20230630 final exam culture 09

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Wang Xinpeng 王鑫鹏 Technology: PC games in China

Introduction

China has a huge and prosperous mobile game market, with games such as Glory of Kings and Genshin Impact generating huge profits every year. In contrast, China's computer game market, which is the PC game market in short, really looks bleak. Compared with Europe, America and Japan, where 3A games are frequently produced and classic IPs are constantly played, China's PC games also seem to be stretched to the limit. So, what exactly are the reason for this situation today? Let's go back in time and explore the history of PC games.

A brief history of PC games

In the 1960s, with the development of information technology, electronic computers began to appear on college campuses, and a group of students who were good at programming began to appear. In 1962, a college student named Steve Russell created a computer game called Spacewar!. The game was a huge success, and Steve Russell is widely considered as "the father of computer games". However, although simple computer games such as tic-tac-toe, tennis, etc. emerged at that time, they were not intended for entertainment, but to show the performance of computers. It was not until the 1970s, when the cost of computers decreased with technological development, that commercial computer games really appeared, and the first computer game company, Atari, also emerged at that time. In the 1980s and 1990s, as computer hardware and software technologies advanced, personal computers became more widely used, and multimedia technologies began to mature, computer games became the forerunner of these technological advances. In the 21st century, the development of the Internet also has greatly contributed to the progress of PC games.

The development history of PC games in China

Compared with the West, the development of PC games in China has been much more difficult. Firstly, technically speaking, China was far behind Europe and America in terms of information technology at that time. Secondly, economically speaking, when commercialized video games were developing rapidly in Europe and America, China first experienced the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and then experienced the Reform and Opening-up. During the Cultural Revolution, China was diplomatically blocked, not to mention the introduction of foreign games, and by the time of the Reform and Opening-up, the energy of society was generally devoted to economic development, and only a few people had the energy and money to buy games. Thirdly, in terms of social environment, Chinese gamers were unable to get access to genuine games in the early days, and their awareness of copyright was weak, which made it difficult for Chinese game companies to profit by making and selling games. In 2000, Guangming Daily, an official newspaper with great influence in China, published articles "Don't let game consoles harm a generation" and "Computer Games: Targeting Children's "Electronic Heroin"", which not only made video games bear the reputation of "mental opium" even until today, but also made the development of China's console game and computer game market, which was already rampant with piracy at that time, even more difficult. Some parents even regarded the behavior of playing computer games as a disease that needed to be "treated", and a psychiatrist named Yang Yongxin used this as an entry point to set up a so-called "Internet addiction treatment center", demanding high fees from parents of children with Internet addiction, and forcing children to listen by means of electric shock. So we could conclude the attitude of most Chinese parents towards computer games through this. It is only in recent years, with the development of the economy, the awareness of the masses to pay for legitimate games, and the unremitting efforts and dedication of game practitioners, that some high-quality, independent computer games have really begin to appear in China.

Famous foreign games with Chinese characteristics

China has a long history and a brilliant civilization, and although at that time China itself did not have the ability to develop games on its own, that doesn't mean that game developers from other countries would just ignore games with Chinese themes, and the best of these game developers is the Japanese company Koei. It is not surprising to us that Japan, which has a long history of being influenced by Chinese culture, has been able to gain an edge in this area. Among the Chinese history, Japanese people love the history of the Three Kingdoms period the best, which may remind them of their own history of the Sengoku period. Seeing this, Koei lanuched the game series Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Dynasty Warriors, which have gained great success in Japan and around the world. 2023, Koei launched another Three Kingdoms game callled Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty. In addition, well-known games set in Chinese culture include the game Total War: Three Kingdoms developed by Creative Assembly and published by Sega and the game Sifu developed and published by French studio Sloclap, and the Assassin's Creed series has also released games set in ancient China.

Some exanples of Chinese high-quality computer games

In the early days of independent game development in China, game developers, like their foreign counterparts, devoted themselves to finding game ideas our history, and the most well-known of the games thus produced is the Chinese Paladin: Sword and Fairy series, which was produced and published by Taiwan's Softstar released in 1995, and it is the longest-running computer game IP in China. Today, the series covers not only games, but also TV series, comics, novels and so on. The series is based on ancient Chinese mythology and immortal stories, building a huge fantasy world, and the game characters it portrays have become valuable memories for its players. In recent years, Chinese computer games are no longer limited to looking at the past for inspiration, but look at the present and the future, too. And developers are also seeking to use different methods to present games with a unique Chinese charm to players from all over the world. Amazing Cultivation Simulator vividly shows the establishment of an immortal cultivation sect from scratch through pixel-style graphics and a large number of texts with ancient Chinese styles.Chinese Parents simulates the whole process of a Chinese child from birth to college entrance examination, and explores the shortcomings of Chinese family education and various aspects of Chinese society; Dyson Sphere Program looks at the universe and the future, with its interesting gameplay and stunning graphics, has won the love of players all over the world and is called the Wandering Earth of the game world. The release of the video of Black Myth: Wukong has even made people exclaim that "China's first 3A game is coming". In the future, with the continuous progress of China's technology, economy and society, I believe the future of Chinese computer games will be even better.

