The game certainly captured the attention of youth – in its first week online the video game was downloaded over 100,000 times from the Internet. “The Incorruptible Warrior”, originally designed to support 500 simultaneous users, was in fact so successful, that by 28 July no new people could enter the game due to server congestion. The server has been shut down for upgrade.

Online gamers register as “honest and upright officials”. To work their way through different game levels, players have to capture and kill as many corrupt officials – as well as their sons, daughters and mistresses – as possible. With each death the player wins points which increase his or her “moral character”. The goal is to reach “Paradise” where corruption no longer has a place.

Chinese Official Qiu Yi is quoted in the German newspaper Die Welt as saying: “We wanted the players to have fun with the game, but also that they would learn something about fighting corruption, folklore and history.”

While the principle of teaching youth about corruption is certainly admirable, teaching them to root out corruption by killing the corrupt officials in the game, as well as their sons and daughters is clearly not.

To read more about what the Transparency International movement is doing to teach youth about corruption, please see the latest In Focus on TI’s website at: http://www.transparency.org/news_room/in_focus/2007/back_to_school