China To Crack Down On "Undesirable" Games 73
The Chinese government is getting ready to launch a new round of content restrictions for online games. Kou Xiaowei, a senior official with the General Administration of Press and Publication, said, "Although China's online gaming industry had been hot in recent years, online games are regarded by many as a sort of spiritual opium and the whole industry is marginalized by mainstream society." The article points out that China has already "banned children from Internet cafes and last year ordered their owners to enforce time restrictions after several cases involving obsessive players dying of fatigue after marathon game sessions." We've also seen Chinese restrictions on player-versus-player content for kids, as well as required content modifications such as removing skeletons in order for games to be sold there.
When in China... (Score:4, Interesting)
HAHAHA you will become US China. I mean U.S. (Score:3, Interesting)
Please slashdotters, click..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Race_(1976_game) [wikipedia.org]
For a little video game history in the US.
Back in the day (3 years after I was born) this little gem of an arcade game was released. It was protest by parents groups, it was on 20/20. This was during that wacky time in the 70's when even stuff like AD&D was considered by some religious extremists to be a "Gateway to Satanic Worship"
OK so granted, our country is now fucked. China exports more goods to the US than we send to them. That's OK though because I see a little bit of history repeating.
Certainly we shouldn't take pleasure in others miseries, but I can't help it. You're (you are china) trying to restrict a game. I should cite some more recent examples, like the "Nintendo Seal of Excellence" where the crosses in the American version of Castlevania were removed.
Hopefully in my inebriated state I've somehow managed to convey a message here, and that message is "So what if they censor games now? The subsequent Chinese generations are going to be just as if not MORE into capitalism and consumerism than today's (just like with the US). At some point, some government official is going to realize that it's a huge waste of money trying to censor everything, and that department will get cut. It will probably have more to do with cost savings than some sort of moral obligation to the population.
Just look at how the internet has changed radio. Howard Stern gave up on terrestrial radio and FCC censorship. Same thing will happen in China. Just watch, and laugh at their governments laudable efforts to control it.
Re:What's with the skeleton hate? (Score:2, Interesting)
So why do they have to censor superstitious things that are supposed to bring bad luck? We don't ban black cats, walking under ladders and so on. Just because it's a "bad omen" isn't really an explanation why they are so adamantly trying to censor it.
Re:What's with the skeleton hate? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can someone who understands Chinese culture a little better than I explain why skeletons are considered so taboo?
I wouldn't really claim to understand Chinese culture, but I did happen to read an article explaining this particular point, so I can give you a second-hand answer.
A very deep issue in Chinese culture and thousands of years of history and mythology, is ancestry and the spirits of ancestors, bordering on ancestor worship. Anywho.... authoritarian regimes tend to take one of two approaches to religion. Either there's Nazi model where they seize upon the predominant religion (evangelical Christianity in the Nazi's case) and impose it in all the schools and throughout society as a tool of power and control by claiming "Gott Mit Uns" (God Is With Us), or there's the Stalin model that seeks to exterminate religion as a competing threat to it's own power and authority.
In Chinese culture the idea that the spirits of The Ancestors might disapprove of government policies and government actions, the idea that The Ancestors might grant strength and power to humble peasantry, to fight and win against an impossibly larger and more powerful (but corrupt) foe.
Think of our Robin Hood story, and cross it with the mythology of pretty much every martial arts movie you have ever seen where some guy beats the crap out of entire armies worth of enemies, and cross that with a mythology that idolizes and idealizes the power and nobility of ancestors, and which believes that the spirits of the ancestors still live and watch over us and that their power can be called upon.
I also think we view skeletons as generic mindless creepy-ghoulies, empty shells animated by magic, but I think they view them more as animated by the spirit of a powerful ancestor. Consider out "Night of the Living Dead" movie mythology, if you see a zombie you just whack it with a shovel, they are only dangerous if you get mobbed. On the other hand imagine a "zombie" who was the full mental-and-spiritual embodiment of King Arthur, you are NOT going to win in combat against him, and if you oppose him you're pretty much automatically "the bad guy".
Hopefully I didn't butcher Chinese culture too badly with my substantial ignorance. The Chinese government is opposed to any and all religion, considering it a threat to their own authority and their own stability. And of course they are most keenly allergic to the most deeply rooted mythologies of their own culture.
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Ancestor Worship (Score:3, Interesting)