Mobile Gaming Fraud

[MoKat]

I did not see a topic for this, so I decided to make one after seeing this video:

A little digging unearthed that FunPlus is a massive scam company now hiding behind name of Century Game (since so many people learned how badly they scammed people).

This CNET article reported that Zhongji Holding, a company based in Shanghai that doesn't make video games, bought DianDian Interactive, a subsidiary of FunPlus back in 2014 for nearly 1 billion dollars.

25 complaints about their games (mostly King of Avalon and Guns of Glory) were posted here.

[MoKat]

When I saw that Clash of Kings was on the list of Chinese apps that were banned in India, I did a little digging and found this:

CLASH OF KINGS Ripoff Reports, Complaints, Reviews, Scams, Lawsuits and Frauds Reported

Only 2 reports were filed, but the one filed back in January claimed:

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Short packages. Shields that lapse early. Zero customer service. Even Google was confused.

Full report can be found here.

The 2nd report is short enough to quote entirely:

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Spent a lot of money on this game and they rip you off when you upgrade....said i didn't when I did and even after I sent picture proof....they still gave me the run around that I didn't....frequent FREQQUENT crash problems that are never compensated....locked out of game for 17 hours during critical war times of game and never compensated for the game crash for every player I play with along with countless other game errors that they never have fixed....its a joke and not a reputable game

 

[TheRedStranger]

How is the local atmosphere over tik-tock affected all this?

[MoKat]

On 8/9/2020 at 1:59 PM, TheRedStranger said:

How is the local atmosphere over tik-tock affected all this?

That depends on how you define "local". The way I see it, the CCP has kept American apps out of China for as long as apps have existed; it's past time we reciprocated.

Tik Tok lost a huge market when it was banned in India.

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The TikTok app has been installed about 2 billion times globally, according to mobile insights firm Sensor Tower. India accounted for 611 million of those downloads, the firm said.

I'll see if I can dig up anything that says how many downloads were from the U.S.

{Edit: according to this Oberlo article, which was written in July, Tik Tok had been downloaded 165 million times in the U.S.

From Statistica (Feb 28, 2020):

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In 2019, social video app TikTok had approximately 37.2 million users in the United States.

 

[TheRedStranger]

1 hour ago, MoKat said:

That depends on how you define "local". The way I see it, the CCP has kept American apps out of China for as long as apps have existed; it's past time we reciprocated.

Tik Tok lost a huge market when it was banned in India.

I'll see if I can dig up anything that says how many downloads were from the U.S.

To give this a good idealogical frame work I would explain all this in this way.  I think every party is wrong on protectionism. And it’s had major cost to people all over the globe. Protectionism is just like violence, just in an abstracted economic form. Republicans are wrong because some time retaliation is necessary. They are being passive.  While Democrats (And Northern Republicans like the Hooverittes) are historically sadistic when it comes to this.  Ironically I think Trumpian policy is a lot like the libertarian idea of the NAP in trade form. I hate the idea of protectionism the way I hate war. It’s destructive, but sometimes it’s morally necessary. And it sacrifices some of your people’s life blood in its execution fiscally. You should instead think critically about it as an extension.  Free Trade is the ultimate destination, but you cannot kowtow while China or Brazil assault you in this regard. We spread eagled to Canada for example and it subsidized (with their people money unfairly) lumber and dairy during NAFTA literally to destroy those markets in places like Idaho. Ask @ByTor, Prince of Ro’den sometime. His dad’s job was lost for a while because of it. It hurt his family and is vocal about it. Obviously, we need to respond to protectionism their same way we should respond to any form of aggression, in a measured way in hopes to deescalate. It is 99% unneeded, but when you have aggressive groups like China, who steal your IP’s and engage corporate and cyber sabotage to give unfair leverage to their national corporations - it’s time to strike in return. India gets it, sadly it took passivity leading to actual physical manifestations of aggression to retaliate to this more abstract sphere of conflict.

Good. I am concerned about young people being addicted to Skinnerian style apps and content algorithms by China, so they can make a quick global buck at the expense of people. That has been a huge problem. They can easily weaponize crappy phenomena  like this: