China Bans All New Video Games (scmp.com) 247
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Chinese authorities have banned all new video games from being released indefinitely, as the government attempts to tackle what it calls gaming addiction in the under-18s. The suspension was revealed at a meeting with game company Tencent.
The ban was reportedly revealed during a meeting between Chinese gaming companies Tencent and the authorities. Neither company has commented on the suspension, which has not yet been given an end date. The suspension comes as part of a wider bid by the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on gaming addiction amongst children. Just last month, the Chinese government banned under-18s from playing online games for more than three hours per week, and restricted weekend play between 8PM and 9PM. Online gaming companies are required to enforce the ban, which came after state media labelled videogames "spiritual opium" and "electronic drugs" a few weeks prior.
The ban was reportedly revealed during a meeting between Chinese gaming companies Tencent and the authorities. Neither company has commented on the suspension, which has not yet been given an end date. The suspension comes as part of a wider bid by the Chinese Communist Party to crack down on gaming addiction amongst children. Just last month, the Chinese government banned under-18s from playing online games for more than three hours per week, and restricted weekend play between 8PM and 9PM. Online gaming companies are required to enforce the ban, which came after state media labelled videogames "spiritual opium" and "electronic drugs" a few weeks prior.
"ban" is not the word used in the article. (Score:5, Informative)
From the article.
"Chinese regulators have temporarily slowed their approvals of new online games in the country, dealing a fresh blow to video gaming
companies like industry giants Tencent Holdings and NetEase, as Beijing steps up measures to tackle gaming addiction among young people, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
That strategy emerged after a meeting on Wednesday called by regulators, led by the publicity department of the Chinese Communist Party and gaming watchdog the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA), to discuss with representatives from Tencent and NetEase how they will implement Beijing’s new restrictions on video gaming for minors.
The licensing process for new games had already slowed down for more than a month, according to a person who was briefed about the meeting, but declined to be named because the information is private."
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So... a ban?
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So... it's basically that the CCP says when, or whether, new games may or may not appear.
And if they decide to not allow any new games to be approved, what exactly would be an appropriate name for that?
Trying to understand the Chinese perspective? (Score:5, Interesting)
You're feeding an AC troll. Never leads to anywhere useful. If he had substance, then he'd have put his name on it. If you had added substance, then I'd suggest you should change the Subject, too. (But you didn't, and "avoiding substance" is often the troll's true objective.)
My own feelings about China are mixed, but these days I've found it "interesting" to try to consider things from the Chinese perspective. For this story, is it true that video games can be considered harmful? If so, then is the harm to individuals or to the society? And now I'd like to see and understand the wording of their justification for regulating video games and I'd like to understand if the actual rules created from those justifications match the justifications. Too bad it's all Chinese to me. Inscrutable, eh?
But I have long believed that too much computer usage can be bad for mental health. I think I started believing that addictive gambling was bad even before that, basically in the same bucket of compulsions as alcoholism, day trading, and OCD. More recently I've gotten to the position where I see some video games as disguised gambling and some gambling as disguised video games. So I can understand where the Chinese government might be coming from.
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But right it isn't slowed down at all, it is completely stopped. As in... banned.
Summary of article is misleading (Score:2, Interesting)
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So you clarify, you're saying only new games have been banned?
Also, why post anonymous? Are you a notorious shill? Or a new account?
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A slowdown becomes a ban when the approval rate reaches zero.
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No a 'ban' implies permanence or at least an open ended period that is expected to be of long duration.
The word you are looking for is 'suspension' which may be either open ended or have a set date where it will be lifted but is not supposed to be a long period, for some contextual value of long.
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Don't worry though, it was only a duck. Or at least I presume it was. It walked and quacked like one anyways.
Re: "ban" is not the word used in the article. (Score:5, Funny)
We can call it a prohibition or an interdiction if you need a word to match your ego.
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Talk about hyperinflated ego ...
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Race to the bottom, I take it?
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trying to shame someone passionate about his race.
You mean a racist? Fuck those guys.
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It sounds like you begged her for mediation, and she told you she was mitigating the harm.
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I suggest we wait and see what it means, what do you say?
I mean, it's not like I'd mind fewer Chinafarmers in future games.
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No, in most countries when something didn't need approval before, and the government decides to "regulate" it, they issue rules first, and then there is a smooth transition from "allowed" to "still allowed under certain rules."
Here, there was no transition, it went from mostly-unregulated to banned, with the possibility that the ban will be retracted later.
A "slow down" implies something that is moving. A thing that has stopped is not merely "slow."
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I was never allowed to get a modem when I was a kid because my dad heard about the movie Wargames. Online gaming didnt exist ( unless you count MUDs) but I still managed to waste many hours playing games or writing my own games (well starting them - I never did finish most of my grand ideas mostly because I discovered scope creep first hand and the effects it has on projects without ever actually having it defined for me.
Online games are great to start with, but to be honest, other than Quake and Doom and U
Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like a satire of 1984 too silly to put in theaters so they had to bring it to real life
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The West did that to China in 212 BCE [wikipedia.org]?
I know that dictatorships like to rewrite history, but ... seriously... at least try to stay consistent with what's possible.
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No, wikipedia. It's in the link, you can see it yourself, provided you are able to read latin script.
We were talking about grumpy old men beating up Confucian scholars. Do you think China is so unable to do anything by themselves that they'd need the West to help them beat up their scholars?
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Of course they existed pre, and post 212BC. Hell, they exist today, so of course they existed post 212BC.
I do understand what happened after the opium war. Linking it to the communist revolution is a bit far fetched, though, I'd rather think this would have had more to do with the second World War, the Japanese occupation and the struggle with the Chinese Nationalists.
But I guess that wouldn't be in line with official CCP doctrine, I take it?
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Sorry, I got my history education from out here in reality, I'm not familiar with the CCP-approved history.
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When you start having delusions of psychic visions or events that never happened you should start talking to someone. When you start trying to convince others of those delusions you need to go check in somewhere.
Not so hilarious to the victims (Score:2)
It might be amusing if its some old guy next door yelling get off my lawn at some kids, its really not if its an authoritarian dictatorship who is quite happy to imprison and execute people and even entire ethnic groups who don't toe the line.
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Grumpy old man yells at cloud, becomes totally unchecked autocrat, uses power to do something about "that damned rock n roll the kids listen to" and publishes books the entire country is forced to read explaining how "back in my day..."
It's like a satire of 1984 too silly to put in theaters so they had to bring it to real life
Nothing hilarious about it, since grumpy old man in this particular case is the literally the only one who has power and who will happily take any opposition to death camps.
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We have, you just didn't pay attention.
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Hard evidence, like eye witnesses and satellite imagery? Plenty of that exists.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=... [bing.com]
https://www.bing.com/search?q=... [bing.com]
https://www.bing.com/search?q=... [bing.com]
This is not "we think they're likely doing it.", there is large amounts of hard evidence that Uyghers are being imprisoned in very large numbers and treated extremely badly.
Death camps is an exaggeration but there are certainly as many as a million Uyghers living in fear and misery because of they way the Chinese system is treat
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Perhaps because many Americans rely on cheap Chinese products or production capabilities. If the US would condemn China and stop all trade with them and their allies, the American elite would have to give up some of their riches in order for regular people to afford to buy stuff while the domestic industrial structure is rebuilt. And there is a danger that such a rebuild could put more power in the hands of the people rather than the elite.
Those who have the power to push the right buttons have the incentiv
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They are doing - there is plenty of evidence. Just like there was when the Nazi's were doing it. Its just nobody wanted to believe it because there was to much money involved in remaining neutral so that powerful incentive lead people to choose to disbelieve it until really really damning irrefutable evidence was presented.
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not new for China, for example porn is banned and even TV shows are fairly conservative compared to Western ones. For example, there was a lot of piracy of Game of Thrones because even though it's available in China the official versions are censored to remove nudity and some of the more gory parts, so fans did their own uncensored releases with subtitles.
Generally speaking this kind of thing has a lot of support in China. People believe that the government is looking out for them and acts to protect them.
Having said that it's not all that unlike the West, where while ESRB is theoretically voluntary the reality is it's mandatory for any game that wants to be in any mainstream store. Games aimed at under 18s have to limit the content they include to be appropriate to those ages, basically self-censorship.
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Without the nudity and gore it must have only been about 10 minutes per episode...
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I think for some parts they just re-framed the shots to make them more modest, and later on apparently HBO started offering alternative versions of some scenes with the same dialogue but without the nudity and violence shown explicitly.
Reminds me of the VHS days when you used to get movies in pan-and-scan, long before widescreen TVs were the norm.
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Physical game sales are not nearly what they used to be. Every major platform has digital distribution as a core feature. For PC specifically, physical copies are often just a piece of paper with a download code, or a CD with a stub installer that just downloads the rest of the game from Steam or some other store. And Steam doesn't give a rat's ass about ESRB ratings, there's plenty of literal porn on it.
This is at least moderately dif
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Stream has its own rating system, which is mandatory. The porn games must self rate themselves 18+ and when you view their page without being logged in it asks for your date if birth.
The point stands, all the major outlets require self certification of content.
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The issue was always that retailers wouldn't carry anything rated AO (Adult's Only) which effectively meant no one could release those games. But with Steam not caring it's not an issue. Them asking for age verification is really no differe
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Having said that it's not all that unlike the West, where while ESRB is theoretically voluntary the reality is it's mandatory for any game that wants to be in any mainstream store. Games aimed at under 18s have to limit the content they include to be appropriate to those ages, basically self-censorship.
Erm... you contradict yourself here.
It's a voluntary code of conduct... so it cant be censorship.
Conforming to an industry code, especially a voluntary one isn't self censorship in the slightest. Also Steam, the largest video game store does not require ESRB ratings at all.
However the problem you describe are game companies trying to shove in tits, arse and gore into games aimed at kids in order to increase sales of their shitty game, which is a dick move to say the least. I've no issue with tits,
Re:Hilarious (Score:5, Insightful)
Grumpy old man yells at cloud, becomes totally unchecked autocrat, uses power to do something about "that damned rock n roll the kids listen to" and publishes books the entire country is forced to read explaining how "back in my day..."
It's like a satire of 1984 too silly to put in theaters so they had to bring it to real life
Actually it's closer to a satire of Animal Farm than Nineteen Eighty-Four. In fact few of the themes in Nineteen Eighty-Four seem to fit here. It really pays to have read Orwell's works before using them as an example.
gimmie a work visa, contact via here (Score:2)
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Re: gimmie a work visa, contact via here (Score:2)
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Oh well that makes it alright then. ~
Re: gimmie a work visa, contact via here (Score:2)
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So, the solution is to ensure that EVERYONE has a bad education? Somehow, I doubt that seriously....
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Private education (including tutoring) was creating a split system with the wealthy leaving everyone else behind.
So, the solution is to ensure that EVERYONE has a bad education? Somehow, I doubt that seriously....
If the rich have to put their kids in public education, they will be motivated to improve public education.
I don't know that it's the best solution, but it's unlikely to have the effect you believe it will have.
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No, the CCP is has been making the push for a more equal society. In their eyes, that means the CCP party members are more equal than everyone else and thus the CCP party members shall accrue the benefits. Those state run companies don't exist for no reason.
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Ah yes - socialism at its finest. Your kid is getting to good an education so we will make you send him to the same crapy public school everyone else gets.
We certainly would not want to try to make the public schools so good nobody bothers with private - nope will just ban private schools.
You people amaze me, its like you have got so used to boot pinning your throat to the ground you don't even realize you are not standing up anymore. So pathetic.
And This (Score:2, Troll)
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Do they? Did you poll them?
Are they allowed to voice their displeasure? - No, unless they want a trip to a 're-education' camp.
we could do with some of that... (Score:2)
we could do with some of that over here Gaming is just the rock and roll of the moment. Give it another 10 years and it'll be replaced with something even more soul destroying, antisocial and evil; or so they will say. But then again, I'm old. Youth is wasted on the young. Especially if it's spent gaming. Or writing songs and jamming. amirite?
Re: we could do with some of that... (Score:2)
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The CCP is at this point struggling hard to stay in control and tries to turn back the time with whatever it can. This is by far not the only thing they are currently trying to do to "stop the change" and "make people go back to old values".
They have a huge, HUGE problem with income disparity (seriously, if you think the US is bad, this is worse by magnitudes) which may be a-ok for a capitalist world but it's complete anathema to the communist doctrine. And people start to notice that.
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I believe that the Gini Coefficient for both the USA and China is 0.48. For Norway it's 0.28. For Hong Kong it's 0.54 (more inequality is higher).
Re: And This (Score:2)
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Limiting factors are going to defeat China in the end... and it looks like they will defeat everyone else as well.
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Historically, when you take away people's entertainment they do not become warriors for your cause, they decide they would rather die fighting you than live that sort of life. Or if they're scared enough, they just stop outputting anything useful.
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So a feudal nation-state's system is somehow superior to a liberal Western democracy? I guess if you don't value freedom that makes sense.
Unlikely (Score:4)
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Is why they will beat us in the end. And I don't even like the CCP and the country in general. But we could do with some of that over here.
Slow down there, Jack Thompson.
