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Comments: 235 +- Games: China Enforces Even Stricter Regulation On Games on Thursday November 19, @01:26PM
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by
Soulskill
on Thursday November 19, @01:26PM
from the pong-is-contrary-to-the-common-good dept.
from the pong-is-contrary-to-the-common-good dept.
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censorship
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games
eldavojohn writes "Chinese gamers have a pretty hard life. From crackdowns on 'undesirable' games to bans on gangster games to delayed World of Warcraft expansions, they suffer. The worst part is that in order to qualify for operating in China, you face a maze of conflicting bureaucracy and regulation. Well, it just got a little worse. Now, if you want to operate, you need to hire a 'specialist' to oversee content, and you need to 'enhance socialist values' in your game. They also want to limit in-game marriages and how many player-versus-player combat sessions one can engage in. The circular issued from China's Ministry of Culture contained all the vague verbiage giving them easier reign over who operates and who doesn't. It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?"
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Good for them! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good for them! (Score:4, Funny)
I heard they are banning all Wii games with the word "Party" in the title.
Will they at least let people play Dance Dance Cultural Revolution?
Parent
Of course (Score:3, Interesting)
There are plenty of game developers that would love to capture part of the Chinese market. It's mainly developers that operate a bit too close to prohibited levels of hedonism and a few other touchy subjects that will have problems, and it's not like Chinese need games tailored to them - people taking the effort to make a game could go worldwide if their game won't work in China.
nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?
Are you nuts? It's a market that in a few years will be 5-10 times larger than the US market, taking into account that asian cultures are more open to gaming in general (see Korea for example). If there is any single market in the world that's worth it, it's China.
Other industry has been there, done that. Car manufacturers all knew after the initial surprises that if they open a factory in China, their blueprints will be copied and another chinese factory somewhere else will produce the same cars for a cheaper price. Some stayed out of China for that reason. Until the chinese began to buy cars. Then, they had no choice but to do it, because they couldn't sell on the chinese market without having a chinese factory. They did it knowing full well the damage they'd sustain.
Frankly, ten years from now, game developers will probably wonder whether it's worth the trouble anymore translating their games for the US market.
Re:nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
But developing a game that pushes Socialist values and limits various gameplay could essentially RUIN your sales in every country BUT China.
Is China > 50% of the market?
Will China be > 50% of the market?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
But developing a game that pushes Socialist values and limits various gameplay could essentially RUIN your sales in every country BUT China.
Game? Sales? China? They pay for games in China? Who'd of thunk it....
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haha, people have been saying this since Tiena square. Not happening any time soon; however there form of socialist/market is very interesting, and due mostly to Tienanmen square.
There socialist i the half of income from imports goes into a giant savings that is used to establish and maintain a global business presence.
In effect, any single US company is competing with the whole of China. If we don't adapt to that, then we will be doomed. As long as people are lying about something as simple and obvious as
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You say this like the Chinese government could actually control 1.2 billion people if they really & truly yearned to be free.
The population of China is like the elephant that can be fettered with a thin rope, because heavy chains were used during it's youth. They can only be restricted as much as they *let* themselves be restricted.
Re:nuts (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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You mean China should be growing more slowly and incompetently?
Compared to India, China has been way ahead in terms of economic growth. It took India two decades and a major economic disaster to even approach China's growth and it's still not rivaling it despite another two decades. You know why it took so long? Because India's government was blocked from implementing economic reforms. Yeah, really useful form of government they had.
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That goes without say. But "socialist values"? C'mon, China hasn't been socialist for quite a while now.
Don't equate socialist with dictatorship. There are socialist dictatorships, but there are also socialist societies that are no dictatorships as well as dictatorships that are anything but socialist.
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Exactly what does controlling information and oppressing citizens have to do with Socialism?
For that matter, what does the government of the PRC have to do with Socialism? Their situation looks a lot more like crony capitalism and kleptocracy mixed with old fashioned totalitarianism than a system where the workers control the means of production and allocate resources toward the common good...
Re:nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
But developing a game that pushes Socialist values and limits various gameplay could essentially RUIN your sales in every country BUT China.
