Cartoon cow game 'I'm MT' becomes a smartphone sensation in China

A knife-wielding cartoon cow is conquering China - or, at least, that part of the population with a smartphone and enough free time to stab, zap, and slice opponents in an strangely addictive and violent digital card game.

Called I'm MT (MT is the name of the cow), the card game has become a sensation for its ubiquity on smartphone screens, and its creators have gone to great technical lengths to ensure that players never actually have to stop playing.

You can play MT one-handed, while shaving, for example, or gripping the handrail on the bus to work. You can also seamlessly play on the metro, even as your internet connection fades in and out. You can play without even looking at it, such as in a staff meeting, or in lowlight conditions when you should be looking at someone else's presentation, or while your spouse is trying to sleep. You can even pay someone to play for you, if you finally need to get some work done.

China's internet industry is rapidly waking up to the possibilities of completely taking over their users' lives, as mobile internet becomes more popular. "That's the point of mobile, you never have to stop, you can have your game with you 24-7" said Xing Shanhu, the founder and CEO of Locojoy, a Chinese company that created I'm MT.

More interesting is how players are convinced to spend more than just their time. Although I'm MT is a "free" game, users are often seduced into paying startling amounts of money. Locojoy may have the corporate culture of Silicon Valley - all beanbags, ping pong tables and ferns - but it combines that with the sharklike instincts of a Las Vegas casino.

It is one of the most inventive companies when it comes to "monetising" players - the industry's jargon for coaxing cash out of them for the supposedly free game. With 7m active users per month last year, I'm MT was the highest grossing mobile game in China last year, producing Rmb100m in revenues per month for Locojoy and the platforms that support it - a figure comparable to the revenues for Candy Crush Saga , the mobile game created by the recently floated King.com.

This equates to roughly 1 per cent of the total revenues of the entire Chinese mobile gaming industry, according to Analysys, a Beijing based research group. Mr Xing reckons that 10 per cent of his users, the so called "whales", generate 90 per cent of the game's revenues.

Locojoy caters to these big spending users with all the perks of a casino - personalised service, freebies, and even a China-wide I'm MT tournament last October. It flew 32 top players to Beijing at its own expense, put them up in luxury hotels, and offered a range of lavish prizes - the winner received a Mini Cooper sports car.

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Top tier MT players, who spend $10,000 or more a month, are called "whales" - and frequently pay someone more skilled to play their account. Mr Huang, for example, said that when he played in the tournament, he was playing the gaming account of a friend who had invested Rmb90,000 in cards. He estimated the winner, who was also playing someone else's account, had around Rmb150,000 worth of cards.

"The whales are mainly second-generation rich kids, the sons of big bosses, with a lot of free time and money," he said. "They want to show how powerful they are and that is where this competition to spend money comes from."

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Recently, however, regulators have focused their attention on the algorithms used in such mobile games, which critics say are designed to promote an addiction.

In November, China's ministry of culture chastised Locojoy and a dozen other gaming companies for "pseudo gambling" and "tempting its players to pay during the game", using a game mechanic that is similar to roulette.

<>Mr Xing insists his game has nothing to do with gambling, because "there is no way to make money at it". However, he concedes that after the warning from the Ministry of Culture, Locojoy rejigged an algorithm to make it easier to get "powerful" cards in the game without spending so much.

Games companies are at the forefront of efforts to make money off the mobile internet, where most content is still free.

Tyler Cotton, of Wandoujia, a mobile internet search engine headquartered in Beijing, said that the monthly amount spent on mobile gaming per paying user on the site quadrupled between April 2013 and November 2013, from $8 per month to $32. "Gaming is where the money is, it is the main monetisation route for the mobile internet in China" he said.

But Mr Huang, the office worker, said that the removal of the roulette style element, following the Ministry of Culture complaint, has made the game less fun. "Now people are leaving the game because they want this element of risk in their lives" he said.

He is now "semi-retired" from I'm MT after his second place finish. "Now I have done it all, I am looking for a new game" he said.

Formerly a commerce manager for a printer supply manufacturer, he is now looking for work after unspecified differences with his employer: "I have less time to play computer games now than when I was working, because I have to spend time looking for a job" he said.

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