Taiwanese Horror Game Pulled From Sale Again After Backlash in China (theguardian.com) 64
An award-winning Taiwanese horror game was removed from storefronts by the beleaguered developer CD Projekt Red amid a backlash from Chinese gamers, hours after it was put on sale. From a report: Devotion, a PC game that chronicles the life of a Taiwanese family in a religious cult in the 1980s, was released to critical acclaim in February 2019. But shortly after release, Chinese players found a poster hanging in the apartment that serves as the games' setting that said "Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron." Almost 10,000 negative reviews soon flooded the game's review page. The developer, Red Candle Games, posted an apology saying it was "purely an accident" that the poster was left in the game.
Within a week, however, the game was pulled from sale on the digital storefront Steam. It has not been available in English since, despite winning multiple game of the year awards at the end of 2019, and an ongoing campaign for it to return to sale. On Wednesday, Red Candle Games announced that was changing. The game would be published on Friday by GOG, the digital storefront run by the Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red, it said in a tweet at 10am. A fresh wave of opprobrium from Chinese internet users followed the announcement and less than six hours later, CDPR reversed its decision. "Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG," the company tweeted. "After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store." It gave no further explanation and did not respond to a request for comment. Like many PC gaming firms, GOG operates in a grey area in China.
Within a week, however, the game was pulled from sale on the digital storefront Steam. It has not been available in English since, despite winning multiple game of the year awards at the end of 2019, and an ongoing campaign for it to return to sale. On Wednesday, Red Candle Games announced that was changing. The game would be published on Friday by GOG, the digital storefront run by the Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red, it said in a tweet at 10am. A fresh wave of opprobrium from Chinese internet users followed the announcement and less than six hours later, CDPR reversed its decision. "Earlier today, it was announced that the game Devotion is coming to GOG," the company tweeted. "After receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store." It gave no further explanation and did not respond to a request for comment. Like many PC gaming firms, GOG operates in a grey area in China.
First they came for the Socialists (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
- Martin Niemöller
Re:First they came for the Socialists (Score:4, Informative)
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You do realize that a decapitated Western head of state inside a bloodstained pentagram probably wouldn't get that game pulled outside of MAYBE the country where that head of state holds office?
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Which would be posted on reddit with the title "LMAO look at this shitty render of Merkel's severed head in this Chinese game. Wow we sure are angry about this!"
No, no, no... (Score:2)
It's all about Xi Jinping not understanding the difference between poo and Pooh.
He saw himself being compared to a cartoon bear, googled it, or baidu it, and saw the picture of a bear eating some kind of yellow goop.
Which he confused for poo. And, as any reasonable person would, he got upset thinking he's being called a shit-eating bear.
It happens.
This one time I got pissed off at a local library for dissing me personally just cause I kept some books for too long.
Coincidentally, they just added a line to th
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And all of the above is why many western companies crash and burn in China. They come in with their expected way of doing business in the US or Europe and do exactly the same in China. Then they wonder why they've been bleeding red ink for the last five years solid. At that point they either bring in a feng shui consultant or similar, meaning they signal their willingness to do business in China the way the Chinese expect, or they give up and go home, "the Chinese just aren't ready for our products/servi
Understandtable (Score:5, Funny)
I generally don't see much eye to eye with 'cancel culture.'... But that was too far man,, the Pooh doesn't deserve that.
Re:Understandtable (Score:5, Insightful)
And naturally, that company has long-since removed the offending content, and apologized for it. But neither Steam nor GoG will now allow the game on their platforms due to Chinese pressure. In fact, I'm betting that Taiwanese development company will no longer be allowed to publish anything on Steam or GoG in the future.
This is China exerting their soft power over the world's markets. Welcome to the new reality.
Re:Understandtable (Score:4, Interesting)
Their spine is about as powerful as powerful as their power; soft.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. As western customers reject corporations bending the knee to China will we see those said corporations just move to China?
At some point China needs to suck it up; I'd rather go back to the stone age than accept their world view. They will never tame us westerners; our history is built on being asshole rebels. Unlike their citizenry that's content to obey their government it's in our blood to question our government.
Yeah, I'm being melodramatic. It's one of those days.
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Some red-blooded American company should purchase rights to it, and ensure that the poster is still there.
And yes, now that you mention it, Xi Jinping *does* look like Pooh :).
