China Reviewing Game Consoles Ban

jones_supa writes "The Chinese government is discussing whether to lift its 12-year ban on game consoles which was established due to fear of harming the physical and mental development of the young. Even during this period consoles have been sold illegally and things like Kinect can be sold for other purposes such as medical treatment and education. Major game console vendors across the world made several attempts but failed to find a way to enter the Chinese mainland market officially, even though they have solid manufacturing bases there. 'We are reviewing the policy and have conducted some surveys and held discussions with other ministries on the possibility of opening up the game console market,' a source from the Ministry of Culture, who asked not to be named, said."

Please don't

[crazyjj]

You're one of the few enemies we can still put into our video games without any real backlash. If you start exerting the kind of leverage over our console makers and developers that you exert over our movie studios [yahoo.com], then all we're going to be left with are North Korea, Iran, and a few of them stan countries. And even the stan countries are starting to bitch [foxnews.com].

Re:

[vlm]

then all we're going to be left with are North Korea

And who's NK's best friend? Nope soon enough we're gonna be stuck with WWII nazis as the only video game bad guys. At least the marketplace never tires of those guys.
Who would ever have guessed that world peace via world trade would be such a bummer?

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[WillAdams]

don't forget aliens and zombies and drug dealers and cartels and mafia and yakuza and of course, corrupt government / intelligence agency insiders....

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[Hsien-Ko]

jiang-shi is one that hasn't hit the fps cliche pool yet.

China only likes NK as they don't want to deal wit

[Joe_Dragon]

China only likes NK as they don't want to deal with them falling and having to deal with all people coming over the boarder.

Also they are tell NK to back off on the nuke tests.

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[usuallylost]

China only likes NK as they don't want to deal with them falling and having to deal with all people coming over the boarder.

I have read a number of times that all of the surrounding governments are terrified that North Korea will collapse. Basically they are all concerned about having to deal with 24 million starving North Koreans.

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[Anonymous Coward]

China isn't NK's best friend anymore. NK has been slamming them in their media ever since China agreed to not only abstain, but support the UN Security Council sanctions following their recent rocket launch. I would say that China hates North Korea but supports them because they don't want to deal with their refugees or lose face. North Korea is China's Israel.

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[aztracker1]

You mean that a lot of China's technology advances come from NK?

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[vlm]

LOL maybe NK isn't China's best friend anymore, but alas China probably still is NKs best friend, despite sibling quarrel.
Who else other than China would be NKs BFF? They really are kinda isolated. I think they like it like that.

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[AdamHaun]

It probably doesn't hurt that North Korea is right on their border. I'm sure they'd rather have their own client state there than an extension of U.S.-backed South Korea.

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[Anonymous Coward]

What? If you did that the US empire would crack down on you? Label you as some unpatriotic terrorist? Disregard the First Amendment?

Well, there's your proof that the US is evil.

I doubt the government will label you anything, but most Americans won't buy your game.

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[mog007]

That's patently false.

Homefront was originally going to depict an invasion of the Chinese army, but the producers were worried about upsetting the Chinese, so the antagonists in the game were changed to North Korea.

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[jandrese]

I wonder if this is what happened with Crysis too? I remember being bothered in that game that the opponent was a highly technological North Korean army who beat the rest of the world to full production on nanosuits. It would have been less jarring to just make up a country out of whole cloth than to to shoehorn North Korea into that role.

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[stms]

Makes sense don't piss off the guy who likes you piss off the guy who already loathes you.

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[GodfatherofSoul]

You didn't see who the US is fighting in the Red Dawn remake did you? It's not China any more for that reason.

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[ElectricTurtle]

In the original movie it was Nicaragua and Cuba alongside the Russians. When it was written it was during a political crisis in Central America. China never had anything to do with it. (Which isn't surprising since China has not been historically expansionist.)

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[BTWR]

In the original movie it was Nicaragua and Cuba alongside the Russians. When it was written it was during a political crisis in Central America. China never had anything to do with it. (Which isn't surprising since China has not been historically expansionist.)

I think the GP meant that the 2012 release was actually filmed as a US vs Chinese invasion. Fearing a Chinese backlash, the invading army was changed to North Korea.

source [telegraph.co.uk]

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[AdamHaun]

You're one of the few enemies we can still put into our video games without any real backlash.

