China To Force Changes To 20 Popular Games, Ban 9 Including Fortnite and PUBG (bbc.com) 183
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A panel of censors set up to vet mobile video games in China has signaled it will be hard to please. State media reports that of the first 20 titles it assessed, nine were refused permission to go on sale. The Xinhua news agency added that developers of the other 11 had been told they had to make adjustments to remove "controversial content." The authorities have voiced concerns about the violent nature of some titles as well as worries about the activity being addictive.
It was announced in August that a new body -- the State Administration of Press and Publications -- had taken over responsibility for approving games and that it would limit the number of online titles available. And although it has not been specified, some experts are assuming that the new panel will operate under its auspices. Xinhua said it is comprised of gaming experts, government-employed researchers, and representatives from the media and video games industry. But it provided no other information about who they were or the titles they had already examined. UPDATE: The list of games being examined by the ethics panel has been revealed by users on NGA, a Chinese gaming forum. A number of games, such as League of Legends, Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft, will need "corrective action," while others will be "banned/withdrawn" entirely. Some of the most popular prohibited titles include Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG).
It was announced in August that a new body -- the State Administration of Press and Publications -- had taken over responsibility for approving games and that it would limit the number of online titles available. And although it has not been specified, some experts are assuming that the new panel will operate under its auspices. Xinhua said it is comprised of gaming experts, government-employed researchers, and representatives from the media and video games industry. But it provided no other information about who they were or the titles they had already examined. UPDATE: The list of games being examined by the ethics panel has been revealed by users on NGA, a Chinese gaming forum. A number of games, such as League of Legends, Overwatch, Diablo, and World of Warcraft, will need "corrective action," while others will be "banned/withdrawn" entirely. Some of the most popular prohibited titles include Fortnite and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG).
Don't Sell to China... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some pinko lefty?!
The pinko lefties are cheering for censorship these days. They've been crusading against women showing any kind of skin harder than ISIS.
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Video games are escapism from reality. It seems facetious to complain about a scantily-clad female for a fantasy but not brutal killing with giblets.
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The notion is that videogame characters ...
It's doesn't matter what the "notion" is. To Hell with any group pushing for censorship of any legal entertainment content. The censorious part of the left is every bit as bad as the right-wing religious whackos. A pox on both their houses.
We can do without moral scolds of any variety.
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I note the confusion in your comment, it is bad to censor legal content, wait what?!? It is illegal because it was censored, so legal content has passed censorship, this with no claim of what is good or bad content, just that censorship is there already. So where will China draw the line, well, where ever it's people accept the line being drawn. Personally I hold with, you want government to provide you copyright protection as in censor, actively and viscously censor (arrest is not a fun process) that distr
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Sure, it would be nice to push the boundary the other way, but preventing new things from being legally censored would at least be something! (Actually, there's very little in the US that's legally blocked, most of the effective censorship is by the distribution companies. Kudos to Steam for recently changing to allow adult content. Tumblr OTOH ...)
Re:Don't Sell to China... (Score:5, Interesting)
Middle-class Chinese are traveling a lot these days. Let tourists discover what despite their new prosperity they can no longer have at home.
Re:Don't Sell to China... (Score:5, Interesting)
Middle-class Chinese are traveling a lot these days. Let tourists discover what despite their new prosperity they can no longer have at home.
It is harder to organize dissent when everything you do is tracked and recorded. Not saying it won't happen, but it's a lot harder to organize a protest now than it was in the 1980's.
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Middle-class Chinese are traveling a lot these days. Let tourists discover what despite their new prosperity they can no longer have at home.
It is harder to organize dissent when everything you do is tracked and recorded. Not saying it won't happen, but it's a lot harder to organize a protest now than it was in the 1980's.
They'll start doing it on holiday before their gov cracks down on foreign holidays.
Re:Don't Sell to China... (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll start doing it on holiday before their gov cracks down on foreign holidays.
The new social credit score system keeps the ones in the country who might be interested in such things. Disagreeing with government bans you from using any kind of mass transit, loan or even your kids access to school.
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But ... but ... but profit! Why do you hate capitalism?
