
Tencent replaces PUBG with a Chinese government-friendly alternative - mortenjorck
https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/08/tencent-pubg-game-for-peace/
======
ezoe
The title name, Game for Peace is like straight out from Orwellian concept of
double-think.

> The new Tencent title bears a striking resemblance to PUBG but there are no
> dead bodies, while it plays up to a nationalist theme with a focus on
> China’s air force

It looks like the new title was 和平精英. not Game for Peace. Still, it sounds a
lot like double-think.

~~~
cpeterso
Google Translate says "和平精英" means to "Peace Elite". Is that an accurate
translation? I assume "Elite" in this context is a noun referring to elite
soldiers?

~~~
ttflee
Counter Strike was translated as 反恐精英, where 反恐 meams counter terrorism. I
have no idea how these elite things came into play.

~~~
rqs
Will you laugh if I tell you the game Half-life in China is called literally
"Half of Life" (半条命)[0]?

Don't take that name too seriously, I don't think there is anything to it
other than to make it sound better.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-
Life_(video_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_\(video_game\))
(Notice the language selection)

~~~
ttflee
I laughed years ago.

It was less popular than Counter-Strike (which was acronymized as CS) in China
when I was young. And I didn’t bothered with the translation for years before
I realized the correct one.

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methodover
China is a threat to freedom everywhere.

I know games seem like a tiny thing, right? But it matters when a government
suppresses freedom of expression, even when it comes to a silly video game.

China sees it as their prerogative to do whatever they want to their people,
including, by the way, detaining hundreds of thousands without charges in re-
education camps.

~~~
leavjenn
Related to Chinese game censorship:

1\. A game developed by Taiwanese studio, Devotion, has been removed from
Stream by its developers due to a hiding meme about Xi Jinping founded by
Chinese gamers earlier this year.[1]

2\. Still earlier this year, Chinese Overwatch players being instantly banned
from the game for typing the words "Winnie the Pooh" in public chat.[2]

[1] [https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18239937/taiwanese-
horror...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18239937/taiwanese-horror-game-
devotion-gone-steam-removed-winnie-the-pooh-meme-china)

[2] [https://www.dexerto.com/overwatch/chinese-overwatch-
players-...](https://www.dexerto.com/overwatch/chinese-overwatch-players-are-
getting-permanently-banned-for-typing-winnie-the-pooh-in-chat-411037)

~~~
downrightmike
They should switch it up with the Winnie the pooh references.

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SurrealSoul
So a game company removes one of their own games, and replaces it with a
different version with a different name?

If the company decided to do that independently, does that matter? Maybe they
could be capitalizing on nationalism?

If the government made them alter it, how would that be different than say
Left 4 Dead having different censorship in Germany

~~~
AndrewKemendo
This is the difference:

 _" In its place, Game for Peace is very much the type of game that will pass
the demands of China’s game censorship body."_

The idea being that consumers aren't the primary drivers for changes in what
is available in the market. Rather this decision was primarily influenced by a
central government body that controls what is available in the market. It's an
explicit example of levers being pulled by the government in a planned
economy, in contrast to a more "democratic" if you will, market mechanism.

~~~
jstanley
FWIW, Left 4 Dead has different censorship in Germany because of levers being
pulled by the government, not because the free market prefers it that way.

------
cco
I do hope American companies begin to wise up and realize that though China
may be one of the largest markets, it is essentially worth $0 to a foreign
company. The Chinese government will not, repeat, will not allow a non-Chinese
controlled company to win long term. In the short term a foreign company may
be allowed to achieve some success but at the cost of IP; I'll leave out the
ethical considerations.

Maybe the realpolitik suggests that companies should continue to try in China
since the alternative is further isolation between China and the Western world
which may hasten hostilities? I just can't fathom why a company like Google
still wants to work in China, they'll make product and IP concessions to the
Chinese government and will either lose Google China autonomy or be replaced
wholesale by a Chinese company. Where is the shareholder value?

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ProtoAES256
The new version contains a small banner at the left corner for PLAAF(People's
Liberation Army Air Force) recruitment. The old to new game process is just
replacing the old PUBG application with the new one and the update process
suggests that the maps are just modified by a little, mostly the same. Most of
my old game data are migrated to the new game. My player level, guild,
achievements, war record, old season battle records- hey, this is just another
skin for the game to met the legal requirements like how the green blood works
before!

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josefresco
"The new Tencent title bears a striking resemblance to PUBG but there are no
dead bodies, while it plays up to a nationalist theme with a focus on China’s
air force — or, per the Weibo message, “the blue sky warriors that guard our
country’s airspace” — and their battle against terrorists."

~~~
edm0nd
That's really weird because there are no aircraft in PUBG besides the plane
that drops you off and the supply plane.

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mrgalaxy
I wonder if this means the desktop version of PUBG is also banned in China
now? There has been a big problem of cheaters in this game, and others like
it, the majority of which are Chinese.

~~~
cannedslime
Yeah I never understood why they mix asian and western player populations
together like that. There is obvious cultural differences, of course there is
cheaters of all creeds, but I promptly stopped playing this game when the
chinese flooded it. No fun in playing a team game whera A. You can't
communicate with your teammembers, B. Your teammates will shoot you in the
face the moment you get better stuff than they have. (Had chinese do this to
me 4-6 times in one day).

Edit: removed inappropriate generalization.

~~~
rincebrain
Tell me, did it strike you at any point that generalizing Chinese players
viewing you as just another generic white person might have some hint of the
pot calling the kettle black?

~~~
practice9
I think it's not the same because they disregard the rules and refuse to
communicate (at least that's my impression).

Unfair game is unfair game no matter what nation / race or skin color you are

~~~
rincebrain
Sure, I wasn't trying to suggest they were completely equivalent.

The fact that the parent was objecting to every member of a group of people
treating all members of another group of people similarly struck me quite
strongly when reading it, separate from the discussion about differences in
culture.

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byron_fast
Cheating in PUBG is an economic result. It has nothing to do with Chinese
people or Chinese culture. You can - or could - make real money farming
digital goods in PUBG, and people in China have the bandwidth and computer
hardware necessary to make a living doing it.

Cheats are a rational response to the idiotic "loot box" incentives that are
popular with game companies that are only able to see 72 hours into the
future.

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wholien
和平精英 shouldn't be translated into Game for Peace, more like Peace-Keeping
Elites (connoting an elite military force that will fight to achieve peace).
Doublethink accusations in this thread are interesting - when I read the title
I immediately knew it was a shooting / battle game. Maybe this is
doublethink... maybe this is how Chinese words work, especially in a language
where a character can mean 2 or more things.

Peacekeeping means they will fight right? Is it a doublethink to call the UN
Peacekeeping force a peacekeeping force if they have guns and stuff?

I don't see any other links with the Chinese Airforce, aside from the Weibo
shoutout to 空军招飞局 (Airforce recruiting) on the Weibo post.

~~~
tdb7893
I think a lot of what makes the game weird is the combination of fairly
realistic characters with such obviously silly animation and gameplay. It's
very counter to expectations and makes the game feel very sterilized, if they
had gone for something more weird and stylized (like Splatoon) it wouldn't
seem strange.

Also if they made a game about UN Peacekeepers shooting people and called it
Peace-Keeping Elites it would still be pretty funny to a US audience. They
they might be called Peacekeepers but if you made a game about them shooting
people and called them that no one would miss the irony of that.

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thrower123
> Last month, the country’s State Administration of Press and Publication
> released a series of demands for new titles, including bans on corpses and
> blood, references of imperial history and gambling.

I guess Three Kingdoms Total War won't be available in the country it is based
on...

