The other day I stumbled upon a news item reporting that a Chinese MMORPG, Zhengtu Online, had become the first game in the world to have more than two million players logged on at the same time. Two million people.

The number of Chinese with internet access stands at only about 220 million. This means almost one per cent of people who can use the internet were logged onto Zhengtu Online at exactly the same time. That's insane.

What's even more insane is that the developer of Zhengtu Online, Giant Interactive, is now one of the richest IT companies in China. Giant founder, Shi Yuzhu, is the 24th richest man in China. And Zhengtu Online, or ZT Online for short, is Giant's only game.

So what's going on? Why is ZT Online getting so much attention? It wasn't until I found this article at danwei.com that it started to make sense. ZT Online isn't really a game. It's more of a dodgy slot machine parlour - with all the addictive and murky elements that comes with it..

You see, ZT Online is much like World of Warcraft - it's about heroes, monsters, and a lot of young male nerds pretending to have in-game "girlfriends" who are really just older male pedophiles. But there's one key difference: while WoW rewards players' skill, practice, and time spent playing, ZT Online rewards only one thing: money. Real-world money. This means you buy your experience points, buy your equipment, and buy your powers.

The best players in the game are therefore also the richest, while the worst players are the poorest. It's like a monetary "survival of the fittest", and is a massive cash-spinner for Giant Interactive. Gamers who want to perform well in the game need to spend tens of thousands of yuan just to keep step with the top players. You could call it Donald Trump's dream video game.

But, of course, the game has a fatal flaw: it doesn't really appeal to those without much money. Poor players just get their asses kicked all the time by rich players. But, realising this, Giant devised an interesting solution: gambling. Basically, poor players can buy treasure chests which have a small chance of containing expensive weaponry. Each treasure chest costs one yuan to open (about US$0.14), and operates similar to a slot machine. It's an addictive concept, as the danwei.com article illustrates:

Lu Yang recalls that during her craziest period she was like a gambler in a casino. She would shout at the screen the name of the item she wanted, like "ebony, ebony," or some high-class material, but ultimately she would obtain nothing but a pittance of experience.

These Casino-like elements of ZT Online not only make the game a thoroughly evil enterprise, praying on the weak and the vulnerable, but also make it turn a tidy profit. People get hooked. Poor players think they can compete with the rich players, only with a little luck.

So why would people even begin playing this dastardly game? The fact that the game is free to join probably has something to do with it. But it also has a lot to do with ZT Online's founder, Shi Yuzhu.

According to China Daily, Shi spends 10 to 15 hours a day gaming. He knows MMORPGs back-to-front, and knows how to attract gamers. He's hired a marketing team of 2500 people to promote the game in China's popular internet cafes - through word-of-mouth, advertising, and strange tactics involving beautiful women, like this:

Shi is also hiring a number of attractive female players to play in Internet cafes. "We are giving them virtual golden coins worth 6,000 yuan per year, which are equal to 500 yuan in the real world, to encourage them to play and stay in the games," he says. His ultimate goal is to make the game more fun and lure more male players, especially first time gamers. "In fact, in China's cyberspace many male players are very willing to pay the bills for their female counterparts", he says.

Hmmm........ good idea, but I still don't get why this game is so popular. It seems like Shi is the evil king, he oppresses millions of his subjects, and yet still more are flocking to his kingdom. Why? To me it looks like the most boring and repetitive game ever created:


But the more I think about it, I think I've got it. Gambling in China is illegal. But it has a long history in the country, and underground gambling is rife. Could ZT Online just be filling the void? Is this plausible?

How else do you explain two million gamers at once. Two million. And growing.