An extrordinary protest by young Chinese has taken place. Not against the communist regime or against the persecution of minorities - but against an online expression of capitalism in a virtual world.

Thousands of gamers of the game Hot-Blooded Legend blockaded virtual towns and cities in the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game.

The protester's moved their avatar's en masse into city gates and formed road blocks in an attempt to bring the virtual world to a stand still.

The protest was against the introduction of a newer version of the game, The Legend Returns, which allows players to buy character upgrades for real money, instead of having to fight and work for it like everyone else.

The protest was organised well in advance on gaming community forums and was implemented within minutes of the new game being launched last month.

Fortunately the authorities did not resort to a bloody crackdown by creating new avatars to clear the way into the towns by force.

Instead they used the novel idea of "flying" protestors to deserted regions of the virtual world or by kicking them out of the game.

The phenomenom of virtual MMO's reflecting the real world is occuring with increasing frequency and is fascinating to watch.

In 2005 the MMO game World of Warcaft (WOW) was hit by a deadly "Corrupted Blood" plague.

The plague was supposed to affect only one area of that virtual world but was carried to the rest of the world via the "pets" of characters who became infected in that area.

The disease spread like wild fire, around four million players were affected, with many weaker characters "dying" and whole cities were littered with virtual corpses.

The event allowed scientists to get a glimpse of how such diseases can spread so quickly, but more impotantly of how individuals react in such circumstances.

Some WOW players used their "healing powers" to help others whilst many simply fled to deserted areas of the world to avoid infection. Perhaps disturbingly a few players deliberately got themselves infected and then travelled to the most densely populated areas they could find.