Chinese Reaction to Wuxiaworld vs. Qidian issue

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by _Selutu_, May 24, 2017.

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  1. bookwormer

    bookwormer Well-Known Member

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    That could just mean that they're going to sell ebooks on Amazon, like anyone can self publish. If they really did do something more, wouldn't Amazon be shouting from the rooftops that they broke into the Chinese market? C'mon. And if they really do, FANTASTIC. Let's go tell Amazon what schmucks they signed with. Time for Qidian to learn that shit doesn't work the same way in the West! Amazon will definitely listen to us.
     
  2. MadHatter

    MadHatter [WindyWeather]

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    That's exactly what I meant. QI is also reaching the western market through Amazon.
     
  3. TheOnlyRavenbrand

    TheOnlyRavenbrand Death Knight - WW Supporter

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    When a company is trying to expand into a market and one of the first things they do is stab another entity they have been working with in the back.

    It makes it really hard for people to have confidence in that company.

    There is a reason why bands were "Famous in Japan" and not the states.
     
  4. MadHatter

    MadHatter [WindyWeather]

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    From a consumer point of view, you might be right. But from an investor point of view, they will see QI actions as being pro-active, and will be favorable.
     
  5. TheOnlyRavenbrand

    TheOnlyRavenbrand Death Knight - WW Supporter

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    Depends on the type of investor. If you have a company that doesn't honor contracts they sign.. That is not a good sign of a company that you want to invest in.
     
  6. MadHatter

    MadHatter [WindyWeather]

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    But if they see it as aiming for a monopoly and also tackling piracy, whether it's true or false, investors would jump on it.
     
  7. sumguy

    sumguy Well-Known Member

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    hondatadakatsu and noob_senpai like this.
  8. ForumObserver

    ForumObserver [Clumsy Member] [Verver] [Table Flipper]

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    *Cue Celine Dion's music*
     
  9. lordofthebooty

    lordofthebooty Active Member

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    lol
     
  10. rapture_edge

    rapture_edge Well-Known Member

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    I came here to read the Chinese reactions to the WW vs. QI issue. But instead I learned a lot on economics, publishing, advertising, and even the history of translated LN. This is exactly why I love forums. (Not being sarcastic)
     
  11. ForumObserver

    ForumObserver [Clumsy Member] [Verver] [Table Flipper]

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    Welcome to NUF.
     
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  12. BlackBlade

    BlackBlade Well-Known Member

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    I would need to know the rate qidian wants to charge per chapter based on word count to be exactly sure, but I imagine it will cost me more to read poorly written, wish fulfillment cn's behind a paywall than it would to read high quality, well written/edited/marketed western fantasy books. Sure CN translations have a large audience because they are free, other than donations, but who will really want to buy into the paywall at 0.05 $ per chapter? That would cost me what, approximately 100$ to read the currently translated MGA? what a joke, I could buy multiple higher quality western fantasy book series at that same price (10$ per mass market paperback, that's 3 trilogies and a stand alone book). Would people pay to read qidian novels if there was some sort of monthly subscription fee to access their library of novels? I'm sure quite a lot of the community would actually pay for that, but I'm guessing Qidian would rather try to get people to pay 100+$ for MGA level novels, it would definitely make more $$ per person.

    Novels may be a bit of an addiction for me, but it's absolutely something I can cut away. If anything I'll just be upgrading to a cheaper, higher quality product. When money comes into the equation it really makes things easy for the consumer. I wish them luck in getting people to pay big $$$ for low quality works.

    You could be right that they will make significant money doing this as a business, but from a consumer perspective it's pretty funny.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2017
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  13. sumguy

    sumguy Well-Known Member

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    MGA and their irks are the top, but they aren't the average. WoC for example is sizeable but still fits into the standard novel price range. This was done with outdated data with a really small reader base, it was just a quick mental exercise to prove that it's viable with a small base based on a number given by someone. Don't actually take it seriously.

    Monthly sub would probably be a thing, but who knows. I ain't one of their customers for sure :p
     
  14. Linbe

    Linbe New member

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    Tbh I thought the Chinese would take Qidian's side in this and just outright bash WW....good to know that they didn't
     
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  15. Lengyue

    Lengyue Member

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    This will be my last post about this, don't want to get banned.
    It is not only Tencent, If i am not wrong, Microsoft copied some Apple technology.
    I don't understand, what is the matter about copying and making a village, and still, it is the same about copying the style, in the end the chinese will be criticised, because they can't build something they want, like the village. Edit: Missed something, i wouldn't call this copy, maybe tring to have a Western Culture, but of course, they are not trying to change the entire Chinese culture for a Western culture.
    Maybe i did misunderstand you. In most post you made, you were talking about the chinese, but didn't classified if it is about the government or the chinese people(whole race), like the last sentence you are calling They, it is like whole race, but if you were talking about the government then i am ok.
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2017
  16. hehaaw

    hehaaw Well-Known Member

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    let me share something, there was a small indie game developer that made a mobile game, not long after their release their game Tencent release similar game with different name, all the content in the game was the same only with different name.

    edit : found the source https://www.techinasia.com/chinese-studio-pirates-indie-game-cloudstone-developer-calls-reddit
     
    Last edited: May 26, 2017
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  17. Iromania

    Iromania Well-Known Member

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    What's the game then? Source?

