Battlefield 4 Banned In China 380
hypnosec writes "The Chinese government has officially banned Battlefield 4, stating that Electronic Arts has developed a game that not only threatens national security of the country, but is also a form of cultural invasion. The country's Ministry of Culture has issued a notice banning all material retailed to the game in any form, including the game itself, related downloads, demos, patches and even news reports. According to PCGames.com.cn [Chinese language], Battlefield 4 has been characterized as illegal game on the grounds that the game endangers national security and cultural aggression."
Banning cultural invasion (Score:2)
What are they, French?
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I'm waiting for Battlefield 4 - Foxconn Rising
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I would like nothing more than to destroy Foxconn!
In the game...of course.
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Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam (Score:5, Informative)
If you're refering to WW2, they didn't surrender immediately. They were one of the first to declare war on Germany after the unprovoked German invasion of Poland. True, their government surrended soon after - but even then much of the french military defied the order and continued fighting, simply joining forces with whichever local allied power would accept their aid. Their civilian resistance effort also went down in legend - a campaign of intelligence gathering, covert communication and outright sabotage that significently hindered German efforts to transport troops and material through the country and brought vital information to the allies.
Their surrender, though quick, was not given easily: It was only forced by a series of catastropic strategic defeats. It was only when the German army was standing at the fringe of a defenceless Paris that the surrender was hastily given, with government leaders fearful of the immense loss of civilian lives (Not to mention their own) should the capital be attacked.
Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam (Score:4, Informative)
That the French surrendered immediately is the largest bs imaginable.
They asked for an armistice the much larger Germany after over a month of brutal fighting, after they lost 360 000 soldiers (excluding prisoners) and over 2000 planes (although some of them were British).
After their army had been destroyed (for various reasons but cowardice wasn't one of them), after their logistics had been damaged beyond repair.
In that one month almost as many French soldiers were killed or wounded as the Americans during the entire ww2.
Those soldiers didn't die because of wine overdose. Those planes didn't rust on the ground.
They killed or wounded over 150000 Germans, destroyed over 1000 German planes. Just in that one month. Not bad for the first years of the WW2. They certainly were better and more effective fighters than the Soviet soldiers in the first months of Barbarossa.
During the Great War they almost single handedly hold up the Germans for years for the price of millions killed or maimed.
Please don't spread that bs, it was the staple of the Nazi propaganda in the occupied territories, and later of the Soviet propaganda in the Warsaw pact countries.
In the 1940 France was fighting as courageously as any other nation. The later defeat looked as bad as any defeat: in Philippines, at Smolensk or Stalingrad - because it was a defeat, not because they were Frenchmen.
And I'm not a Frenchman, never even been there too.
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Gee, just because they've been around for almost 5 times as long?
Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam (Score:4, Informative)
Well, both were political decisions and nothing wrong with them.
The US left Vietnam because the fight there was more and more pointless. But certainly it wasn't a sign of weakness. After all the American intercontinental missiles were as deadly and accurate as ever.
They lost a battle but the simultaneous detente with China showed the Soviets their place.
A battle was lost but shortly afterward the Soviets were losing one political battle after another anyway.
France still existed after the armistice, and both the UK and the US were maintaining friendly relations with her.
There is nothing wrong with admitting defeat after a good fight. France asked for an armistice after the best French armies were destroyed, after the fight had become pointless, after the defence of her territory and the civilian population wasn't possible anymore.
Exactly as the American soldiers during the battle of Chosin Reservoir.
Maybe it was a mistake but it was their mistake.
But the small France (in comparison with Germany) and millions of her fallen soldiers in both wars don't deserve the "one french rifle never fired, only dropped once" treatment.
The destroyed German planes weren't available over London a few months later.
The first class, prewar trained German soldiers, the destroyed - by the French or simply by wear and tear equipment weren't available in Russia.
Among them the thirteen most modern German Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs, destroyed in minutes during the battle of Stonne by a single French tank commanded by captain Pierre Billotte - despite being hit by 140 antitank rounds.
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Thank you for this. It's refreshing to see a comment that's based on, you know, actual knowledge of history rather than on somebody else's uninformed opinion.