#ifdef REGION_CHINA
gameRules.PVP = false;
gameRules.GroupRules.Max += 5;
#endif
If Duke Nukem puffs on a cigar to a backdrop of the US flag in a cutscene, I'd see either the content re-rendered with a different flag texture or just removed outright. The commercial response to censorship will be the cheapest and shortest workaround to get within the law, not a group-up redesign.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You have to consider the fact that games like Grand Theft Auto 4 and Assassin's Creed are not even capable of being released in China - not just because of particular things in the game which could be set by a configuration file or bypassed with a boolean (the main character is Slavic, shooting of 'Triad' gang members), but because of the raw nature of the gameplay itself. Granted, GTA IV is a very visceral example, but with these new restrictions, China is now going
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Is China > 50% of the market?
>>>Will China be > 50% of the market?
1.3 billion Chinese versus 0.4 billion Americans/Canadians + 0.5 billion Europeans + 0.1 Japanese
57% > 43%
Yes China will be >50% of the developed world's market. That's assuming they don't stumble due to an oil crisis (oil becoming scarce) which would prevent them from reaching US/EU/JP level of advancement.
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Are you nuts? It's a market that in a few years will be 5-10 times larger than the US market, taking into account that asian cultures are more open to gaming in general (see Korea for example).
I may be a bit touched in the head to suggest staying out of the Chinese market to avoid unclear penalties and becoming a government tool, but I'm not crazy enough to generalize that many people or even try to compare Korean (I assume you imply South Korean) culture to Chinese culture. That's a brazenly occidental view of the world. Are you an expert on both?
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That's the China fallacy (Score:5, Insightful)
"China's going to be a HUGE market!" is the China fallacy, which operates with the assumption that consumers in China are like consumers elsewhere, and that as soon as they get money they will become a gold mine.
That is a fallacy that's been going on for three to four hundred plus years, and contributed directly to the downfall of the Qing Emperor, the Open Door policy, and all the other problems that China's been trying to recover from for the last hundred years. See, China's culture is very nationalistic and one of their flaws is that they believe they are the center of the Earth. In the mercantile age, that meant that China always exported its goods but would only accept silver from the West because western goods were always seen as 'inferior'. It almost bankrupted the British Empire, and did significant economic damage to the other Western countries, so they retaliated by basically taking over China's ports (and the whole country) to boot.
To assume that once THIS happens then China will open up to the West is wrong. China will continue what it's doing right now with the currency, and with it's trade policies: accepting money (in the form of Treasury debt and other convertibles) and exporting its goods without buying our goods, because they do not want to be 'dependent' on us. This is at the heart of the Chinese currency manipulation problem - that China is doing exactly what it did 200+ years ago - hoarding monetary assets while not accepting imports from us and slowly bankrupting us. They're not doing it out of spite, they're doing it because to them, all other countries and cultures are 'inferior' to a degree and they want to be the center of the world - and the center never accepts help from the edges.
That's why the best route for developers is to ignore China. Don't buy into the fallacy, because then you force China to accept your goods, and in doing so, you fix the imbalance.
Parent
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Someone else knows Chinese history!!!
Yes, to everything you said. Just a little low-hanging fruit that you missed (but probably know), though:
China doesn't just believe they are the center of the Earth; that's what the country is named. Westerners often wax quaint and endearing to the "Middle Kingdom," but that first character can mean "middle," but here it means "central." It isn't "Middle Kingdom;" it's "Central Nation!"
The emperor used to make Western envoys dance for his pleasure to secure trade c
Best Plan Ever? (Score:3, Insightful)
How about I develop a game that caters EXACTLY what the Chinese government would like, and then they use their overpowered censorship and propoganda to promote it and only it...
Question Marks
Profit?
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How about I develop a game that caters EXACTLY what the Chinese government would like, and then they use their overpowered censorship and propoganda to promote it and only it...
Question Marks
Profit?
That's a very profitable idea but you might want to consult with IBM [ibmandtheholocaust.com] about how history views those who comply with fascism for monetary return.