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Right. Just like how movies teach you how to use firearms. The 'survival' skills you learn in these games will get you killed in about 10 seconds flat in the real world. Turns out that in the real world, getting shot 5 times can't be fixed by wrapping some bandages around your arm or taking some pain pills. You'll just be dead. And you can't just join the next game 90 seconds later.
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Terrible, barbaric, tyrannical governments that censor every little thing, should be CUT OFF FROM THE WORLD. Sell them NOTHING. Change NOTHING for them. Tell them take it or LEAVE it.
They outnumber us, and, well... the entire Western World. We don't cut them off from the world... they cut us off. If they ever come close to parity for production/earnings as the West they would easily be able to dominate the world. It's a shame about their government choice, for sure. I wish India would hurry up and modernize their economy and get to Western standards. Politically India is closer to the West in ideals and outlook. I'd much rather them dominate the world than China.
Just like the US h
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If they ever come close to parity for production/earnings as the West they would easily be able to dominate the world. It's a shame about their government choice, for sure.
They did not choose their government, and they'll never come close to us in terms of productivity per capita, because totalitarian regimes never do. You don't get much economic growth without freedom. China coasts on off-shored manufacturing and stolen innovation, but has very little non-export economy. There are a few tech companies like TenCent that have done a little on their own, but that's a tiny part of an economy (and they, too, got hit by this censorship).
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"they'll never come close to us in terms of productivity per capita". What a load arrogant BS. You really think you are so much more productive and creative that they'll never come close to you??? lol
I don't care what country you live in, doesn't matter, it's not a true democracy anyway. You also have to be deluded to think that China is totalitarian. Surprise!!! There's millions of people involved in their "totalitarian" government making all kinds of decisions on all levels. Just like yours, wherever you'
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Well given the choice between the two countries, I'm sure glad I was born in America. Problems and all.
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we need to ban olympics from them US / UN has that (Score:2)
we need to ban olympics from them US / UN has that power
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Olympic committee just rejected E-sports. Ban olympics by your logic?
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Everyone playing games does.
China is a HUGE market. If anything, that Diablo immoral (or whatever that installment was called) makes it evident. Studios bend over backwards to cater to the Chinese market.
Think your games will remain as they are? Think again. They know you'll buy the next Call of Battlefield anyway, even if it's a dumbed down phone minigame with microtransactions up the ass. They want that Chinese market.
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Think your games will remain as they are? Think again.
Or they can simply modify the edition the Chinese get. IIRC, Bungie had to make modifications to Myth for the European market, because some countries had a thing against blood in games, so they made the blood green. I think they also made enemies that exploded turn into confetti instead of a pile of carnage, but that might have been another game. I think Wolfenstein had to do the same thing in Germany because of the swastikas. Sure, it's probably a pain in the neck, but it can be done.
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They can, but it costs money and time, and they are not willing to spend either.
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"They can, but it costs money and time, and they are not willing to spend either."
Bingo.
No one wants to support half a dozen different versions of a thing. Even you programmer types can agree on that one.
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Half a dozen? Definitely.
Two? A distinct possibility.
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They can, but it costs money and time, and they are not willing to spend either.
It's just another cost / benefit analysis. Some companies do spent the money and time because they see it as worthwhile over the life of the game. For example, Blizzard made a lot of visual changes to World of Warcraft just for China because they have some weird aversion to skeletons and bones. Player skeletons on the ground are replaced with tombstones, undead models don't show bones, bones and bits of meat on the ground are replaced with bread, etc. [reddit.com]
Sure, it may objectively be a waste of time, but if yo
Re:Who cares about them banning games? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, Germany has a stream of bullshit changes to pander to their ridiculous Bundesprüfstelle to defend kids against reality (IIRC that's the most accurate translation), and in general they were hilarious. Top of my head I remember the suicide bombers in C&C Generals being gurneys with little bombs on them. But that's far from the most ridiculous change ever made in a game to get an a-ok from them.
But we're not talking about cosmetic changes here. If you look at the reasons given [reddit.com] as to why the games were banned, including reasons like "rewards given based on rank", "distorted concepts of history and culture" and "game missions include fraud", this means that fundamental aspects of the game, its core mechanics and the story it tries to tell, are suddenly no-gos.
