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China Games

Steam is Finally Coming To China But Chinese Gamers Don't Want It (abacusnews.com) 138

Valve officially announced this week the arrival of Steam China in Shanghai. But Chinese gamers are telling the PC gaming platform to "get lost!" From a report: One of the most upvoted comments wrote, "Steam China get out of China." It's important to point out that gamers are directing their anger at Steam China, not Steam. In fact, Chinese gamers love Steam... the global version of it, anyway. There are an estimated 30 million Chinese users playing games on the platform -- games which otherwise aren't officially available in China.

But that's exactly why they fear the launch of Steam China, which is a joint venture between Valve and Chinese company Perfect World. Gamers worry that not only will Steam China be a heavily censored platform with a much smaller lineup of titles; worse yet, it might also be the trigger for the government to ban the global version of Steam.

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Steam is Finally Coming To China But Chinese Gamers Don't Want It

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  • gaben@valvesoftware.com
  • Wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @05:33AM (#57739372) Homepage

    So the Chinese citizens' solution to stopping government censorship and overreach is to try and get a foreign company to stop a product that works with their government.

    Seems like the wrong target to attack. How about revolting against your government instead?

    • Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @06:26AM (#57739470) Journal
      There are plenty of people here, in our free society, who would not mind some of what the Chinese have. A ban on certain opinions. Bans or controls on addictive substances. Extensive monitoring of public and private life to catch fraudsters and such. A strong authoritative leader. Suppression of certain social groups. Thinkofthechildrenism. No violent video games or movies. Harsh punishment for antisocial behaviour. People have a strong aversion to being controlled, but they just love to impose controls on others.
      • There was a column published in the New York Times that gazed longingly at China and wished they could have the same system here. No messy democracy, no morons protesting, no fake news, just the smart people [Times readers] get to rule society as they see fit. They make the hard decisions that they see as necessary. Decisions we won't like but that someone has to step up and tell us "no". When China decides there will be a road or a bridge somewhere, it just happens. No debate, no citizens council, no envir
        • Well now that your bold claim is in, how about something like evidence to back up your statement? A source? Anything more than your anecdotal response of a highly unlikely article?
          • +1
          • Seriously? You can't imagine Times readers thinking themselves the world's panacea if they were only handed absolute power with no interference from the people? Hell, they jack off to it every day. A government composed of The Smart People in society, empowered to do what they think is right without any restrictions? You really find this unlikely?
            • It doesn't matter what anyone can imagine. You still haven't produced the article in question even after being asked for it.
            • Good god. The actual content of your reply is nonsensical and a little fucking batshit insane. Just answer my question so I can do my own research: can you post your source for the NY Times article you mentioned?
              • DNS-and-BIND is doing the classic right wing trick of pretending the "left" are what the right actually is.
                As everyone knows it's the right that spends so much effort on worrying about everyone's sexual orientation and which toilet they use, but apparently it's the "left" who are the authoritarians.
        • That sounds suspiciously like the premise for Plato's Republic. But with bits about the New York Times added in as a distraction.
      • in our free society

        It's really free? https://www.ted.com/talks/jaro... [ted.com] https://libreflix.org/assistir... [libreflix.org] https://libreflix.org/assistir... [libreflix.org]
        * most Venezuelans think they are in a 'free society', so are most Russians and Turkeys, etc...

      • People have a strong aversion to being controlled, but they just love to impose controls on others.

        You've just lumped together (under the general heading of "them") two completely different kinds of personalities with rather little overlap.

    • Re:Wrong problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @07:03AM (#57739518) Homepage
      Because the Communist Party has delivered 30 years of nonstop growth? Things are better every day in China. Revolutions happen when the people are not taken are of, the Communists know this well as it's how they got into power in the first place. People can gripe all they want but the Party is delivering the goods. Who would be insane enough to plunge China into chaos? They did chaos already, it didn't work out well for them.
      • The Communist Party has been in control there for 69 years. They're the reason China is so behind the rest of the world. China's growth didn't begin until they got out of the way and allowed capitalistic reforms - allowed people to build and run businesses without Party interference. Giving them credit for the growth is rather like thanking your prison guard for not beating you today.
        • Yes, they are taking the capitalist road to achieve socialism. This was Deng Xiaoping in the 80s. Please do try to keep up.
        • ...allowed people to build and run businesses without Party interference.

          You have misunderstood how things work in China.
          Try reading some history books, or even better visit China.
          Talk to a few of the locals, they're nice enough people, and they're always keen to practise their english.

        • China moved from communism to pragmatic socialism and turned a shithole into a superpower within a few decades.