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Americans surrendered in Vietnam
Actually no. The US left as part of a peace agreement [wikipedia.org] which the North Vietnamese violated by invading and conquering South Vietnam with tanks and infantry divisions. Just another case of communist aggression and lying.
Interestingly China invaded Vietnam several years after North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam. It wasn't a pleasant experience for them.
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Americans surrendered in Vietnam
Actually no. The US left as part of a peace agreement [wikipedia.org] which the North Vietnamese violated by invading and conquering South Vietnam with tanks and infantry divisions. Just another case of communist aggression and lying.
Indeed... because communist aggression and lying looks so different from capitalist aggression and lying....
Really; your argument doesn't hold together. It's just another case of aggression and lying -- governing style doesn't even have to come into it.
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Communists have the unique distinction of killing approximately 100,000,000 people [harvard.edu] in the last century. Revolution, class warfare, and the extermination of class and state enemies are a pattern repeatedly demonstrated in communist rule, often followed by attempts to export the revolution to other places. It is built into the ideology.
The Soviet Story [sovietstory.com] is informative. - Excerpts [youtube.com]
When a kinder, gentler communism arises, a "socialism with a human face [coldwar.org]," the brotherly "socialist," i.e. communist, nations invad
Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam (Score:4, Informative)
Communists have the unique distinction of killing approximately 100,000,000 people [harvard.edu] in the last century.
Quoting "The black book of communism"? Really? That books is considered a joke by many scholars, lets say that it is at least controversial [wikipedia.org]. Even if you argue 100mil victims of communist regimes, you can hardly say that it is a "unique distinction". Capitalism has killed much more, fasism has had its share too. It is a mute arguement. If you want to argue against communism/capitalism/fasism, etc, at least do it with some serious arguments like the economics, liberties, their feasibility, which system is more just, etc.
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The capitalists dont tend to leave tens of millions dead of starvation in their wake. Lets please not gloss that over, its sort of a big deal.
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America had promised [wikipedia.org], as part of that agreement, that we'd bring air support to Saigon if the North did invade. They did, and we didn't.
Politicians lie, intentionally or not, regardless of what party they associate with.
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In 1973 the US did aid South Vietnam. In 1975 the Democrats in congress sold American allies down the river, banning even medical supplies for them. They almost did it again in Iraq in 2007. The Democratic party earned the mistrust of the American people on national security matters for a reason.
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That "peace agreement" was an instrument of surrender in all but name, and everyone on all sides knew it.
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Sort of like how Lyndon Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tomkin incident?
Not quite. They key part is here: "....it concluded[7] that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2 ..."
There clearly was a meaningful naval engagement on one day, but they were mistaken about events on the second day. Calk it up to the fog of war, it happens. There are many unknowns, uncertainties, and mistakes that occur in warfare. You don't have perfect knowledge, and the enemy tries to fool you. Electronic equipment is not infallible and is subject to miscalibration, spoofing
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And in effect surrendered to the Chinese who were supporting the Viet Cong and forcing communism on the entire country.
There were probably times during the war when Chinese soldiers were fighting directly with US troops.
Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam (Score:5, Informative)
We stopped the communist threat
In what way? The entire country of Vietnam became communist after the end of the war.
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Assuming that it would ever have done so in the first place...
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By "communist forces" do you by any chance mean people defending their own country, first from the French, then from the U.S.? That is a pretty honorable thing to do unlike, for example, invading a country and killing people that were no threat to you, any of your friends or anyone else in your country.
As for 'stopped the communist threat', you do know we lost, right? Perhaps not.
Re:Americans surrendered in Vietnam (Score:5, Informative)
North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam before the US ever got there -- not at all unlike how North Korea's invasion of the South started that war.
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There was a very significant indigenous resistance force in South Vietnam in the '50s and '60s. That was not true in Korea in the '50s.
Besides, why wouldn't the North want to reunify the country after partition had been forced on them by the imperialist French and their allies.
The Vietnam War was STUPID.
