Editor’s note : This is a guest post by Shanghai-based social market researchers Kai Lukoff and Lucas Englehardt from BloggerInsight , a company spun off from  Web2Asia which crowdsources market intelligence through an online expert panel of bloggers. On the Chinese Internet, “harmony” is a euphemism for censorship. Mafia games were “harmonized” over the Summer, for example, as they “embody antisocial behavior like killing, beating, looting and raping” and “gravely threaten and distort the social order and moral standards, easily putting young people under harmful influence” according to the Ministry of Culture. Foreshadowing the government’s imminent policing of social games, Chinese netizens are now picking— not stealing —crops from their friends’ farms. Five Minutes, the developer of the smash hit Happy Farm ( the first SNS farm game ), confirmed that the terms had been voluntarily changed in an interview with BloggerInsight . This comes as the government is “considering specific social gaming laws and regulations, to be enacted as early as next year… to end the chaotic market conditions,” according to ChinaNews , which scooped the story on Wednesday last week. A string of negative press has hit social games in China, which may signal a propaganda campaign by the government to besmirch social games

Original Source of Chinese Government To Police Social Games