          It seems that once you get rid of inflexible ideology, you can focus on what matters, instead of fixating on how thoroughly "communist" or "capitalist" you can be. China has began to dispense with the rigid ideology the past few decades. The US has doubled down on ideology. Guess which country is rising, and which is falling.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      If they revolt they will be killed or sent to re-education camps. If they just use the US version of Steam at worst one or two of those millions might go to jail and more likely the government will just block it one day.

      Also this is a bunch of gamers, probably lacking much political engagement and given all the bad press about video games in China at the moment probably lacking much public support too.

      • Steam is merely a market place. Few people use the Steam extras (voice chat, text overlays) and there is plenty of healthy competition there. But as a market place, big deal, why does it matter if there are fans or detractors? That's like posting an article saying that the Chinese don't like Tesco. As a market place, Steam has a big drawback of DRM (not the same as anti-piracy), not as onerous as some competitors but it's still a drawback.

      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        this is a bunch of gamers, probably lacking much political engagement

        There are over 550 million 'gamers' in China, but feel free to write them off as inconsequential and irrelevant, instead of the majority of people under the age of 50.

        • by djinn6 ( 1868030 )

          More importantly, they lack political engagement because they're too busy playing games. Take that away and they'll have time to think about overthrowing the party.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Gamers who play on mobile phones... Remember that until very recently there was a ban on importing consoles so it was either Chinese domestic ones (mostly knock-offs of 16 bit era or ARM based emulation boxes) or a relatively expensive gaming PC.

          And this population is 30 million, still quite significant but I'm betting that the intersection of gamers using Steam and people politically motivated enough to fight the system is quite small.

          • by Cederic ( 9623 )

            PC gamers: Wealthier than the average population. More technically proficient.

            That means they're influencers within their social spheres. Family, friends.

            They don't need to fight the system. They just need to mention how shitty it is. Others will fight it for them.

            Plus your 30 million is too low, according to another post further down.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      My employee ate rats and small birds when he was young.
      Now he has a good job and a stable income.
      He is one of the 800 million China has brought out of poverty the last 40 years. He is also one of the 400 million who has made it into the middle class.

      This is not the generation that will revolt against their government.
      Frankly, the western democracies are closer to revolt than China.

    • They did. You obviously do not know about Tienanmen Square.
      The citizen will need time before uprising again.
      Until then, it is best to put pressure on the gov, via the outside.
      Just keep in mind that Chinese gov has loads of ppl that are trolling here and lying to push Chinese gov POV.
  • If ever there was a perfect name for a communist "company", "Perfect World" would be it.

  • by iTrawl ( 4142459 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @07:11AM (#57739540)

    Well done rulers of China, you got dissent by proxy. They can't criticise you guys directly, but they'll rise up via the commercial products that you guys get your hands into.

    Doublethink:
    1. Communist Party is the best party in the world (except for the US, who now have the best of everything)
    2. Steam sucks! We want better games! We demand change!

  • ... 'democracy', in Latin america by far, in the http://www.latinobarometro.org... [latinobarometro.org] : maybe something like it (misunderstanding a foreign concept, for cultural/political reasons) is happening in China against Steam...
  • Fringe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jbmartin6 ( 1232050 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @07:27AM (#57739576)

    Chinese gamers love Steam... the global version of it, anyway. There are an estimated 30 million Chinese users playing games on the platform

    For China, 30 million is just a fringe user base. I think it would be accurate to rephrase as 'not very many Chinese gamers have even heard of Steam'

    • Re:Fringe (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Type44Q ( 1233630 ) on Monday December 03, 2018 @08:38AM (#57739790)

      For China, 30 million is just a fringe user base.

      That depends entirely on how poor your math skills are: are you comparing that figure to the number of PC gamers in China or the number of people??

      • For China, 30 million is just a fringe user base.

        That depends entirely on how poor your math skills are: are you comparing that figure to the number of PC gamers in China or the number of people??

        According to this article [venturebeat.com], there are around 300 million PC gamers in China. So, the 30 million is still a small portion of gamers. However, many Chinese gamers play in internet cafes, and those are the gamers that Steam wants to access.

  • Steam China get out of China? Because they don't like their own government-imposed censorship? Do any of these firebrands plan to change any of their own draconian policies?
  • So, with China cracking down on ways to get around filters, what is this going to mean for the quality of games coming out of China?

    Perfect World is mentioned here as teaming up with Steam. Perfect World is a developer, owner, and publisher of MMORPGs, Notable examples of games they have include: Neverwinter Online, Star Trek Online, Torchlight, Final Fantasy Type-0, Champions Online, and City of Heroes.

    How much of this content is designed in China these days? How much of the content that appeals to a

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