Re:Understandtable (Score:4, Insightful)
They purchase the rights, and publish it where? Steam? GoG? It's already been *banished* from these two platforms in non-Chinese markets, despite the developer having long-since removed the art and apologized for it. Epic Games Store? 40% owned by Tencent, so that's a big nope. Xbox? PlayStation? Unlikely, now that game consoles are allowed in China. To be blunt, no one will touch it, because no one wants to anger China, even when publishing *outside* of China.
Basically, if a company did this, they'd have to self-publish, and possibly forever after, since they'd probably be persona non-grata to every major publisher and platform. I'm not sure if people realize how powerful a coercive force China is now in videogames. It's insane. What does it say that companies worldwide are effectively barred from offending China in any way, like speaking of inconvenient facts or history, or poking a bit of fun at their President?
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Wonder how many social points the fat teddy had to offer for complaining about making fun of him.
Customizable genitalia? (Score:4, Funny)
Will the GOG version be updated to offer the ability to modify the character's genitalia? I feel like no game is complete without this feature now.
No less important than getting that perfect rose in Zork.
Bad move? (Score:5, Insightful)
'Gamers' are a whiny spineless bunch, just release the game because all of those gamers that want Cyberpunk 2077 will buy it anyway regardless of whining.
A leader who can't cope with being compared to a teddy bear doesn't deserve any respect. A leader that has millionsa of Uyghurs in forced labor and is practically committing genocide through enforced sterilisation deserves something very different than respect.
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The same might be said of our present governing lizards.
Re: Bad move? (Score:2)
No, it can't.
What would you buy with the 50 cents? Poster of Xi?
On the other hand (Score:3)
"Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron"
Is probably still available as a Slashdot username.
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Devotion isn't available on Steam either... (Score:4, Insightful)
.. but ironically the Devotion - Original Soundtracks [steampowered.com] (OST) is available!
There is even an Uninitialized bad link in the Steam description to Devotion [steampowered.com]. LOL
Why the fuck does China block me from buying games in the USA?
Oh yeah, that Chinese Money ... /s :-(
Fuck China and their bullshit censorship.
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witcher halo effect (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how much longer CDPR can coast along on the feelgoods generated by the witcher franchise. Witcher 3 is one of the best games of all time; DRM free GOG is pretty great too.
But decisions like this, and pretty much everything surrounding cyber punk 2077 are taking a bit of wind out of their sails. I'm guessing they'll continue to decline a bit, then try to recapture some of their credibility by another witcher game; but the woke crowd will box them into it being centered ciri or something, and it will fail horribly.
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Fuck Communist China (Score:1)
Thank you.
It shouldn't bother us at all (Score:4, Insightful)
... that the government of the world's largest economy [nationalinterest.org] is so precaurious it is threatened by a piece of set decoration in a video game.
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Imagine an government being so insecure and stupid that they have to ban numbers [theatlantic.com]!
i.e.
64 = June 4
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... that the government of the world's largest economy [nationalinterest.org] is so precaurious it is threatened by a piece of set decoration in a video game.
The problem is a cult of personality centered around a dictator. China is unfortunately only one example among many countries around the world. Even the US for the past four years has struggled with a Xi Jinping wannabe who was fortunately constrained by the pesky US Constitution.
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The problem is a cult of personality centered around a dictator. China is unfortunately only one example among many countries around the world. Even the US for the past four years has struggled with a Xi Jinping wannabe who was fortunately constrained by the pesky US Constitution.
Well he certainly wasn't restrained by his fellow Republicans.
Hopefully people will remember that, but it's unlikely they will. I'm sure they will just take your cue and claim it was just one bad apple.
There was just nothing the entire Republican party could have done about it...
1984 (Score:2)
Just think: they could use it for their Two Minutes Hate.
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They should be threatened by a video game decoration. The Chinese government is preventing what the USA citizens are allowing in reverse: the very slow changing of norms that threatens a position. Easing up on criticism would only be the start of a trend. A video game decoration may not bring down the government but it sure can be a contributing factor to a movement that ultimately could.
The flip side of that is visible in the USA. Why is it that 10s of millions of Americans accept outright corruption of th
Xi Jinping Winnie-the-Pooh moron (Score:2)
Monster Hunter also got backlash (Score:2)
Tip: if you sell in China, don't insult your buyer
Is it just being thin-skinned? maybe, but also a cultural thing, Chinese tend to be hyper-nationalistic
Re:Monster Hunter also got backlash (Score:4, Interesting)
No they're just thin-skinned fragile crybabies.
