These are the games I was raised on, and these are the games I continue to enjoy.  I am not against the modern microtransaction massively-multiplayer freemium stuff that's all the rage today, but I don't like it. 

I wonder if that's what defines me as an old man, a refusal to be down with the way things are today, firmly holding my ground in defense of the way things were against the onrushing, inexorable tsunami of the way things are becoming.

"So if you think that there are too few new IPs on the market, no one can take that risk if their game is at risk of being resold too many times. Therefore you see a lot of online games being the most popular. You mentioned that you feel like a lot of [online shooters] have the same formula and this is one of the reasons, which most people seem to not realise.

So on the positive side you could see more games being created because of this, and also more new IPs, because there'd be a bigger market for games that don't have for instance multiplayer. There could be awesome single player-only games, which you can't really do these days because people just pirate them, which is sad.

Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, the ICG's north-east Asia project director, says China and other countries have been withholding their navies from getting involved in these incidents.

But she thinks it could increase the likelihood of major battles involving smaller armed policing ships.

"We worry in Crisis Group that the threshold for entry into conflict is much less by having all of these law enforcement and paramilitary vessels because it's seen as well they're just law enforcement vessels," she said.

"So they're more easily deployed and they're far less conscious of the rules; the rules of the road, international law, these types of things than would be the PLA navy.

China’s maritime policy circles use the term “Nine dragons stirring up the sea” to describe the lack of coordination among the various government agencies involved in the South China Sea. 

[...]

While some agencies act aggressively to compete with one another for greater portions of the budget pie, others (primarily local governments) attempt to expand their economic activities in disputed areas due to their single-minded focus on economic growth.

His second spot, which opened a year later in the foreigner-friendly Chaoyang district, was almost as cursed. With six months left on the lease, the landlord locked the doors with a bicycle chain. Bryant waited half a day for the landlord to return, then cut the lock. That turned out to be a mistake: Within minutes the landlord showed up with eight "associates," who, Bryant says, beat him up and kicked him off the property. (Bryant ended up with a fat lip and a broken toe.) Bryant says he learned later that the landlord had found another tenant who was willing to pay two years' rent up-front. (As it turned out, the building was demolished within a year anyway.) The lesson, he says: Sign leases only with business entities, never with individuals. "Too often there's corruption involved," Bryant says. "And they don't get in trouble--they just get rich."

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a friend of mine who works in China for a leading international risk management/security/hostage negotiation company. I was telling him that we had been seeing a big increase in Chinese companies making veiled (and not so veiled) threats against our clients over alleged debts. This friend then told me that his company was getting three business hostage takings a month, up from about one a month in the last few years.

I am not saying that China is a violent country and I do not think it is. But it is still a developing country with an inchoate legal system. What this means is that frustrated people are a lot more likely to “take things into their own hands” than in most Western countries. What this means for you is what I said above: at minimum, if you are in any sort of dispute with a businessperson in China, do not go to that person’s turf to try to resolve it.

There is a lot of talk about the poor economy and I think that is helping to increase violence. Ten years ago, the Chinese were afraid to beat up a Laowai but that has changed.

It would be impossible for Xi and Li to not have been affected by their own experiences in the cultural revolution, but it is also impossible to divine precisely how such experiences will shape their governing philosophy and the future of China. 

Riddle me this: how does a government enforce tax collection in a cash-only society?

[...]

A solution to the problem is to go with a tax pre-payment system. At the beginning of every month, every business is required to pay an estimated tax. Proof of tax payment is issued in the form of “fapiao” (发票).

Of course, with every new system, new problems come in. One is that the waitstaff might nick a couple of fapiao en route to the customer. So now, to get your fapiao you usually have to go in person to a special counter that manages its distribution. And, of course, the restaurant can offer a bribe in place of the fapiao. Just this past month when I was visiting Harbin, I went to collect my lottery tickets and the lady at the register glanced at my 80 quai receipt and offered to pay me 4 quai instead of giving me fapiao! I was a bit surprised at how brazen the offer was, but in retrospect, I clearly was not from around there, and thus unlikely to be an auditor.

All of this may change in the face of real name registration–a new, more stringent policy designed to clamp down on free expression where other methods have been less successful. We have no doubt that netizens will find creative ways to circumvent the chilling effect of this policy. Many have already begun discussing possible strategies. Even so real-name registration will almost certainly limit the spread of politically sensitive messages, as it will be easy to trace their origin.