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The most ridiculous decision was to ban river raid for brutality. River raid, for fuck's sake!
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Silent Service and Gunship were on the list too. Gunship. Of all the games. The infantry you "killed" were literally pixels.
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How do they even get "game missions include fraud" for Diablo? Of all the things to pick to complain about.
They also complained about "inharmonious chat" for every game. You want to do business in China, either eliminate all chat, or hire a huge team to monitor all chat in real time (I expect TenCent/RIOT will do the latter).
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Or they can simply modify the edition the Chinese get. IIRC, Bungie had to make modifications to Myth for the European market, because some countries had a thing against blood in games, so they made the blood green
They, can, and short term they will... but really the battle from the Chinese government is not just against specific video games, the current government is against video games in general.
That social worth score that they have where you're give a score by the government to say how good a citizen you are, it is impacted by video games. The more hours of video games you play, the more points you lose. Playing a lot of video games can mean you're banned from staying at certain hotels, getting some jobs, and
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This is an opportunity to show just how risky investing too deeply into China is for gaming studios though. Remember that this review is just a start, and terms change with ebb and flow of Chinese leadership being made aware of potential harm that games may cause to Chinese "societal harmony". Which is the highest virtue in the Chinese system.
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We've already seen the effect of Hollywood bending over backwards, as you put it, to make movies they think will appeal to the Chinese market. It's a definite concern that videogame companies will tend to self-censor in anticipation of the objectives they think the Chinese censors will have.
As an independent videogame developer, this places a fairly large burden on me. Do I pay for a Chinese localization and try to enter that market, and then subject myself to the whims of a board of censorship? My incli
Re: Who cares about them banning games? (Score:1)
Whataboutism.
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Whataboutism.
Literally not an argument.
Maybe they are right this time (Score:2, Interesting)
When I see how crazily obsessed children are with Fortnite, when I see some adults here, comparing a Fortnite ban to human rights violation, it makes me think that maybe banning this shit would be a good thing.
GROW. UP.
(And if we have to talk about what china are doing, let's talk about their violations of human rights)
Re: Maybe they are right this time (Score:2, Funny)
I dunno, I could see a Chinese made Sim Concentration Camp being a big hit. It's educational.
NPC
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They made SimAnt already, it didn't do so hot in the market.
Re:Maybe they are right this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, authoritarians on all sides. Sucks to be a normal person who just wants to be free.
Re:Maybe they are right this time (Score:5, Insightful)
Man, authoritarians on all sides. Sucks to be a normal person who just wants to be free.
Freedom has been taken for granted many places in the world for a few generations. We're probably overdue our cheque. The bill will probably be another generation of young people losing their lives.
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Re:Maybe they are right this time (Score:5, Insightful)
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When did I ever say I am against banning things? Human rights are NOT about allowing us to buy everything we want like spoiled children. In fact, we trample over the human rights of others, just to buy things cheaper.
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Banning loot boxes and prohibiting sales to minors are proportionate measures. So are PG ratings that help parents decide what is right for their kids and what isn't. An outright ban is not.
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I take it you don't care about video games. What do you care about? Movies? Sports? What do you do when you have time off and want to relax, unwind and have a good time?
Video games are, like all software, a product with a huge up front and a very tiny per-unit cost. In other words, your goal is to sell as many as possible, even more so than with any other product. Every unit sold, no matter how low the price, is higher than the cost per unit, so it counts towards profit.
There is now a huge market in China.
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"It's about China dictating what kind of entertainment will be produced for you"
Really? how many video games are produced in China that make it to the world market?
Re: Maybe they are right this time (Score:1)
How many Hollywood movies now contain shoe horned in Chinese actors? Rogue One is one example. The flopped Independence day sequel os another. Yeah, it will never happen.
Re:Maybe they are right this time (Score:5, Interesting)
IN China? Very few. FOR China? Very many.
China is a huge market. And unlike the Euro/US market it is growing, rapidly so. And a market that the big studios still don't sell well in.
Fanboys will gobble up next year's "Generic Game Title 19". They have shown time and again that they will, no matter whether the game is any good. They buy it. And defend it tooth and nail against anyone pointing out that the quality has been deteriorating for years. They will buy GGT19 even if it's a weak port of a phone game (because phone games is what sells in China).