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The U.S. had hundreds of soldiers in the South by 1955, and thousands by 1960. The French, of course, had hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the South in the early 1950s, until a string of military defeats forced them to withdraw. It's not like the West was just minding its own business when North Vietnam suddenly invaded a previously-entirely-independent South, forcing the West to respond. The West was already there with a large military presence since the '40s, supporting a series of corrupt (not to men
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That is exactly what your communists did, invading the South. And don't say it was Vietnamese stopping US imperialism, because the fight was US vs. Soviet imperialism.
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Their tactic of only playing french music didn't work so well either. Culture isn't something you can protect with legislature.
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I wasn't trying to mock France. I just thought the similarity of their approach to cultural preservation was noteworthy.
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Granted, commercialization has its natural home here. But in the end, I think our whole-hearted embrace of greed just speeds up the process somewhat. All life is about sucking up resources, and most likely doomed to end in a race to the bottom.
"Ministry of Culture" (Score:5, Funny)
Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.
Re:"Ministry of Culture" (Score:5, Funny)
Someone needs to tell these idiots that 1984 wasn't meant to be a manual.
If you mean the NSA, don't worry, they just got your message loud and clear.
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In 1984 popular culture was generated by machine algorithm, and people happily hummed along with the nonsense. I think it's a bit late already to prevent that from happening...
Re:"Ministry of Culture" (Score:4, Funny)
Travel... (Score:3)
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Why would you want to? With the recent spate of news stories on pollution problems in China it reminds me of New Jersey.
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Re:Travel... (Score:5, Funny)
more specifically, Shanghai makes New Jersey look like some sort of garden state.
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Banning... (Score:5, Funny)
You'd think they would have banned it elsewhere until it was at least finished!
Not the first time (Score:2, Funny)
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Re: Not the first time (Score:2)
don't confuse japan with china, you insensitive clod!
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don't confuse japan with china, you insensitive clod!
He's not. You're thinking of Tentacle Larry.
What about Russia and U.S.? (Score:2)
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Give Putin about 5 minutes and he'll have a law ready to sign banning the game and promoting his new health and fitness photos. [telegraph.co.uk]
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It's the single player campaign that China likely has an issue with, which is strictly one-sided in portraying China as the enemy.
Re:What about Russia and U.S.? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What about Russia and U.S.? (Score:5, Informative)
Voicing an opinion that results in the game developer changing the title of one side of the fight is a far cry from making the game illegal. Medal of Honor was not banned and EA was not forced to remove "Taliban" from the game, they simply did so because they felt it was the right thing to do profitwise after hearing said opinions.
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It's ok China... (Score:2)
Irony anyone?
Re:It's ok China... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's ok China, you can ban the game just keep in mind that millions of BF 4 players are enjoying the game on Chinese manufactured equipment. Irony anyone?
Umm, since their intent is to prevent Chinese from getting ideas, and they do like the revenue from manufacturing computers for the rest of the world, and would probably prefer that other countries' youth wasted their time on games instead of studying, then...
No, that's not ironic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony [wikipedia.org]
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cultural aggression (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't know about BF4 in particular, but they sure are right about "cultural aggression". The most successful invasion the USA is continually running on the rest of the world isn't military.
I live in Europe. Most of the Americans view us as socialists, mostly because there used to be a cultural difference between Europe and the USA. Where in the US the basic concept is "everyone makes his own luck", Europe has a bigger focus on the social units you belong to - the family at the lowest level, the nation at the highest. That's why we have healthcare and unemployment benefits and all that, because we care for each other in addition to ourselves.
Both models have advantages and disadvantages. In the US, you can make it, there are more options for venture capital or starting your own company in general, and less obstacles. At the same time, the path is smaller and more dangerous. And if you fall, you fall alone.
But things change. With the constant battering from Hollywood, music, comics and other cultural exports, Europe is in crisis primarily because old and new social concepts are clashing, and we are the battlefield.
Now imagine Asia, where the social groups are even more important than the individual. What kind of havoc a US-spirit can wreck there.
Re:cultural aggression (Score:5, Insightful)
You're absolutely right.