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I don't think you know what fascism is if you're suggesting that the Chinese government fits the label.
Re:Best Plan Ever? (Score:4, Informative)
I disagree with your assertion. China, with its definite nationalism and its growing corporatism, really is starting to look a lot more National Socialist than socialist. There are some facets of historical fascism that China does not match, but not even all of the reputedly fascist regimes had all of those facets. For instance, strong racism was more of a specialization of Nazi Germany. Fascist states likely Italy and Vichy France, pretty much followed the German lead on racism. Spanish fascism was much less racial and more of a religious/corporatist alliance.
The great hallmarks of fascism are totalitarianism, nationalism and coordination of the economy by cooperating with big business instead of taking it over. There is also a concept of strength being its own goal. China does not really have a long history of corporations like the West does, but once it does have this sort of basis, it could well turn into something very close to the structure of the fascist countries of the 20th Century. Certainly, China is very much looking to increase its strength in as many ways as possible, and is certainly not against doing so at the expense of other nations.
Needless to say, with a country as big as China and the fact that it is rapidly becoming a gigantic market that the old fascist countries could never dream of being, China's system may well merit its own label, but I think fascist is certainly a more accurate term than communist, or even socialist. After all, as someone pointed, there are socialist states and parties that are democratic and not overly nationalist.
Parent
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That's a very profitable idea but you might want to consult with IBM [ibmandtheholocaust.com] about how history views those who comply with fascism for monetary return.
Interesting that you mention a historical example but fail to note the modern-day examples. Yes, I'm looking at you Google, Yahoo, and Cisco.
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That's a very profitable idea but you might want to consult with IBM [ibmandtheholocaust.com] about how history views those who comply with fascism for monetary return.
I would definitely compare IBM's assistance in identifying, tracking and cataloging people for the Nazis during the Holocaust to PvP restrictions in World of Warcraft.
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Huge Market, really? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is a software market in China? I mean one that generatess actual money, and doesn't just pirate everything?
I guess 2% of a billion is a pretty big number.
They ignore one thing (Score:2)
...none of those regulations apply to their goldfarming services targeted to large First World markets.
How to enhance socialist values in games (Score:2, Funny)
1. If you are playing the Call of Duty campaign and you pick up an ammo pack, you only get 1/10 of the ammo and the rest go to your NPC squadmates. If you point out that they are idiotic clowns that never pick up ammo to give to you in return, it's "Game Over" as you are sent to a reeducation camp to rid you of your bourgeoiseity.
2. In Resident Evil, all the money you collect to buy items will instead be melted down to produce a golden plow. Instead, which weapons you get in the store depends on how badly y
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If you're talking typical theory, socialism is simply a transitionary stage towards communism.
Canada and Sweden prove you wrong. Both countries have very strong social values (incredibly high income tax, many other taxes, amazing benefits for the unemployed/unemployable, subsidized health care, education, etc). Neither country is on the verge of turning "communist" any time soon.
Blah blah blah from the government (Score:5, Insightful)
They want you to be in violation of something. With all the legislation, it is impossible to comply with every single law without driving yourself out of business. Everyone knows it, and the Chinese government (at central, provincial, city, and district levels, which are all different and have little relation with each other) knows it too. They like knowing that they can shut you down at any time, but are usually content to let things go as long as you play ball. This kind of ball-play can be laissez faire for years or it can be an "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further" kind of situation. You really have no way of knowing how it will turn out, and the government likes it like that. This is why it's so important to have buddies in government who can warn you of upcoming problems or give you some lamb's blood to mark yourself so the inspectors pass you over. I had one high muckety-muck vice-director of the municipal propaganda ministry hold my product in his hand as if he were weighing it, and said it was about 80% legal. I couldn't puzzle it out, either it's legal or illegal, how can legality be a percentage, and a guess at that! Later I got it...I felt pretty dumb. It was obvious, only my cultural blinders kept me from seeing it.
And to those of you who are already hitting "reply" to say "durr, just like my country only my country is much worse", do you have a ministry of culture whose job it is to enhance socialist values? With lawyers and truncheons if necessary? You can joke all you like about capitalism taking over but there are plenty of true-believer Mao-worshipping socialists in the government.
