Breaking Pangea

"The classroom is probably the worst setting for learning a language," Jia Xie explained. "A classroom setting is very cold, very dead. You don't see a sense to it. Even if you're motivated to learn the language ? it doesn't stick with you."

This discontent fueled Xie, his partner Yang Yang, and the rest of their small team as they worked on Pangea Online, an independent MMO for Chinese language learners. Their plan was to create a fun, browser-based multiplayer game where Chinese learners and speakers could gradually improve their skills.

They would discover they had underestimated the complications involved in designing a language game. They were among the first in a market that barely exists, with no institutional or publisher support, nor the hope of finding any. Before putting their company Techtonic on hold, Xie and Yang even found themselves on the cusp of making the kind of classroom exercise programs they had always hated.