介绍

中国拥有一个巨大且繁荣的手游市场，《王者荣耀》、《原神》等游戏每年都能够创造巨大的利润。相较之下，中国的电脑游戏市场，也就是PC游戏市场实在显得黯淡无光。而与欧美、日本3A游戏频出，经典IP不断的游戏环境相比，中国的PC游戏也显得捉襟见肘。那么，究竟是什么原因促成了当今这种情况呢？让我们回到过去，探究一下PC游戏的前世今生。

PC游戏简史

1960年代，随着信息技术的发展，电子计算机开始在大学校园中出现，而一批擅长编程的学生也随之涌现了出来。1962年，一位名叫史蒂夫·罗素的大学生在PDP-1型电子计算机上制作出了一款名为《太空大战！》（Spacewar!）的电脑游戏。这款游戏取得了巨大的成功，史蒂夫·罗素也被普遍认为是 “电脑游戏之父”。 然而，尽管当时出现了一些简单的电脑游戏，比如井字棋、网球等等，它们的目的并不是用于娱乐，而是为了展现电脑的性能。直到1970年代，电脑的成本随着技术发展而降低，商业化的电脑游戏才真正出现，第一家电脑游戏公司——雅达利也是在这时出现的。 1980年代和90年代，随着电脑软硬件技术的进步，个人电脑的使用越来越广泛，多媒体技术也开始成熟，电脑游戏成为了这些技术进步的先行者。到了21世纪，互联网的发展更是极大的促进了电脑游戏的进步。

PC游戏在中国的发展历程

相较于西方，PC游戏在中国的发展历程要艰难的多。首先，从技术上讲，当时的中国在信息技术上是远远落后于欧美的。第二，从经济上讲，当商业化的电子游戏在欧美飞速发展时，中国先是经历了文化大革命的动荡，又迎来了改革开放。文化大革命时，中国在外交上是封锁的，更遑论引进外国的游戏了，而到了改革开放时，社会的精力普遍用于发展经济，有精力和金线购买游戏的人少之又少。第三，从社会环境来讲，中国的游戏玩家由于早期无法接触到正版游戏，版权意识薄弱，导致中国很难出现靠制作并售卖游戏盈利的游戏公司，另外，玩电子游戏还被普遍视作不务正业，2000年，在中国具有巨大影响力的官方报纸《光明日报》先后刊载文章《别让游戏机害了一代人》和《电脑游戏：瞄准孩子的“电子海洛因”》 ，不仅使电子游戏直至今日还背负着“精神鸦片”的骂名，更使当时本就盗版横行的中国主机游戏和电脑游戏市场的发展更加艰难。一些家长甚至把玩电脑游戏这一行为视作疾病，需要“治疗”，一位名为杨永信的精神科医生以此为切入点，设立了所谓的“戒网瘾中心”，向有网瘾的孩子的家长索要高额费用，并以电击等手段强制逼迫孩子听话。中国大多数家长对于电脑游戏这一事物的态度也由此可见一斑。直到近年来，随着经济的发展，群众的正版付费意识逐渐提高，以及一众游戏从业者的不懈努力和付出，中国才真正出现了一些高质量的，独立自主的电脑游戏。

具有中国特色的著名国外游戏

中国具有悠久的历史和灿烂的文明，虽然在那个年代，中国本身尚不具有开发游戏的能力，但这并不意味着其他国家的游戏开发者不会对中国题材的游戏视若不见，而这些游戏开发者中的佼佼者当属日本的光荣公司。日本与中国一衣带水，历史上长期以来受中国文化熏陶，因此在这一方面能够取得优势也就不足为奇了。而在中国的历史中，日本人最爱的当属三国时期的历史，可能这能使他们联想到自己战国时期的历史。光荣看中了这一点，先后推出了《三国志》系列和与《真·三国无双》系列，在日本乃至全世界都取得了巨大的成功。2023年，光荣又推出了一款三国题材的游戏《卧龙：苍天陨落》。 此外，以中国文化为背景的知名游戏还包括由Creative Assembly开发、世嘉发行的游戏《全面战争：三国》、由法国工作室Sloclap开发和发行的游戏《师父》等，《刺客信条》系列也曾发布以古代中国为背景的游戏。

一些中国的优质电脑游戏

在中国独立开发游戏的早期阶段，游戏开发者们与外国的同行们一样，致力于从我们悠久的历史中寻找游戏素材，而由此而制作出来的游戏中中最为知名的当属《仙剑奇侠传》系列了，该系列由台湾大宇资讯制作发行，首发于1995年，可以说是中国历史最为悠久的电脑游戏IP了。时至今日，这一系列不仅涵盖了游戏，还包括了电视剧、漫画、小说等。这一系列以古代中国的神话与仙侠故事为背景，构建了一个庞大的幻想世界，其所塑造的一众游戏角色更是成为了玩家的宝贵回忆。而在最近几年，中国电脑游戏不再局限于仅仅从过去寻找游戏灵感的来源，而是着眼当今，展望未来，并追求运用不同的表现手法为来自世界各地玩家呈现出具有独特的中国魅力的游戏。《了不起的修仙模拟器》通过像素风格的画面以及大量具有古代中国特色的文本，生动地展现了一个修仙门派从无到有的建立；《中国式家长》则通过游戏模拟了一个中国孩子从出生到高考的全过程，并以此探讨了当今中国家庭教育的种种不足以及中国社会的方方面面；《戴森球计划》则放眼星河，以有趣的玩法和震撼人心的画面博得了全世界玩家的喜爱，堪称游戏界的《流浪地球》。而《黑神话：悟空》的宣传片的发布更是让人感叹“中国的第一款3A游戏就要来了”。未来，随着中国科技、经济与社会的不断进步，我相信中国电脑游戏的未来会更美好。