Desireable means their profit and agenda first. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No PVP? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, as with all business in China you just have to know who to bribe.
Parent
Bribes (Score:4, Informative)
The funny thing is, by reading Slashdot, one gets the impression that the CCP (and thus the gummint) has clamped down on everything.
Yet, I know people who travel there regularly and they state, you can get anything you want as long as you know where to go or who to talk to. Much is readily available in stores which is supposedly banned.
China may pass laws, but the enforcement is a whole different matter.
Parent
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So it's like our country - tons of laws that are rarely enforced, until the politicians decide to "make an example" of someone and then they use those laws to arrest anyone they desire to arrest, because we're ALL guilty to breaking at least one law. China's more like us than different.
BTW, why isn't China bankrupt yet? Perhaps it's because they watched the Soviet Union communist government fall, and they decided to evolve into a fascist state (privately-owned capitalist companies, but with strict central
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you're kidding right?
Bribery and corruption are accepted in many Eastern (and Middle Eastern) cultures. everyone does it, and if you don't, you don't get to play.
when someone tries the same thing in the US or Europe, they always end up facing charges or at the very least looking for work somewhere else. if money buys immunity, then why did Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, etc. all end up prosecuted?
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There's a few sad exceptions I know of - all to do with the British arms industry. Last year, BAE was being investigated for bribery to a Saudi Prince (well known corrupt tosser [wikipedia.org] Prince Bandar, but the British Government intervened directly to halt the investigation. Everybody and their dog knows that BAE are guilty - and the bribes amount to US$2bn [independent.co.uk]. TheNew Labour government would eat poo if BAE Systems told them to. They have no pride where that company is concerned.
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when someone tries the same thing in the US or Europe, they always end up facing charges or at the very least looking for work somewhere else. if money buys immunity, then why did Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, etc. all end up prosecuted?
Madoff? REALLY are you that brainwashed? Do you have any idea how long that man was stealing money? The only reason ANYTHING happened to him was because of the crash.
Enron? EVIL CEO Skilling is being held in a low-security prison in Englewood, Colorado. Enron's bankruptcy in 2001 eliminated more than 5,000 jobs and $1 billion in employee retirement funds. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months but that's being reduced sloowly now that no one is paying attention. I think it's now down to 15 years af
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The biggest difference between bribery and corruption in China and in the West. When the finally do prosecute the people who took bribes and corrupted government they also pursue those people who paid the bribes, in fact the greater focus is on the one paying the bribe. In China where corruption charges are largely driven by politics (the majority are corrupt when your out of favour, you just get convicted for it) the people paying the bribes are pretty much forgotten about.
As for China being a large mar
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my point is that as a culture, the West as made an effort to rein in these abuses by the rule of law, as it makes our economy a less-dangerous place to do business than, say, a country that will nullify your contracts
You have an overly optimistic or perhaps an overly localized view. Is it perhaps the case that you are inured to the ritualized abuse that we engage in as a matter of course?
Do you work for a company that employs lobbyists? Does your company comply with certification requirements by "working with" regulatory agencies to craft inspection guidelines? Do you think that money among other considerations doesn't get exchanged? Do you think it only happens in small quantities? Do you wonder how one goes about gett
Re:No PVP? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
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PvP cuts into the gold-farming time - gotta keep pushing the GDP up!
Mechwarrior 3 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:All about palm greasing (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent up. This law is basically saying "You must hit all of these subjective benchmarks." That's code for "You must pay us enough money to agree that you are hitting all of these subjective benchmarks."
Laws are rarely about what's good for the people. They're usually about what's good for the lawmakers. Occasionally the two coincide.
Parent
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By "take games seriously" are you referring to the people in their 20s that still spend all their spare time playing games? They need to grow up?
Or do you mean the people that think games have are extremely influential on people... you think they need to grow up?
Whether or not PvP is good or bad is one argument, but arguing that games don't really influence people is ridiculous. If nothing else, it consumes their time, for better or worse. Games - and all entertainment - is not a neutral activity, just