But the Chinese will only buy GGT19 if it's a phone game.
So take a wild guess what GGT19 will be.
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Is it though. It's not that different to burning books, and as the saying goes "where you burn books on Monday you burn people on Tuesday". Or something like that.
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Let's wait and see. The problem is that China is simply such a huge market that if they can land a hit in China, this would easily pick up the slack even if they totally bombed in the US and Europe.
Re:Maybe they are right this time (Score:5, Interesting)
When I see how crazily obsessed children are with Fortnite, when I see some adults here, comparing a Fortnite ban to human rights violation, it makes me think that maybe banning this shit would be a good thing.
I hate Fortnight and PUBG and that whole genre of FPS games too!
That's not what the worry is about, the worry is about yet another form of censorship from the world's largest market that will have impacts on us. It's getting to the point that what happens in China matters for the rest of the world. Just like people all over the world watch the American elections and dread which nincompoop gets elected this time, we're all going to start paying attention to China more- what China says and does has ripple effects throughout the world. Any move from China in the wrong direction means (in this global era) that it will impact what we have access to. And yes, Fortnight might be ridiculous crap, but even if you're more highbrow, your opera might be next, the ending has to change, or your films (no Asian allowed to be depicted as a villain- no capitalist or democratic sentiment in films).
China is big enough now that the problems of China's citizens are our problems.
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Europe also had a lot of video game censorship, see things like "contra" becoming "probotector" because of the ban on games depiciting direct killing of humans. This is nothing new.
Re: Maybe they are right this time (Score:1)
Maybe I'm off the mark, but I think their concerns are less to do with how mindless or slacking culture it might be, and more about little psychological tricks used to keep people playing. While a ban is heavy handed, at the very least, games need to be put under the spotlight for this (as do social media platforms).
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So does this mean American getting a taste of their own medicine? The rest of the world has had to put up with their cultural influence pushing their weirdo values for decades. Now we get Chinese weirdo values instead.
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So does this mean American getting a taste of their own medicine? The rest of the world has had to put up with their cultural influence pushing their weirdo values for decades. Now we get Chinese weirdo values instead.
In a way, yes; but surely you would have to agree that the Chinese government's control and influence is not something we would want anywhere in the West? As bad as America may have seemed to you and your country, would you prefer a totalitarian state passing their values around instead?
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Anti-globalists wouldn't have many video games to play at all. Or any hardware to play them on.
I see what you are getting at... however (Score:2)
I know where you are coming from as I know kids of friends who are generally good but have had to have some punishments applied because Fortnite drove them to some sneakiness to get around parent imposed rules.
But it seems to me that maybe this is useful, to have a real test of moral character around that can be used to temper otherwise soft individuals. It seems hard to even punish a kid these days, but no Fortnite for week or so is something that means something.
I've played Fortnite myself a bit, off and
Do you see now? (Score:2)
Someone suggested in the last thread on this subject that China should be lauded for trying to do something about this issue even if they are failing at other issues. I said it was hypocritical bullshit and they deserved zero praise for it. Today we see that I was 100% correct. Once PUBG and Battlegrounds were included it proved that this was not about protecting citizens, but about crushing competition. Shame on you if you thought otherwise.
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PUBG is from Tencent which is a Chinese company, so they are banning a game that makes money from around the world to bring into the Chinese economy. Interesting that they would make this move that hurts a Chinese company as well as it's non-Chinese competitor. It almost seems they did this more based on other factors.
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It almost seems they did this more based on other factors.
You can be sure that the other factors are also economic, but relate to bribery and not profit.
Build a (fire)wall around china (Score:3)
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But who's gonna build all our crap then? India? Do you really want that? Product and support, all in one hand?
nafta 2.0 = Mexico is back to making stuff (Score:2)
nafta 2.0 = Mexico is back to making stuff
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Seriously, I get all my illegal drugs from there!
You 'Muricans are funny (Score:1)
I love to read these posts from Holier than thou 'Muricans preaching to the rest of us. Oh how you love to point the finger, don't you?
