
Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes - ilamont
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3645413
======
anonytrary
> The new horror video game called “Devotion” created an uproar among Chinese
> netizens when a poster in the game was discovered to mock Chinese leader Xi
> Jinping, by referring to him as “Winnie the Pooh.”

What? That's it? Damn. That's nothing. Maybe free speech being rampant breeds
thick skins, maybe free speech is a good thing.

~~~
xfs
That's not it, but it'd be pretty effective to paint the other side as
ridiculous with an incomplete picture. Check who wrote this piece.

My best guess is Winnie the Pooh was a hint that prompted people to look for
more political innuendos, which they found plenty, mostly consisting of ethnic
slurs at the mainlanders that mapped exactly to IRL Taiwanese slurs against
the Chinese. This game was praised with a passion in China for its quality but
people felt betrayed when they found out they are being played.

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
Nope it could be just that. There’s a lot of weirdness in China about Winnie
the Pooh because the dictator in charge there is sensitive about his physical
resemblance to the character. You can google it and find lots of articles
about it.

~~~
arthurcolle
[https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&o...](https://www.google.com/search?q=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&oq=winnie+the+pooh+xi+jinping&aqs=chrome..69i57.4304j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

Really not seeing any resemblance... ?

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-
win...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-
pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi)

------
duxup
It's always a little disturbing to see speech like calling a political leader
“Winnie the Pooh” get such a response.

~~~
pennaMan
Look up what kind of speech got projects removed from GitHub (nothing to do
with China or any political leader) if you really want to be disturbed. At
least in this case there's a nation state involved, with a well known highly
tuned propaganda machine.

~~~
Smithalicious
Can you give an example?

------
forkLding
The reality of the situation is that most of the company's sales comes from
the Chinese market, which is the reason why there are so many negative
reviews. You need ownership of the game to post a Steam review. This situation
could be alleviated if other people buy the game because it has English
translations.

The reason for anger I've heard from Chinese gamers is that they turned this
issue political whereas in the past games didn't involve politics and they're
pissed that their apolitical space has been invaded. As well, streaming the
game has gotten Chinese game-streamers in trouble or having to take down their
streams/videos.

[https://store.steampowered.com/app/1006510/Devotion/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1006510/Devotion/)
you can read the Chinese comments yourselves, they're well-written in English

~~~
uranusjr
> The reality of the situation is that most of the company's sales comes from
> the Chinese market, which is the reason why there are so many negative
> reviews. You need ownership of the game to post a Steam review.

Except that Steam offers full refund without removing your review. This is a
well-known strategy for review spammers ;)

------
despera
"Red Candle Games"'s first game was Detention. Also a "horror" adventure
(wasn't that horrific thought), that was a reference and a criticism to
Taiwan's so called "white terror" period:

"The term "White Terror" in its broadest meaning refers to the entire period
from 1947 to 1987.[4] Around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned during this
period, of which from about 3,000 to 4,000 were executed for their real or
perceived opposition to the Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party)
government led by Chiang Kai-shek." (wikipedia)

So those guys evidently don't hold in high esteem domestic or foreign
oppression.

But somehow Detention was a great game for the mainland chinese and a historic
remark for taiwan's atrocities to its own people (a true statement) but now
they have become angry because of a pixel poster with a reference to a meme
about their little dictator? I think they should change the poster with the
tank man and be done with it. Too bad they can brute force their way through
capitalistic ways of buying power and reviews.

------
cromwellian
It's not the PRC government, if I read it right, the take down was a result of
a backlash from the gamers. There's a huge amount of "glass heart" nationalism
going on online. Any slight criticism of China or Taiwan from either country
invites a strong nationalist backlash against the other.

It seems these days I can't watch a Chinese video without some political fight
breaking out in the comments over small perceived slights. I guess if during
the height of the Cold War, the Russians made a game that made fun of the US,
there may have been a similar response, but it's hard to imagine these days if
a game company put an Orange Donkey Kong and called it Trump that anyone but a
few Trump fans would get upset.

~~~
scoot_718
Of course, because their people have to comply otherwise they'll lose their
social credit and their ability to travel and their organs.

------
Merem
As an aside, the website mentioned in the article, "Spiel Times", seems to be
an Indian and not a German one. No idea how that came to be, considering their
website and Twitter account show it rather clearly.

------
beatle_sauce
The weibo account of the person who called for a boycott of Devotion, was
promptly deleted. "If repeat its words, you help to spread it, you also have
responsibility".
[https://twitter.com/palastinalied11/status/10992952479877611...](https://twitter.com/palastinalied11/status/1099295247987761152)

------
yumraj
Had not even heard of the game till now.

Streisand effect in the making?

~~~
colechristensen
I don't think so.

People know Taiwan != China. The censorship is a projection of power, not
hiding a secret.

Nobody calling the king fat because he cuts off heads doesn't change the fact
that everybody can see he is indeed overweight.

------
komali2
>We are deeply sorry for hurting everybody,”

Damn. While I get the position of the Taiwanese, I sometimes wish they'd send
more middle fingers at the mainland. "yeah, xi jinping is a dumpling, fuckm,
we apologise for nothing."

As if Taiwan is an existential threat to prc by hurling insults as dramatic as
"Winnie the Pooh" across the strait. Just seems like more bullying to me.

~~~
z2
When I buy a game, or any consumable for that matter, I'm not expecting angry
rogue staff to hide political Easter eggs. There's a place for
activism/satire, but perhaps not on the salary of a presumably neutral
employer.

~~~
jtms
What makes you so sure it was “rogue” staff that put the imagery in?

~~~
z2
That's what the article said, unless the developer made it up for damage
control. I'm not defending the abhorrent overreacting that led to the company
self-censoring. It's just, if the game makers scripted this and designed it
intentionally it would be great and a whole different story. Otherwise it's
kind of like buying a comic to find an artist hid animal rights messages in
it. It doesn't mean I'm against animal rights, but it just feels
unintentional, kind of like a bug.

------
sergiotapia
Deliberate by the company to get their game name out. I've never heard of this
game, but I'm sure it's doing the rounds now.