Even here in Canada, we're seeing an emergence of increased cultural aggression from the US and many American companies are trying to bring their American values to Canada. Traditionally, we're valued our social programs, healthcare and unemployment benefits as a cultural force that has helped us to provide better governance and lifestyle to the vast majority. The American (corporate) values are really starting to push the view of letting the aggressive superstar individual succeed and everyone else fail. I'm sorry if anyone is offended but today's American values tend to let the entire middle class suffer and hurt the lower class significantly. The old adage that the rich get richer and the poor stay poor has been tilted to the extreme in today's economic reality.
Don't get me wrong - I love the US. But they tend to think that democracy and capitalism are one and the same and that's not true. People don't exist to serve artificial constructs like corporations. People exist to help serve and better the human race and too often we forget this as we struggle in our daily lives. I want my children to live in a better world than the one that I grew up in and I don't see it happening today. The US concept of democracy has been perverted by corporate interests and aggressive corporate lobbying. Candidly, I think the world is a more violent, aggressive and dangerous place to live in today than it has been in the past. That being said, it's still better than anything coming out of the cultural toilet that is the Middle East, China and Russia.
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The one day I don't have mod points. As a Canadian, +insightful/informative to you, AC.
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What you aee seeing in Canada isn't American caused. It's a multi-billion dollar propaganda campaign being executed on all English speaking nations by an Austrailian media magnate. Canada has been lowest on list and is only now seeing the effects, it actuslly started in Austrailia moved to the UK and US then into Canada. It's one of the most successfull propaganda campaigns I've ever seen.
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Don't get me wrong - I love the US. But they tend to think that democracy and capitalism are one and the same and that's not true.
This, and your first paragraph, I absolutely agree with. but...
People don't exist to serve artificial constructs like corporations. People exist to help serve and better the human race
Here you have begun to project your desires of how you wish other people thought. People exist because we are biological organisms in this living universe. Or people don't exist because their would-be parents lived in a region of the living universe that wasn't able to support their successful breeding.
Candidly, I think the world is a more violent, aggressive and dangerous place to live in today than it has been in the past.
Really? I'm sure it depends on your geographic region, but here in the U.S. I remember *common* crime being more prevalent before the rise of
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I love how I am suposta bend over backwards and make everyone's lives better, but yet I dont see it happening for me
You don't have to "bend over backwards" to make other people's lives better. The cost to pay fast food workers a living wage works out to less than 50 per combo meal; is that "bending over backwards"?
What we as a nation have to realize is that if we took the resources we currently put into killing people halfway across the world and focused instead on improving the lives of our own citizens, we'd be far better off.
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American cultural influence is largely based on individuals having choice
And science is rapidly proving how much that "free choice" is an illusion and how dramatically you are influenced by even small environmental factor.s
If you find out that your ideology is based on a wrong assumption - what do you do?
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Clashing? Do explain
I did. It's clearly seen in the attitude towards unemployed. When I was young, unemployed people were helped and supported. It was clear they had put money into the unemployment benefits system when they were employed, so they were entitled to their benefits now. The task of the government was to play matchmaker between companies looking for people and people looking for jobs.
Today, the credo is that unemployed people are lazy bastards and need to be pressured into getting a new job. The government is watch
Unsurprised (Score:2)
Battlefield 4's storyline includes a Chinese admiral attempting to overthrow the Chinese government. You're not allowed to suggest those sorts of things.
Missed Opportunity (Score:2)
EA should have worked with the Chinese government to produce a version where you can invade Taiwan, Japan, and if you do really well, North Korea,,,
Jana (Score:2)
"Released in October, Battlefield 4 is available in North America, Europe, Jana, Australia, and New Zealand, and was not officially launched in China."
What is this Jana they speak of?
Games and Movies are people's Imaginary Friends (Score:4, Insightful)
China is smart to do this. People are far too shut-in these days. Look how much entertainment has expanded and filtered in the niches of everyone's lives. It does not always have a positive effect on individuals (does the news even bother to cover stories of MMORPG recluses any more or is it now to be taken for granted?) and therefore nor does it always have a positive effect on populations.