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Is it just being thin-skinned? maybe, but also a cultural thing, Chinese tend to be hyper-nationalistic
Well, yes. It's just bad form to commit blasphemy against someone else's god-emperor, specially if you're trying to sell a product to their fanatic worshippers. Besides, let's not offend poor Winnie-the-Pooh, he'd cry then go for another honey pot.
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You don't get it.
Those games could be sold in China, no problem. People complaining in the US wouldn't stop people from selling those games outside of the US.
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Most dev shops don't produce games where you can "rekt jews and blacks". If they did, there probably wouldn't be much outcry about it in China, and if a Chinese dev shop actually made such a game, they could probably sell it there, so long as you didn't violate any of the other prohibitions against content that exist in that country.
Fact is that most people in China care nothing about "jews and blacks". I don't think there's much of a market for that sort of thing, which is why dev shops haven't shown muc
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It's not my fault that there's a big market for killing Russians and Islamic terrorists. Maybe you should start asking yourself why those groups are so often represented as bad guys in video games? And why Jews are not? But why bother? You would never find the answer to that question anyway, especially if it did not suit your twisted world view.
And sorry, but the ovens used in the WWII and crematory ovens do not serve the same function. The Reich did not bother rendering their victims to ashes, which is
NNNOOOOOOO! (Score:2)
I was going to buy that this evening dammit! :-(
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It's produced by Tencent, which is reason enough for me to never see it.
Re: China lied (Score:2)
A Disturbing Trend (Score:5, Insightful)
China is, by far, the largest videogame market in the world, at least in terms of number of customers. And because China is China, and Xi Pooh and his minions' skins are rice-paper thin, videogame makers are increasingly going to be placed into a situation where they have two choices:
1) Kowtow to whatever hypersensitive Chinese investors, super-partisan gamers, or official censors demand, even so far as blocking games not intended for their own market
2) Risk the Chinese market, and tell the Chinese to fuck off with their censorship demands
So far, the videogame industry, similar to Hollywood and other industries, have chosen option #1. This censorship by proxy is a slow poison, and I'm tired of companies that don't try to stand up to them for the sake of the almighty Chinese yuan. I'm not singling out GoG for this. Steam has also caved to such pressure as well with, in fact, the very same game, pulled forever from their store. Shame on both of them, and on the videogame industry in general.
Maybe I don't need to buy Cyberpunk 2077 after all. I'm not feeling all that generous towards CDP right now.
Yeah, messages from "gamers" (Score:3)
GOG and CDPR seems to have made a nice 180 in the recent month in terms of communication. Either they're complete spineless idiots, or they believe that all the good things people used to think about them shields them from everything.
If you want a good joke, you can look at GOG twitter's account description. "truly gamer friendly". Yeah, right. In the meantime there are tools to batch download all your games from gog if you're interested.
The Washington Thinskins (Score:2)
Imagine if the president of the USA was not only that thin-skinned, but had the power of life and death in his hands based on his reaction to such taunts? You don't have to imagine it, because that's what China is--a country of over a billion people, with a Trump-like ego at the helm, backed up by a one-party state.
Come January 20th, looks like a tank dodged in the USA. Don't say it can't happen here--I won't rest easy until our version of Winnie is out of the WH, either peacefully or kicking and screamin
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
The CCP is not a legitimate government.
Yes they are. A government is literally nothing more than an organised group overseeing a community. There is no question of the legitimacy simply by being a terrorist organisation. Terrorist organisations are very much legitimate governments.
They are not democratically elected governments, but that is only one of the many forms of legitimate governments in the world.
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What a depraved world view you have.
Not a depraved world view, just a grasp of the English language and what it means to be a government. Words have meanings, and those meanings aren't whatever makes you feel good inside. You can't just will a different meaning onto a word to help your insult.
There are plenty of words in the English language that correctly describe the CCP in a negative light. "illegitimate government" is not one of them.
China runs the world (Score:3)
If you had any doubt, know it now. China has the ability to exercise censorship anywhere in the world. In all fairness the fault lies with the internationally pervasive attitude of placing 'profit' ahead of all other considerations.
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If you had any doubt, know it now. China has the ability to exercise censorship anywhere in the world. In all fairness the fault lies with the internationally pervasive attitude of placing 'profit' ahead of all other considerations.
So Capitalism runs the world then.
Isn't that what we wanted though...?
Or is Capitalism only good when our team has the most Capital?