I seem to recall, quite recently in your past in fact, y'all committing crimes against humanity. Japanese prison camps anyone?
Torture at GitMo anyone? Starting the conflict in Syria then acting like you're good guys? Iraq? Iran? Afghanistan? You just love to stir shit up break things and then tell everyone else how shitty they are.
BTW, I am not sure if you know this, but Ger
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When you step down off your soap box, you should look to your own critical thinking skills, and look up Whataboutism [wikipedia.org].
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hahaha... Classic 'Murican. Says the representative government that he voted for is not a reflection of the people.
That is EXACTLY what it is. If you keep electing asshats... well.. you're an asshat, asshat.
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Cut them off.
Will you pay for the lost income?
I wonder if they'll have to "update" Civilization (Score:3)
I mean, how dare Firaxis not make the Chinese military units in Civilization more powerful than everyone else. They need to update that game for the Chinese market, so whoever plays that character always wins!
Corrective Action? (Score:2)
NERF BASTION!
The Fortnite ban is somewhat surprising (Score:2)
If addiction is a concern (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems China has the same issues the United States has in that folks with kiddos either:
1) Don't know how or
2) Don't want to be bothered
with actually being a parent.
The simple fix for that Fortnite addiction is to simply not allow them to play it for excessive amounts of time.
You know. . . . BE a parent.
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Insidious effect of Chinese government control (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:3)
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For once I'm not mad at China.
And the Chinese communist party's next demand will be censoring you on every platform connected to any kind of public network for bring up their crimes. After that they'll demand you to be given no credit at the bank and no access to air-travel or trains.
Did anyone actually RTFA? (Score:1)
Out of all of the comments here, none of them actually discuss some of the reasons that these games are up for review.
Notably, one of those reasons, would make Slashdot fall of the face of China: "Inharmonious chat"
Actually, this is a VERY legitimate reason for reform in the gaming community and on the internet in general. A lot of games fail because their communities are full of toxic players and that's becoming pretty much the bane of the internet these days. Anyone comparing Slashdot from 15 years ago to
they should have done Volkswagen! (Score:2)
what about Tetris? (Score:2)
Ban 9 Including Fortnite and PUBG (Score:2)
>Ban 9 Including Fortnite and PUBG
Sweet! No more Chinese screaming, "CHINAH NUMBAH ONE!" in pubg voice.
Big brother deems your game ... (Score:2)
... doubleplusungood. Comply in shutting them down, adjusting them according to the standards of the ministry of love or be collected for immediate recycling at the biomatter tanks in your district.
Thank you for your cooperation citizen. And remember: Big Mao is watching you.
If you censor for China.... (Score:2)
It's better to maintain your integrity, stand behind your product, and tell China to go fuck itself.
But the problem is money talks...and it's become more and more clear that game publishers don't really give two shits about what gamers want...they just want money.
This is th
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What does China have to do with socialism?
In the international name-and-blame game, what you call yourself matters jack shit. The GDR was the German Democratic Republic. So? It was neither democratic nor a republic. And considering how they speak in those areas of Germany, even the German is something that I'd consider debatable.
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This is authoritarianism. Usually it's associated with dictatorships or other forms of oppressive government, and yes, that can be socialist. But it can just as well be fascist. Or a theocracy.
But that's not what you need to hear, right? You're one of those people who label everything you don't like in a country "socialist", right? Oppression of opposition? Socialist. No free press? Socialist. People "disappearing" after a visit from some guys in black trenchcoats? Socialist. Being arrested for "reeducation
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You tell those big studios that they should ignore a market the size of the US, Japan and Europe combined. Make a video, their reaction should be priceless. I bet it goes viral.
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One should hope so, but people keep preordering them like they can't learn from previous blunders. Fallout76 had one of the highest preorder rates ever. Yes, sales plummeted right after it got out the door, but who gives a fuck? Preorder sales easily pick up the slack.
And people will keep preordering. Know why? Because they get that exclusive preorder skin for their puppy and the exclusive preorder emote for the multiplayer game that makes them so SPECIAL!
So who gives a fuck whether they actually play it af
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Says the youngest culture to one of the oldest cultures on earth.