Consider the effect that a film like "V for Vendetta" has had on activism itself. The iconic Guy Fawkes mask and the anonymized approach to public activism leaked directly from the film into peoples' lives, who took it seriously and decided to implement it in a fashion.
Consider the effect that video games have on what you decide to talk about with people when you're out shopping, or at work, or at school, just "hanging out", and so on. For many people, about the only people they wouldn't talk about their video games with would be their parents, who would grow weary of the subject and try to divert them to something "more productive". And that HAS to be a dwindling case, considering how many life long gamer are now parents of kids old enough to game passionately.
People fall in love with "weighted companion cubes" (despite the dead bodies inside). [youtube.com] People spend a great deal of time meditating on whether the cake is a lie or whether there is no spoon.
When you add in a dimension of possible political opinion and conflict to an immersive game, it also adds those political opinions and conflicts to the discussion. With things in China as bad as they are right now, in many districts, it would be a bad idea to entertain people with some game depicting "the day after tomorrow" sort of mayhem that no doubt many of them wish was real today.
Because that is what they would be talking about around the water cooler, or out shopping, or while stocking the coal cellar, or while cooking, or at school. Especially the at school part, that's sort of what China's mostly concerned about. Remember it was students who were active in Tiananmen Square.
Every day, in the United States, I shake my head in shame at how many people are operating in their daily lives on a level of cinema fantasy running through their heads. It's not that they watch too many movies or that the content of the movies is wrong somehow, it's that they take what they've watched far too seriously and for whatever reason they've also adapted it to fit their self image and their perception of what their life actually is.
It's easy to defend these people as "needing heroes", and "needing to be heroes", and so on. But it's not easy to defend people who aren't aware of their surroundings and who aren't concerned with real events and real consequences in real life, no in any sense of the word "defend". And plenty of people -- who don't have self-image and self-esteem issues, or who aren't trying to take reality escapism to a whole different level -- enjoy their hero sagas and their epic struggles as things separate from real life. It's not those people that draw my concern, it's the growing number of others who get completely absorbed and proceed to live in a psychological bubble composed of entertainment imagery.
Case in point, "thug life", which is a cultural mainstream even in neighborhoods where there's no threat of actual gang activity and where there are plenty of opportunities for a better life. It's even a mainstream with little white upper class girls in grade school who obviously aren't going to cap anybody and if they wanted to count stacks they could learn accounting and investment from their millionaire parents. There's something lacking in someone's life besides monetary value and secure social networks, when they emulate being a thug ostensibly in pursuit of money and social standing, even when they have ready access to plenty of both.
It's expensive to get a rich man's money, but, it's cheap to fill a poor man's pockets.
Reminds me of another ban in another country (Score:4, Interesting)
This story reminds of the game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames [wikipedia.org] which takes place in Venezuela. The game was promptly banned a it was believed to be propaganda against Hugo Chavez, the president at the time. That was in 2006. Venezuela since banned all violent video games in 2010 [wikipedia.org]
Re:First Shot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:First Shot (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).
Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.
Re:First Shot (Score:4, Interesting)
It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Perhaps the Chinese government are actually astute and realise that their ability to control the Chinese people is fragile and anything, even a fictional representation of insurrection could tip them over the edge into thinking 'hey, why not actually do this!?' ... or perhaps they're simply paranoid. Either way, it doesn't bode well for them, if this is what they consider a threat. If it's the former it will happen sooner or later. And if it's the latter, paranoia, they'll create a self-fulfilling prophecy by doing things like this (and, of course, much worse).
Flexible democracy is the best systems for a stable society, not a brittle authoritarian regime.
Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
Re:First Shot (Score:4, Informative)
Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
They already did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Gettysburg [wikipedia.org]!
At least twice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Antietam [wikipedia.org]!
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I think your missing the part about it being relative to our time.
Re:First Shot (Score:4, Insightful)
You didn't read the request, did you. He said "that takes place in our time". The first ga,e is a civil war re-enactment. The second link game also does not take place in the modern world.
