
China to ban online gaming, in-game chat with foreigners outside Great Firewall - resist_futility
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3916690
======
billfruit
This needs a better source. Other sources are saying this just a measure being
thought off. Meanwhile no official word on this matter. The thing is there is
lot of fake news going around regards China.

Also they'd be more nuanced now. They will likely ask/force Nintendo to
crackdown than doing it themselves..

~~~
est
> This needs a better source.

There won't be any better source. China will never publish these measures as
laws or regulations, not in clear text nor formally acknowledge such "ban"h
exists. It's an obscure code of conduct to extort companies in private sectors
for "bad behaviour".

And yes it will be arbitrary enforced, the "ban" will differ from time to time
and varies between provinces.

~~~
billfruit
Then how does any one know if it is fake news or not. This is not up to
journalistic standards..

~~~
unityByFreedom
Are you unaware of the degree of censorship in China?

Taiwan's/other externals' reporting on happenings there are as close as you
get to real journalism in China.

~~~
billfruit
This is wrong. Credible agencies like AFP and Reuters operate in China.

~~~
unityByFreedom
That China censors and controls media is not wrong. The only reason we have
the tank man video is because the journalist hid the tape in the back of his
room's toilet.

Reporting via various foreign news outlets should also be taken with a grain
of salt since they cannot get the full truth without endangering their
presence. Three reputable newspapers were recently kicked out of the country.

What's really going on in China is guesswork to a greater degree than
elsewhere. The communist party prefers it this way.

~~~
billfruit
Tank Man video too; I don't think it as significant as the west thinks it is.
Chinese government now claims that it shows the 'humanity' of their armed
forces.

~~~
unityByFreedom
Yes, so humane to bring in tanks to deal with a peaceful protest. Lol, I have
to laugh because the viewpoint you present is so sad.

------
baconizer
Title and article is misleading, as usual, alas. Being a Chinese gamer/coder
is hard, everywhere you turned there's no less of anti-china content shove
down your throat, at the same time an authoritarian regime squeeze on the
other end.

We get it, 1940s there's mass slaughter, 1980s crazy things happened when
there's a nutjob in charge. It's a country with 5000 years of history and 1.4
billion people each with life stories living and thriving, and a govt having
bag of problems just like everywhere else. But, to some people, like
youtube/github/stackoverflow still not enough to tell me I'm less of a human
being, my family my friends and our beloved dog are being 'slaughtered',

serisouly Animal Crossing?

~~~
inawarminister
Sorry, I must nitpick. Egypt and Iraq has 5000 years of history. China has
3000. Your first written record came in 1250 BC, latter day Shang dynasty. On
the other hand at the same date Eastern Mediterranean has five great
historical civilizations already, though nearly all perished in a collapse.
Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Mycenaean Greece, and Anatolian Hittites.

------
RileyJames
>> One-player online games will also be subject to surveillance, as a new
real-name mechanism is going to be implemented in China. Also, the new law
will not allow for zombies and plagues, map editing, roleplaying, as well as
organizing a union in games — regulations which are believed to be inspired by
the sensitive content made by Joshua Wong.

Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach
in the name of surveillance.

It would be hilarious if it were zombies or map editing/mods.

It's amazing that Joshua Wang's actions have resulted in the game being made
unavailable for an entire nation. Banning the entire game is also an
incredible example of the streisand effect.

~~~
aphextron
> Something will be the breaking point for this level of restriction/overreach
> in the name of surveillance.

Nothing will be the breaking point short of political revolution. The CCP has
gladly murdered its' own citizens by the thousands before and they will gladly
do so again to maintain power. That's how authoritarian regimes work. Combined
with the fact that they are powerful enough geopolitically that no other
nation will do anything about it, China is set on its' dystopian nightmare
future.

~~~
unityByFreedom
> The CCP has gladly murdered its' own citizens by the thousands before and
> they will gladly do so again to maintain power

That may be happening now via the virus. China's case count is still around
80k, where it has been since the virus started taking off elsewhere.

