FarmVille 2's meteoric rise to fame slowly turns this week, as players realize they enjoy building restaurants, playing Scrabble and matching candy much more than they do farming.

Actual numbers aside, the composition and positioning of the list as of this writing is exactly the same as last week's. Things are a bit stagnant at the top.

Pretty sure that will all be changing soon.

Most-Played Facebook Games by Daily Active Users — 10/29/2012

Rank	App	DAU
1.	FarmVille 2 Zynga Inc.	8,400,000
2.	Texas HoldEm Poker Zynga	6,000,000
3.	Words With Friends Zynga With Friends	5,900,000
4.	Candy Crush Saga King.com	4,700,000
5.	ChefVille Zynga	3,900,000
6.	Bubble Witch Saga King.com	3,700,000
7.	Diamond Dash Wooga	3,700,000
8.	Bubble Safari Zynga	3,500,000
9.	Dragon City Social Point	3,400,000
10.	SongPop Freshplanet	3,000,000

See the full list and more at AppStats.

There's a starving genre known as the top-down racer. It's home to some of the all-time greats like Micro Machines, and some under-appreciated party games like Mashed (yes, totally serious, play with friends after/during beers).

It's also home, sort of, to Real World Racing, an indie title by Italian studio Playstos Entertainment. While it's got the top-down perspective of more playful games, it's also going for a realistic art style (complete with satellite-sourced tracks) and more serious handling of the cars.

Real World Racing is currently up for voting on Steam Greenlight. You can visit the game's official site below.

Real World Racing [Official Site, via Indie Games]

Food safety has been a huge concern in China as of late. Ever since the melamine dairy scandal broke in 2008, Chinese people have been on the up and up on food safety, so much so that China has even rejected 6 brands of Korean made instant noodles due to allegations that the noodles have carcinogens. However food safety isn't enough, as a young Chinese college student has come down with stomach cancer over, apparently her lifestyle choice of being a gamer.

The 20 year-old college student had developed stomach cancer due to her poor dietary habits, habits supposedly developed because of her love for video games. According to the director of Gastrointestinal Surgery in Hubei Provincial Tumor Hospital, Wei Shaozhong, the young lady developed stomach cancer from pulling all nighters and eating junk food. According to Wei, the majority of what the young lady consumed was instant noodles, Chinese barbecue, and cookies, often times not eating any rice.

After developing pain in her gut, the student, under the urging of her parents, sought out medical help, but by this time she had already developed cancer.

According to her physician (is there no doctor patient confidentiality in China?), the student would play online games and surf the net all night, and would only indulge food when she was hungry. Because she was up at late hours the only type of food presented to her was junk food resulting in her stomach cancer.

This is all well and good, but the Chinese doctor failed to truly link the student's cancer with her love for video games, in fact, all he really did was showing that young people make bad decisions and have poor dietary habits. Wei however does impart one piece of good advice to late night Chinese gamers; he says it's best not to eat street barbecue, particularly when the meat is burnt, as eating burnt meat can lead to a higher intake of benzopyrene, which supposedly can cause cancer.

There's no word on the student's well-being, however, I for one hope that she is well, considering I play games into the wee hours of the night and eat instant noodles by the case load. I'm a journalist, I'm poor, sue me.

通宵上网常吃泡面烧烤 20岁女大学生患胃癌晚期 [China News]

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If you've spent any time on the internet, you've probably seen porn at some point. If you've spent any time watching pornography, you've probably seen Japanese pornography. One thing that's quickly noticeable is how Japanese adult videos are censored. Mosaics cover genitalia. In the future, says one pundit, that will change.

The future being, oh, around the year 2050.

This is according to Setsu Kobayashi, a law professor at the prestigious Keio University. Since 1972, moviemakers have censored genitalia with mosaics to adhere to the country's obscenity laws, which earns the films the NEVA (Nihon Ethics of Video Association) seal.

Like the ethics organizations for, say, adult video games, NEVA is a voluntary group.