What he's asking for is a game where large numbers of players are tasked with a mission to, for example, successfully capture the White House and take the President as prisoner, killing lots of US soldiers along the way. That's much harder to find, though I think in some of the Call of Duty games you can play the part of the Russians and attack the US. That's not the default mode though.
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Try asking EA to develop a game where the US masses rise up against the legitimate authority in Washington DC (that takes place in our time) and see how well that goes.
There was a game trailer a year ago that gave me some hope. :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93-gWrh-MFk [youtube.com]
unfortunately in the real game its the other way around and you are the bad guy killing brave freedom fighters
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It's not that, though. It's that the game allows players to (gasp) imagine attacking China.
Is there any US game where I can (gasp) bomb NY, invade Washington DC, help set up Communism or Sharia in the country? I'm not saying that censorship is acceptable, but I can understand why they're upset.
Re:First Shot (Score:4, Informative)
"Battlefield 4's single-player Campaign takes place in 2020, six years after the events of its predecessor. Tensions between Russia and the United States have been running at a record high. On top of this, China is also on the brink of war, as Admiral Chang, the main antagonist, plans to overthrow China's current government. If he succeeds, Chang will have full support from the Russians, bringing China to the brink of war with the United States." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battlefield_4#Setting_and_characters [wikipedia.org]
Re:First Shot (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese were invaded by Western powers in the recent past, so you can see why they're touchy on the subject. They're pissed about the opium wars, and they're pissed at the exploitative and heavy-handed behaviour of the West up to the point when they left. At the summer palace near Beijing there are signs everywhere showing you what it was like before it was torched by the French and the English. They don't forget this shit. The cultures gelled less in China than they did in India. At least there was some cross-cultural understanding in India (especially early on). There was fuck all understanding in China from the get-go. Literally the first thing the English did was piss of the emperor and each side looked down upon the other.
Whilst it's not a competition and there are no "winners", culturally, violence is arguably more alien to the Chinese than it is to us Westerners. Whilst both Europeans and the Chinese have had their share of internal fighting and bloody revolutions, it's only us Westerners who have a long history of violent, expansionist, imperialism. Westerners destroyed almost all of the native culture in the Americas (in the Andes almost the entire native population was wiped out) and Australia. We've also fucked up huge swathes of Africa, the English committed plenty of atrocities in India and had no qualms about getting the Chinese hooked on opium. Our meddling in the Middle East after the first world war has left a legacy of violence and social problems. We constructed the state of Isreal, which has been nothing but violence and trouble. We've been building economies and riches using slave labour for millennia. Vast quantities of wealth poured in the UK, and other European countries, from slave plantations (a lot of it sugar).
Re:First Shot (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, what sort of imaginary Chinese history have you been reading. How do you think China gained such a large empire, if not through conquest? They've been ruthless, both historically and present day, in using whatever violence necessary to suppress any sort of cultural dissent. We take some shit in the US because we still have the death penalty, but China has purpose-built mobile execution vans, because there are just too many executions to perform from a few central locations.
Yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. That's a pathetic excuse to justify China's modern brutal oppression.
Re:First Shot (Score:5, Insightful)
After unification by the Qin about 200 BC the country itself has remained more less the same size. If you want to call that a "large empire" then go ahead. From my perspective it's a large country. Yes, there was violence inside China for centuries: my original post says this. But there's been at least as much inside Europe and individual European countries. In China, most people speak the same language and are happy to consider themselves Chinese. They don't feel like they're part of "an empire." The obvious poo in the pie of course is Tibet, where China undoubtedly behaved in a violent and heavy-handed manner.
My post is no attempt to justify China's "modern brutal oppression." All that I'm saying is that it's no worse than what we've done to our own people or our neighbour's people. In fact, quite a lot of the very shitty stuff we've done is in living memory. Yet we seem to pretend it didn't happen and call the kettle black (as the over-rated post I replied to is doing). That is what the Chinese think when they see statements like the post I replied to.
You what I said by distilling it down to "yes the British did some nasty things over a hundred years ago. It's quite clear my post is about much more than that.
Re:First Shot (Score:5, Interesting)
I would say: "He who is without sin shall throw the first stone..."