Millions died in Mao's "Great Leap Forward" and then again later in his
"Cultural Revolution". Not only did he lead the country through two periods of
extreme death and famine, but also he is still an icon to many in China. Xi
could very well do the same thing.

~~~
blaser-waffle
> China's case count is still around 80k, where it has been since the virus
> started taking off elsewhere.

Many of the Chinese economic growth and development stats are fudged or are
often unconsidered unreliable. I don't know why people think they'd be any
more truthful about a case count.

Wuhan does have a reputation of being the #1 source of Chinese punk bands tho.

------
verst
Admins please edit title for clarity:

China to ban online gaming with, chatting in-game with foreigners outside
Great Firewall.

Right now the title is very misleading and I was concerned that even on WeChat
I wouldn't be able to talk to my Chinese friends.

~~~
AaronFriel
Banning chat between Chinese and non-Chinese on WeChat only seems like a
couple small steps down the slope, so I wouldn't be so sure your concern was
misplaced.

~~~
9nGQluzmnq3M
WeChat is already very heavily moderated and surveilled. The CCP's issue here
is that gaming platforms hosted overseas are not.

------
_bxg1
Wonder how Blizzard feels about this after all the boot-licking they've been
doing for the sake of the Chinese market.

~~~
hatenberg
Moving their servers to Alibaba data centres and swimming in money.

------
tal8d
The Chinese firewall is looking less like a method of tyrannical control, and
more like a ridiculous attempt at troll-shielding an easily manipulated
populace.

[https://youtu.be/xN0vUlljX0I?t=120](https://youtu.be/xN0vUlljX0I?t=120)

~~~
myopenid
The chinese themselves actually prefer playing on local servers due to the
amount of shit talking they get while playing on global servers. Unending
amount of Tiananmen copypasta and free Hong Kong slogan its sickening.

Source: voicechats on csgo

~~~
Der_Einzige
Good.

They lag hard and they seem to hack and use cheats at higher percentages than
non Chinese. There are lots of movements to segregate Chinese players onto
their own servers in games like DotA 2 and Cs:go. The CCP decided that the
people who spam the copypasta about how bad the CCP is were actually making an
impact.

China literally got trolled out of video games - but it's because they trolled
the world first. Reap what you sow...

~~~
me_me_me
Few years back I would occasionally run into groups of Chinese players that
were creating 'bigger teams' in PUBG (usually you play team as team of 4
deathmatch with 100 players). They must have bigger groups queuing at the same
time with same type of cosmetics to form bands of up to 12 players.

Its a lot of 'fun' to play 4 v 12. Trust me. </s>

As bad as it sounds I am glad they will be kept out by their own government.

------
tedk-42
Really just limited to Animal Crossing - I'm guessing because they can't
effectively monitor information on the platform.

Dodgy article title.

~~~
nayuki
Related: [https://time.com/5818993/animal-crossing-china-
removed/](https://time.com/5818993/animal-crossing-china-removed/) "Hong Kong
Protesters Spread Democracy Messages on Animal Crossing. Now It's Gone From a
Huge Chinese E-Commerce Site"

------
dazsnow
The source is a politically-biased English-language Taiwanese tabloid known
for spreading false information relating to the government of mainland China,
especially regarding covid19. Doesn't pass the bullshit filter.

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strategarius
Comrade Xi: so many exciting things to borrow from North Korea or Russia!

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proc0
I'm wondering how _certain_ game companies will react to this because they
kept censoring and changing games to please China for a market they might now
lose to some extent.

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thomasfl
I really wonder what censoring Animal Crossing will teach chinese children?
Thinking about growing up knowing that so much is wrong and that even children
can’t have a critical voice?

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runawaybottle
What the fuck is wrong with China?

~~~
ur-whale
> What the fuck is wrong with China?

Root cause: Confucius and his teachings.

~~~
wdutch
I came here to say this. If you want to predict how the CCP will behave, the
first step is to get a good understanding of Confucianism then work up from
there.

~~~
est
Ironically, during Cultural Revolution, Mao wants to get rid of CCP and
Confucius altogether. The extremists pushed for populism and direct democracy.

------
jsjddbbwj
This would've been a welcome move back when vanilla world of warcraft servers
were still a thing.

------
rdrock
Could these be the drivers?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22885689](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22885689)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886182](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22886182)

