded digital entertainment company, Cyber Recreation Development Corp. (CRD), has ambitions to match those of HiPiHi: 150 million users from all over the world, Seven million users at a time, and an expectation of generating USD 1 billion per year in commerce.
"On the 2-D Internet, your identity is based in text, but in the 3-D virtual worlds, your identity depends upon skin, your clothes, your property rights, your dog"
Further evidence that this isn't child's play lies in Beijing's Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development, which sees digital entertainment, recreation, and innovation as the seeds of the city's new economic opportunities. David Liu, the CEO of CRD, envisions his project as a way to generate some 10,000 jobs while reducing pollution. "People will actually be able to work from home inside Entropia Universe, even from rural areas, thereby decreasing the amount of pollution generated by travel," he says.
Other local companies are also banking on the very real market of virtual worlds. Shanda, China's leading online gaming company, is building its own Second Life knock-off, while new worlds with names like Novoking, uWorld, Frenzoo, and Baobao Bengbeng (for kids), are slated to start within the next year.
One challenge will be turning users in China on to virtual worlds to begin with. "Most Chinese still use old concepts to understand the virtual world," says Internet analyst Gang Lu. "The Chinese market is not yet ready." Hoping to draw in more users, HiPiHi's Hui says he regards other virtual worlds as useful partners, rather than head-to-head competitors. Already, the company is in talks with Second Life-creator Linden Labs, so that a tourist on Second Life from Berlin can stumble into the courtyard home of a Beijing HiPiHi resident.
"It's very easy to be friendly in a new world," says Zhang, who likes to talk about how HiPiHi is breaking corporate, physical, and cultural boundaries. That isn't to say the company doesn't have plans for virtual world domination. "China could become the leader of the next generation Internet," he says. "We could be a leader."
