In September 2018, a little more than a year ago, Tencent committed the biggest genocide in online history ever — the killing of millions of QQ pet penguins, including mine. My penguin was fairly successful — she had a bachelor’s degree and was married with a baby boy. More successful than I am. I gave her baby away though as a gift to a stranger, maybe she’s not super successful in that sense… anyhow, she’s dead now like every other QQ pet. But I don’t even know where the graveyard is. Do I even feel a thing for her? No. I’ve long grown out of that. So what does the death of my QQ pet mean to me?
What is QQ Pets?
Tencent’s logo is a cartoon penguin. QQ Pets is a pet raising social game built around this penguin character that allows users to interact with their pets like their own children, similar to Neopets. You can feed and dress them, send(force) them to school or work. You can find your friends’ pets on the same platform and marry or divorce your pets with your friends’ pets, and eventually decide what to do with the babies yourself.
QQ Pets is associated with the QQ desktop messaging app itself. It pops up and steals your money whenever you log into QQ. Back then I paid 10 rmb (about 1.7 US dollars) per month so that my pet could go to a country club everyday for a free spa.
QQ Pets under a magnifier is a collection of many mini-games — based on your pet’s specialties, you can send them off to different quests/journeys, or have them compete in sports.
I played it for 2–3 years starting in 2006 before QQ Pets became obsolete in my heart and was replaced by 3 other slightly more successful social games also by Tencent: QQ farm, plantation and parking lot. Yeah, from raising only one pet I managed to raise many more animals like cows and chicken plus some plants and moving cars around for money.
Games are inherently a form of art — art is inseparable from censorship in China. Anything that obstructs the construction of a 大同理想社会 (big harmonious ideal society) is sentenced to death. After surviving the government’s censorship, games shall face the holy grail — the parents.
What did Tencent QQ Pets do right in convincing the government and my parents?
It was a very harmonious game. The pets do nothing against the society besides teaching you how humans shall live their lives — eat daily, sleep daily, go to school, graduate, work, get married and have kids. The long term engagement with this game comes from the collection of tedious actions(feeding, dressing, bathing, learning, working) that simulate those of the parents. Kids get to experience the stress of their parents. The joy comes from the rewards after the completion of those actions as well as probabilistic chance-based mini games that reward the players for spending time with their pets.
However, the game turned sour after it launched for 2–3 years. When it started, I remember, resources were scarce. I had to be economic about spending money on feeding my pet — plan when it went to school or went to work to make more money. However, as time went by, the game became easier and easier, because it was losing a tremendous number of users. Therefore, earning virtual money within the game became an extremely easy thing to do. I saw more and more free giveaways and higher rewards. That leads to the devaluation of the actual work itself. Since it became less challenging, I became less willing to try as hard to earn resources. Eventually my interest drifted away to other games.
R.I.P.
The death of QQ Pets in 2018 probably was inevitable anyway, as China undergoes a huge transition from desktop to mobile. Tencent did develop a mobile version of QQ Pets but seemed to be a little too late. The shutdown of a whole QQ Pets community might as well mark the end of the PC-based messaging apps and games.
We can see nowadays, the government plays a fundamental role in regulating the game industry — China imposed a curfew for gamers aged under 18 such that no online games can be played from 10pm to 8am. At the same time, parental consent was such a big deal in China, as in many other countries as well. After all, QQ Pets was a successful social game while it started in 2005. At least in my case, I won’t otherwise be allowed to play any games if it didn’t win over my parents’ trust. Since I wasn’t allowed to play without my parents’ supervision, Tencent did a good job convincing my parents that I was spending my time worthwhile.
Other references:
Five misconceptions about the Chinese games market
What the death of QQ Pets tells us about China’s internet transformation