As Kobayashi explains to News Post Seven, by 2050 the mosaics will quite possibly not be necessary in adult videos. The rationale is that in America it was proven there is no link between pornography and crime—hence, uncensored pornography in the West. So they're not really necessary per se, and over time, the mosaic will gradually vanish—and is in the process of doing so right now. In the past few years, the mosaic has already gotten smaller and more transparent. Thus, the mosaic is likely to continue to do so.

(It's worth noting that actress Kanako Higuchi, the wife of Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi, broke ground in Japanese censorship regulations by appearing fully nude in a 1991 photobook.)

Even if it's no longer necessary (by 2050!), don't expect it to vanish completely. Kobayashi thinks that it might stay in some form to appease those individuals who prefer watching adult movies with the mosaic, adding that it's a "unique trait" to Japanese adult films.

2050? Screw mosaic-free Japanese porn, we better have flying cars by 2050!

米国AVモザイクなし解禁　日本でも2050年完全自由化の流れか [NEWS ポストセブン]

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Apple's artificially intelligent personal assistant software, Siri, has come under fire by Chinese critics recently over concerns that the program could be used to find "distasteful services".

Since Siri's inception into the Chinese market with iOS 6 in August, Chinese netizens and prudes have complained that Siri has been too functional; now it appears they may have been correct. When prompted about sexual services such as finding a "massage parlor" Siri was able to pinpoint areas close to the user that offer special services. This feature of Siri has drawn the ire of Chinese parents and social watchdogs.

The issue is so large that even State media such as China Daily has commented on it (full disclosure: I work for China Daily). In an article that was published today, October 29, CD interviewed a Chinese lawyer about the legal implications this incident may have for Apple.

"We can only believe the information on Siri is accurate and actually points to sex services, this has not been confirmed by the police," said Wang Xing, a lawyer with a Beijing law firm. "However addresses on Siri have affected the public order and had a negative influence, in other words it has the potential of disobeying if the software cannot be improved."

According to a colleague of mine in Beijing (I am based in Beijing), Sam Zhang, Siri was able to pull up information on the nearest available location that offered sexual services. Zhang says that when he first heard of the news of Siri's "debauchery" he tried it and was shocked at how perverse his neighborhood was.

Prostitution is technically illegal in China but the law is often unenforced, leading to prostitution being part of the hidden norm. There are various locales where people searching for such services can find them and lingo dedicated to circumventing the law. Local Chinese would see a pink massage parlor and think nothing of it, but those seeking a little "action" would know better.

According to the CD and to Zhang, a simple search through Siri, "Search for Sex Services" would draw up 15 of the closest houses of burlesque.

However according to tests done about two hours before this post, it seems Siri is now filtering results. Here in Beijing, we (Zhang and myself) tried four variations on the phrase, "Search for Sex Services", everything from "looking for hookers" to looking for a "happy ending". We even tried the ever popular "Search for Chickens". Each time Siri couldn't find anything and directly jumped to Google web search. After the first web search, Google couldn't be reached. The Chinese internet is heavily censored and Google is prone to being blocked for hours over a bad search.

Chinese news portal Sina.com's reporter said that they were able to get results for sexual services over the weekend but Siri is now coming up blank on Monday. According to the Sina report, Apple said that Siri isn't something that can really be censored and users can set passwords and block certain words themselves; this however seems odd as Apple normally doesn't comment on such things. I've reached out to Apple and haven't gotten an answer on this issue as of this posting (via one text message and phone call).

Whatever the case may be, it looks like as of today China's Great Firewall has gotten the better of Siri. Who knows what they'll censor next? As of this posting, I can no longer find out the number of McDonald's restaurants around my office. The answer is 1; there's also one KFC and two Pizza Huts near me right now.

苹果回应Siri涉黄：不能进行关键词屏蔽 [Sina Tech]

Alarm Raised Over Apple App [China Daily]

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This past weekend, Akihabara maid cafe Schatzkiste morphed from cute to scary. A "Maid of the Dead" event was held, and zombie maids in blood stained aprons staffed the cafe. The undead served special items like eyeball juice and zombie-finger rice omelets.