Modern warfare games tend to use Russians and Middle Easterners as villains. I can't think of a game in the last five years that had China as the main villain. Sometimes North Korea is used as a euphemism. I had assumed this was because game publishers wanted to sell to China's growing middle class, but if game consoles are banned that clearly doesn't work.

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[Onuma]

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising?

That's the only one I can think of at all. Battlefield 2 had the Chinese as an enemy, but there was no storyline so it wasn't clear...it was just US Marines vs. Chinese Army (or equivalent).

PC games

[stevenh2]

PC games are common in China for this reason. There is no point in banning consoles.

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[ciderbrew]

Interesting. My game says made in China.

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[Haoie]

Everyone likes to complain about Japanese games not getting exported [no export for you!].

But there are probably countless of Chinese games - of varying quality - not being localised elsewhere.

Nintendo and Sony stocks are surging

[sandytaru]

Or so I heard on NPR this morning. They're probably salivating at the prospects right now.

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[medv4380]

Ok, I see what they're talking about. Not sure if half a point is a Surge just yet. Was MS left out because they think it will go as good in China as it's done in Japan?

Other gaming platforms exist

[Pale Dot]

Even for China, this doesn't make much sense nowadays. PCs and smartphones can be (side) loaded with games similar to those found in consoles.

wat ?

[Keychain]

I m pretty sure my sister brought 2 DS (on two different trip) from china, the first one of those being gifted to her by our cousin (someone living in china). Second one was pretty easy to find too. I actually had no idea that this ban was in place Maybe they're just reviewing it because the law is unenforceable ?

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[jadv]

You should have published this as AC. I'll bet there must be some Chinese Govt shill checking out your profile right now, to find a way to catch your relatives.

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[nitehawk214]

China is the world leader in counterfeit products. They encourage people to buy things there and sell them abroad.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I m pretty sure my sister brought 2 DS (on two different trip) from china

Was it possibly Hong Kong? At least in the past, they got special rules.

You know what else is bad

[slashmydots]

You know what else is bad for young minds? Bullshit propoganda, lies, arrests for virtually no reason, and ruining the environment. As for my amazing proficiency at programming and solving IT problems with critical thinking, you can blame 15 years of video games for that.

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[GodfatherofSoul]

You're taking "bad for young minds" literally. To the Chinese government, that means anything that might lead to less pliable, diligent citizens.

They are readily available, if you really want one

[moondawg14]

I currently live in Beijing. I can have a new console in my living room in less than a half an hour. They're for sale in every major market here. And not really marked up much more than the US price. It was a piece of cake to get a 220V power supply for the Wii when we moved. I think I got it for 40 kuai (about $6) Sure, they'd sell a ton more of them if I could go to Gomez or Sunning..... but the "ban" is surely not keeping them out. Like most regulations here... not enforced at all... or selectively at best.

What Ban?

[j0brien]

I was visiting Shenzen in Summer 2007 when it was still quite difficult to find a Wii on the shelf back in the USA. I saw them for sale at all of the computer/electronics markets. For about the same price as back home, they were chipped and came with any 10 games.

Pointless, repetitive, unrewarding activities

[Rogerborg]

Aren't they also having trouble filling vacancies toiling in the iFactories? Consider it as training.

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[ElectricTurtle]

The US is an information/service economy, physical capacity is irrelevant for anything other than health and being sexually attractive, which you'd think were major until you realize just how lazy people are now.

Not to mention from what I've seen there just seems to be collectively lowered standards. I suppose it depends on which social strata you're in. This might be somewhat reversed by the trend toward nanny-statism which is slowly making being unhealthy illegal. Pretty soon we'll be off of the metapho

Have they banned Atlas Shrugged?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they're worried about stunting the emotional development of their youth, have they banned Atlas Shrugged yet?

ironic

[fluffythedestroyer]

they are allowed to create games and "probably" create console as well but not allowed to sell it in their own country ??? wow ???

Drone Pilots

[sackofdonuts]

They are realizing that they need drone pilots and our gamers are the best in the biz. So they too want to get some of that training for their current and future drone pilots.