The Wall Street Journal yesterday ran a story on the brief life and quiet death of the computer game "Incorruptible Warrior", which was developed by Ningbo City government to help educate wayward youth about proper civic values. Apparently proper civic values include slapping around corrupt officials and slaying them and their bikini clad mistresses. But, hey, different strokes and all.

The game was only live briefly, during which time it garnered some interest, but also scathing criticism from Chinese gamers used to slicker fare. The Journal recalls some of the discussion the game generated online:

Despite its short life and audience of only about 8,000 players, Incorruptible Warrior caused considerable discussion among bloggers and forum posters in China. Some applauded the idea of spreading the anticorruption message through a pop-culture medium.

Shun Feng, a technology blogger from Yangzhou and author of "New Theories on Blogging" and "The Kingdom of Internet," said it was a "good try" by the Ningbo government to get common people involved. "The common practice in China is to leave the whole anticorruption thing to the government, but the youngsters are the ones with the potential to become corruptible politicians. ...That is why we need to educate them," said Shun Feng, the blogger's pen name.

Those who opposed the game warned it would be sending a misguided message to youth, who are spending an ever-growing amount of time in front of the computer. One blogger on the site Dragon Knight's Castle, with the online handle GZYZ, said "the anticorruption theme is misleading the youth, who will suppose the war against corruption is simply to kill them all."

Another blogger, Maoz, posting on his own site, Confucius Says, mocked the alarm the game had stirred up and reported an imaginary crime in which a schoolchild "from XXX Primary School of Ningbo is found addicted to the free anticorruption online game Incorruptible Warrior. He lost his mind on XXX date and stole in the bureau chief XXX's house and killed him and his families cruely with a pensil sharpener."

While the moral debate over Incorruptible Warrior continues to play out on the blogs here, players' disgust and derision at the game's technical flaws may be still keener.

I haven't written about this much, although I did speak to BBC Radio Five and, oddly, Iranian television about "Incorruptible Warrior". Here are some quick thoughts. I've written before that government involvement in popular culture is almost inevitably a disaster. That's as true in China as it anywhere else, and possibly more so. That rule encompasses videogames.

That said, there have been successful examples of videogames used as propaganda. The game "America's Army", the "official Army game" comes to mind. It's essentially a recruiting effort. What makes "America's Army" successful is that it is based on the Unreal engine, a top-notch first-person-shooter platform, and has been designed to standards that make it competitive with other commercial games. "Incorruptible Warrior" did not hit the same standard.

Therein lies a lesson. If you're going to use a popular culture such as television, film or videogames, for state propaganda, your product needs to be broadly competitive with commercial offerings. If it's not, you simply expose yourself to ridicule and undermine your own communication objectives. If you have no commercial offerings, as was the case with China in the Mao years, then this doesn't matter. People will watch "Shining Red Star" because there isn't anything else to watch. But the moment they can go watch "Transformers" instead, "Shining Red Star" doesn't cut it any more.

The Ningbo government should probably be applauded for attempting to drag state messaging into the twenty-first century. (I restrain my applause only because I find the whole idea of using videogames for state propaganda a little spooky -- and this extends to "America's Army".) But if they try this stunt again they'd better pony up the big bucks, because amateur-hour game design isn't going to sell the youth of modern China on a virtuous life.

Imagethief, who once worked in computer game design, also recommends that the government steer clear of any such games that rely on violence as the main mechanism for enforcing virtue. Far more effective and interesting would be something more like "Sim City" where you play a "government official" charged with constructing a (forgive me) harmonious society. In this role you could have various options for making decisions or guiding the decisions of "underlings" that would affect the ultimate health and growth of your simulated harmonious society.

Of course this could also get spooky in a hurry, given the Chinese government's ideas of what constitute effective state management. It's all well and good to consider where you want to put the Olympic stadium or how many subway stops you should build, but consider:

One of your virtual newspaper editors is getting uppity and criticizing the Party. Do you:

a) Ignore it
b) Force him to write a self criticism
c) Close the publication, fire everyone, and send a circular to other publications not to cover the situation

You chose [C]. You are [86%] harmonious!

But you gotta admit, it would be interesting.

 America's Army: Hot. 

 Incorruptible Warrior: Not.