Even if I grant you premise that CCP move is beneficial (For the record -I disagree it has merit), you still left with the problem of government deciding what is best for each citizens. Basically, any society that could ban games is not society that has any personal freedoms and it is personal freedoms that enable entrepreneurship, innovation, and scientific progress.
Just look at the past 50 years - which of the innovations that define our modern life were NOT invented in t
Productive serfs (Score:2)
Can't be a productive serf if you are playing video games. Probably throwing out their long term productivity and growth goals. Nip that shit in the bud.
Re: Productive serfs (Score:4, Insightful)
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Putting aside the art debate, which is boring, there are plenty of new games that you can play without paying. Hell, even some of the F2P games that are designed to milk your wallet are fairly fun without spending anything. I've been playing Genshin Impact for example, and while the game does get grindy at points I still find it quite enjoyable and even beautiful. And I've spent $0 and can drop it at any time without remorse, so when I get tired of it there's no excuse to pour more money into it in a sad at
Re: Productive serfs (Score:2)
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Re: Productive serfs (Score:2)
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Certainly you don't believe that? China allowed some capitalism to advance their economy and bring in foreign investment. Socialism is an ongoing process
You don't seem to be able to add up your own observations. They allowed, past tense, some "capitalism," or at least what looked close enough to it to bring in foreign investment, but it turned out that the large companies have to donate 25% equity to the State, and the State has recently pointed out that all companies are extensions of the State and are expected to remember that. Leaders of companies that behaved as capitalists were imprisoned, and are now retired.
Even actors who don't present themselves as
Reverse Psychology (Score:5, Informative)
All these bans and crackdowns are going to have the opposite effect. What happens if you forbid something to kids and teenagers? They want it even more and it becomes an obsession.
Since the liberation of markets, the Chinese people have had a taste of what the world has to offer. Many have grown up with things we consider normal in the West, like video games. Cracking down now, will only manage to piss off an entire generation and antagonize them towards the communist government.
So. Good! Carry on Xi!
Re: Reverse Psychology (Score:2, Interesting)
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Or just the opposite will happen.
Yes, right, maybe kids will just stop wanting to have fun on command, and they won't long for the entertainments they used to enjoy.
LOL
Maybe if you just tell them what to do more forcefully they'll be good!
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Inequality is even worse in China then the United States.
Re: Reverse Psychology (Score:2)
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Lack of wit is strong with this one. Every country in the world, except those run by repressive regimes, is on board the capitalist train because they see the alternative sucks.
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That train is headed for a bridge that is out.
And there are no apparent plans to do anything substantive to stop it from going straight into the gorge.
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Well, maybe if we change the fuel... or maybe the conductor should be someone else...
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Can't tell if serious or joking, since we do actually need those things for change... but we also gotta fix the bridge. Maybe a different conductor would hit the brakes.
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No, hitting the brakes could be dangerous to our progress, if we stop we may not be able to start anymore, so keep going, if necessary over the cliff.
Because when (not if) we drop into the abyss, we can still blame someone else for not building the bridge in time, or just claim that someone evil tore it down, kept us from building it or generally claiming that it should have been there anyway, and we would be driving across it if it wasn't for the idiot who told us to look down.
After all, it always worked f
Re: Reverse Psychology (Score:2)
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No that is the way it works here. China is culture where you turn your own mother in for speaking against party. Of course that is the same kind of bullshit the power players are trying to foist on us.
Most innocently with phrases like 'if you see something say something' and most perniciously when they setup news coverage of sons turning their fathers in for protesting at the capital and hold the rat up like some kind of here.
God, Family, Country always in that order folks. You never rat on family - NEVER
Not too surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
Life Is Strange: True Colors was released this week. What makes it interesting is the fact that it's offending Chinese players. Chinese players are downvoting the game on Steam [cogconnected.com] because it shows the Tibetan flag.
Given the China narrative (Tibet is a part of China and therefore, it must fly the Chinese flag), this is a bad thing, especially since it was released worldwide to huge acclaim
It would not surprise me if new games are banned to avoid surprises like this
Re:Not too surprised (Score:4, Informative)
Life Is Strange: True Colors was released this week. What makes it interesting is the fact that it's offending Chinese players. Chinese players are downvoting the game on Steam [cogconnected.com] because it shows the Tibetan flag.