Have a look at the event, with photos courtesy of Akiba Blog.

シャッツキステでゾンビイベント「Maid of the Dead III」 [アキバBlog]

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A relatively young Chinese couple got married earlier this month on the premise that the world was ending and they didn't want to be alone.

Twenty six year-old Xiao Ai was effectively alone for most of his adult life. Graduating college, Xiao Ai began working as an engineer specializing in automation. Due to the nature and stress of his work, he didn't have a lot of time to mingle and meet women; instead he spent of most of his free time either working or playing video games. It was only a matter of time that Xiao Ai became what in China is called "an unmarried older youth". Chinese society places a lot of pressure on youth to get married and start families.

A little over the October national holiday and "golden week", Xiao Ai was at home playing the Chinese online game God of War (惊天战神). While playing the game, a variation on regular Diablo clones, Xiao Ai met Xiao Fei. Within three days of playing God of War together he decided he wanted to be with this girl. Semi believing the hype that the world was coming to an end on December 23, when love struck, Ai bit the bullet and proposed to Fei.

Fei says that she has never met someone who really cared for her, telling the story about how they met in game. "The game just launched and everyone was everywhere," said Fei. "No one would help me out with the tutorial, and then he showed up. He was very kind."

Fei said that it reminded her very much of the classic Chinese Kungfu story The Return of the Condor Heroes; it was like she and Ai were playing the main characters of the novel, a young couple who fight together and fall in love.

Xiao Ai even used the game to propose to Fei; his very words were, "the world is coming to an end soon, why not get married."

Stunned, Fei said she was upset that Xiao Ai proposed like that, but she didn't know why she said yes. After the proposal the two got on the phone, scheduled a meet and then got married. Supposedly the two are still playing God of War.

两玩家害怕世界末日来袭 游戏认识三天即闪婚 [Tencent Games]

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If you don't know Dream Club, you apparently don't know anything about Japan. Or something!

(Oh, and there's a new Dream Club coming out in 2013. Maybe.)

クール・ニッポン　～日本のおもてなし「ドリームクラブ」とは～ [YouTube]

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Chris Redfield isn't Japanese. If you go by his Wikia bio, the character is a white American. But what if he were Japanese? And more importantly, what if he looked like one of Japan's biggest memes?

Japanese actor Shoei first made his name by appearing in super sentai (Power Rangers) show Seijuu Sentai Gingaman, which was localized into Power Rangers Lost Galaxy in the West.

However, his internet fame didn't explode until 2011, after he appeared on the cover of TV Bros magazine, tears streaming down his face.

After that, Shoei's crying or sad face was Photoshopped onto countless images, with the meme being "Shoei crying while doing something."

That then morphed into Photoshops of Shoei's smiling face tacked on to images—seemingly only to set up the crying image as a punch line.

One Japanese Twitter user brought the Shoei meme to Resident Evil, turning Chris Redfield into a happy Shoei, and then...a very sad Shoei.

In some ways, this is Japan's equivalent of the sad Keanu meme.

クリスと照英さんを遊びで合成しただ [Twitpic]

＜ こ、これでいいんだな？ [Twitpic]

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When Nintendo first announced it was going to introduce paid DLC, the upcoming Animal Crossing for the 3DS seemed like a perfect chance to nickel and dime players. Seemed like one, maybe, but it won't be one, says Nintendo.

In a recent financial Q&A, Nintendo honcho Satoru Iwata talked about paid DLC and Animal Crossing, noting that the power of money could not only impact gameplay, but change it, perhaps even making the experience, as Iwata called it, "unwholesome".

Iwata frequently discussed the issue with the Animal Crossing team, and can now say, "That sort of element [paid DLC] is absolutely not being added."

Fantastic news for Animal Crossing players, who might have been worried that Nintendo would turn AC into some sort of paid add-on nightmare.

Previously, Iwata told Kotaku that Nintendo didn't want gamers to feel "cheated or deceived" by DLC, adding that the paid experience should add to the experience and not detract from it.

2012年10月25日（木）第2四半期決算説明会 [AC]

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