General Administration of Press and Publication
The video agit-prop vigorously satirizes the travails of mainland Chinese WoW players over the latter half of 2009 using the technique of personification; the game itself serves as both stage and a framing device. The numerous conflicts and issues addressed include: electroshock therapy for purported internet addiction; the Chinese government's attempts to censor the internet with mandatory installations of the Green Dam Youth Escort filter; the corporate battle between the PRC's two primary game servers, The9 and Netease, over licensing renewal rights; and finally, the bureaucratic in-fighting between the governmental organs General Administration of Press and Publication and the Ministry of Culture over control of the game. Along the way the video also satirizes and/or parodies numerous Internet tropes, memes, in-jokes, running gags and clichés which are specific to, and endemic to, Chinese net culture as well as certain elements of American pop culture. (Obvious take-offs on certain aspects of the Terminator franchise, for example, bookend the main action of the story, but at one point major characters engage in poetic battle by doing the dozens in Chinese couplets.) Furthermore, given its production of political satire by game engine, War of Internet Addiction counts, not only as an heir to the roman à clef tradition, but as an influential "machinima à clef" in its own right.