    Mind you that's exactly the story of most Zynga games from farmsville to bejeweled.
     
  18. Raneday

    Raneday Not Rane

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    Is this the start of the pirate age?

    Who will become the pirate king and own the one piece :p
     
  19. any0ne1

    any0ne1 New Member

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    So I know this isn't exactly the best place to post this, but I can't make a new post on the forums (I presume because this is a brand new account). Since this topic is adjacent to the topic I want to talk about, I ended up posting here, sorry!

    During this whole issue with WW vs Qidian, I've heard a few people state that the Qidian phone application is malicious. Being a lurker, I'm not in a position to discuss the whole WW vs Qidian issue, but as someone who is a cyber security researcher in day to day life, I became curious about the phone application after the claims people were making and looked into it.

    TL;DR
    - The application does not seem malicious.
    - I still don't recommend you use the application until they tighten permissions. I used a test methodology called dynamic analysis to analyse the application's behavior. That means that I looked at the actions the application was taking during normal use. That isn't to say there isn't a piece of code in there that will activate when it receives a message and start going through your address book, contacts, etc. I don't know if there is or not, frankly, and wouldn't unless it was activated during my test process. There are ways I could tell, but I don't read obfuscated code for free :D.
    - Loose permissions also mean that a future application update could enable features that invade your privacy without the application having to ask for more permissions and thus raising suspicions.

    You should know:

    - I looked at the android application, and downloaded it from apkpure, not the official android store.
    - The examination is just cursory, I spent under 2 hours on it. Sorry, I just don't have the time to spend weeks examining the application as I would do if I were doing this in a professional capacity.
    - I did not look for vulnerabilities in the application, I only monitored what the application was trying to do.
    - The test device is a rooted Moto G4, running Android 6.0.1
    - The test device had no simcard, so I did not test what happens when the phone receives a phone call when in the application (although the application does ask for permissions to access those calls)

    Findings:
    - The application asks for permissions it doesn't need and doesn't use.
    - The application does gain access to your google drive account, but it is legitimately through Google's OAuth API, which does not let it access files on your Drive, but gives it it's own section to store application configuration and such.
    - There is no evidence that the application is accessing anything on the phone that it doesn't absolutely need to function, not the address book, or contacts, or messages.
    - At heart, the application is just a front end for the website, it pretty much just displays HTML to the user.
    - Interestingly, the HTML is downloaded in a .zip file and saved on your device and then loaded into a webview from the local disk. Not sure why, presumably it's some form of caching or perhaps for offline viewing.

    Process:
    The test device was a rooted Moto G4 running Android 6.0.1. The application was downloaded from apkpure.
    The application was loaded onto the phone using 'adb'. Once installed, 'Frida' (You can find it by searching 'Frida Reverse Engineering') was used to hook core system functions such as file opening functions, HTTP functions and so on, revealing parameters send to those functions along with the results returned by those functions. This gives us a window into the application's behavior as it runs.
    A dummy google account was used to log into the application, while Frida was monitoring it. The application was used for a period of time, as it normally would be and then left open for an extended period of time.
    Note, I did not hack the application, I only monitored it. Even if I had hacked it, it would still be perfectly legal as long as I didn't compromise the online servers the application connects to, which I didn't (and didn't even try).

    Raw Results:
    If anyone would like a copy of the raw results, they are available in csv form here:
    anonfile (dot) com (slash) F770Iebcb5 (slash) qi_activity (dot) zip
    I tried to remove any identifying data to show what email address I used and the test device's IMEI number, but frankly I didn't try that hard. I also changed the password on that email account, and revoked the Qidian app's permissions to that google account to be safe. For the IMEI number, I did a find and replace on it, and replaced it with 11_IMEINUMBER_11, just so you know if you see that in the data set. If you disagree with my conclusions after looking at that file, feel free to PM me or rip me apart publicly, but I probably won't be posting publicly here again (with this account).
     
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  20. WQL

    WQL Member

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    That's okay, as the authorized translator of Castle of Black Iron, I can guarantee my translation quality.Waiting for your reading and thanks for your reading~~If any faults are found in my translation, I will correct them.
     
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