In human history, there were many atrocities and every great empire/culture was built mostly on violence first and then became peaceful. That's what it is and that is our shared history as humans. Even China as of today is not a coherent culture.
There are a lot Mongol mixes, lots of Turc people (Uighurs), Tibetans, and may more. Many were conquered, some voluntarily joined the Middle Kingdom. So, what?
What counts is whether people are free today - wherever they are living. And in most places around the world, they are not, including, but not limited to, China. Our goal as humans should be to make sure that everybody on this planet can, at one point, have a decent, dignified and free life.
Re:c'mon slashdot (Score:5, Funny)
You're right... if they keep doing things this quickly, their editorial integrity might start to falter.
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Well, hey - realistically speaking, how many organizations do you think are capable of facing a million man army, which can draft a half billion man army on short notice? Come on, now, there aren't anywhere near a million squids and jarheads in the Department of the Navy.
On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!
Re:I'd be alarmed too (Score:5, Insightful)
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You do make a helluva good point. But, we also saw what happened in Vietnam. I'm not old enough to be a Viet Vet, so I base all my thinking on hearsay and history books. But, the Ho Chi Minh trail proved quite effective for the opposition. They moved personnel, vehicles, weapons and equipment, food, and other material pretty freely. Ultimately, we lost that one.
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You sound like a young person, with that post. Maybe not though - some older people think in a similar way.
The real reasons we lost in Vietnam?
1. Popular support. We were, after all, the invaders. Few people like the idea of foreign invaders coming into their country, and trying to run things.
2. Foreign support. All those war material coming down the Ho Chi Minh trail were supplied by China. Or routed through China.
3. S. Vietnam Government corruption. Out of every ten dollars value pumped into Vietnam
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Re:I'd be alarmed too (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything you said is true. There's just one thing to add:
The problem with a million man army is that you have to feed it and once we cut that off, the Chinese have a million starving, trained men with guns.
Pray that they're in your enemies territory at the time.
Russia won WW2 through their burned earth strategy, but it cost them their industrial base and contributed greatly to them losing the Cold War.
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On the plus side - when they've got our asses surrounded, we don't need to worry to much about target acquisition! "Target rich environments" do have their benefits!
Things pretty much worked out that way the last time US and Chinese troops fought each other.
Lt. Gen. Lewis Berwell Puller [military.com]
During the Korean War, the Chinese communists had overrun the Yalu River and the Marines battling them were in a running fight to reach the coast. Ten Chinese divisions surrounded Col. Lewis Berwell Puller's 1st Marines. The indomitable "Chesty" Puller saw the situation with his own brand of logic: "Those poor bastards," he said. "They've got us right where we want them. We can fire in any direction now!"
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When once asked what his one wish would be, "Chesty" Puller responded, "I would like to see the face of every Marine I served with one last time."
The streets of Heaven are supposed to be guarded by United States Marines. Maybe the general has seen his Marines again.
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You seriously expect today's soulless politicians and bureaucrats to have a sense of humor that is anything more than parroting a scripted joke written by a political speech writer? Now that's funny.
Re:China has a point (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well, cruise missile democracy should indeed be stamped out of existence.
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Almost fooled me... (Score:4, Insightful)
The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.
Wow, for a brief moment there, I thought that you weren't condoning censorship. Good use of the halo-effect/devil-effect in making the East's censorship look justified by calling out the West's evils. Uncensored corruption is of course bad, but censorship doesn't suddenly make the censors' intentions or methods a good thing. Let me simplify: Censorship = still bad.
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The voracious supporters of democracy and freedom in the West are more radical and virulent than 20th century International Communists when it comes to spreading their ideology. China has every right to to be concerned, especially when bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to the rest of the world means bombing campaigns, land invasions, and subservience to Western central banks.
Only on Slashdot does this get +5 insightful... If this were the USA doing the censorship instead of China, the slashdot commenters would be screaming of tyranny. When China does it, censorship is cheered on as fighting the encroachment of the USA and western influence.
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Yea! Remember that time when democracy starved 40 million people? And when Freedom did a mass genocide in Cambodia?