It would not surprise me if new games are banned to avoid surprises like this
I've been to China several times and had friends and a couple of girlfriends who were born and raised there, so that gives me more insight than the average Slashdotter who has never been. No, that's not why they are banning them. The standard Chinese response to any instance of "We don't like what you did" is to bitch bitch bitch about it, demand a huge apology for "offending the nation" and threaten to never let the offender again have access to the Chinese market. There's no reason that approach wouldn't be taken for showing a Tibetan flag in a game. I honestly don't know what the real motivation is, but Dictator For Life Xi is kind of crazy and he actually thinks Communism works, so that's part of it. It may honestly be that the CCP fears that games could be used to communicate outside of government approved channels and be used as a means to mobilize against the government. Now that would be a very real reason for what they are doing. To understand China, the main thing to remember is that EVERYTHING in China is done or exists to protect the CCP. Everything.
Congrats on getting laid, but you're no expert (Score:3)
I've been to China several times and had friends and a couple of girlfriends who were born and raised there, so that gives me more insight than the average Slashdotter who has never been.
Boning some Chinese chick doesn't make you an expert in Chinese culture. I've boned quite a few and will be the first to admit I don't know little about China beyond how to make a handful of women in my past climax. Conversely, having a foreign national suck my cock doesn't make them an expert on America.
Visiting somewhere really doesn't guarantee expertise, either. I have so many Indian coworkers who have lived here 10-20 years and are totally fucking clueless about American culture. They have their
This seems like another desperate move. (Score:3)
The genie is out of the bottle and he will likely decline the CCP's request that he return.
I don't see that this can possibly go well for the CCP.
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It is like Jinping is jinpinging his own party and country. He was never the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Propaganda (Score:2)
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Indeed. China is just a giant corporation. Winnnie the Poo is just their edition of a Rockefeller.
I don't know how Americans always get the idea that China is communist. There never was a truly communist society on this planet, as you would recognize that by there not being any great leader. Aka by it being impossible in the real world, because such a group would be quickly invaded by a group *with* a great leader. Just like a anarchist libertarian society. ^^
Maybe it's for the same reason that Americans be
Are LAN gamers restricted as well? (Score:2)
If china enforces a policy that pushes the young to do their own thing and come up with new versions of Xonotic, Warsow, and Wesnoth I'm actually all for it. That would give china a massive boost for CS and IT talent too.
Some of the monetization models for new games... (Score:2)
*Online* games (Score:2)
Slashdot's long-standing tradition of not reading the source articles often results in misinformation being spread, but in this case all you had to do was read the URL: ".../china-said-suspend-approval-new-online-games-heating-beijings".
(BTW, the headline is now "China’s regulators said to slow their approval of new online games, as Beijing’s campaign against gaming addiction heats up". So only online games, and "slow approval" instead of a complete ban.)
attention grabbers (Score:2)
The real issue is that modern apps, not just games, are designed to grab and hold your attention. Apps are competing for your attention. They are designed to undermine your ability to put them down. Its this psychology based approach to tricking humans with software that is the real issue. Its the approach taken by companies like Robolox to extract money from children though psychological manipulation that should be banned.
When I was a kid TV commercials aimed at kids were regulated. All of tactics that soc
Just Don't Deal With China (Score:2)
No good American company should anyway.
Are they serious? (Score:2)
You don't know what you're doing!
Going between teens and their games is suicidal.
No new games (Score:2)
Grasping at straws. (Score:2)
China is facing some huge demographic and economic challenges -- even with out COVID -- that have the potential to destabilize the regime. And they don't really have a coherent plan for dealing with those problems. We're seeing a number of instances of the regime grasping at straws -- outlawing depictions of effeminate men in media, and cracking down on video games.
To a detached observer, it's obvious that such measures aren't going to do anything to solve China's economic and demographic problems, but th
Re: They're not missing out on much. (Score:2)
stagnation had set in by the mid 2000's You must be 10 years younger than me, it stagnated in the mid 90s. Every FPS is just Doom and Quake. Minecraft is just a resource grabbing/combining adventure with a 1st person perspective. Nothing that innovative there. Mid 2000s eh. So you're into System of a Down to my Faith No More? Rawk on \m/
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Re: They're not missing out on much. (Score:5, Funny)
You must be 20 years younger than me, video games have been stagnant since at least 1972. Think about it: Tetris was Pong with a Russian soundtrack. Super Mario Bros. was kinda only Pong with platforming. And Doom was just Pong but with guns and demons. Hell, even Minecraft is Pong with some insignificant open-ended lego aesthetics and a crafting system. Nothing anywhat innovative anywhere.
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But if he can't wheel around ranting about toys, what is the Burgermeister Meister Pooh-bear [google.com] to do with his time?