
Rumor: China's ethics board reviews 20 popular online games, bans 9 - throwaway2048
https://www.resetera.com/threads/rumor-chinas-ethics-board-reviews-20-popular-online-games-bans-9-including-fortnite-and-pubg-requires-changes-to-11.86374/
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throwawaysea
If the post is accurate as a translation/source, I doubt those stated reasons
are the true motivations, since citing 'blood and gore' for Fortnite seems
absurd.

I speculate it is more likely a way to carefully manipulate the competitive
landscape for a highly-lucrative industry (gaming), so as to favor local
companies (and yes, I see Tencent is impacted). This should really be brought
up in the on-going trade negotiations.

~~~
mobilemidget
Blood and gore used to be enough reason in Germany to get a game altered?

~~~
tqkxzugoaupvwqr
The point was that there is no blood and gore in Fortnite, therefore the cited
reason can’t be valid, and the true motivation must be something else.

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bliblah
I noticed that all these games are the usual heavy hitters with one notable
exception; Dota 2.

Very curious because dota 2 is definitely violent and has some scantily clad
women (not as far as LoL but I don't think censors really care about
differences).

The reason this is curious is because China is Dota's largest audience and
Valve has announced that TI9 will be held in Shanghai. Important to note that
this is a huge tournament with the largest prize pool _in all of esports_ (T8
was $25.5 Million).

Recently Valve banned a player from participating in a tournament in China for
making racist remarks towards the Chinese in a public match and many believe
that this is Valve bending to Chinese interests. [1] Valve has also recently
announced that they will be releasing Steam China after years of working with
Perfect World as a middle man[2] .

Valve has censored heroes and abilities to appease Chinese Censors and has
been able to more or less keep it only on the Chinese Client. [3] (Rip
Skeleton King)

Interesting times ahead with more and more games and films entering the
Chinese market.

[1][https://www.foxsportsasia.com/esports/dota2/990684/valve-
iss...](https://www.foxsportsasia.com/esports/dota2/990684/valve-issues-
statement-officially-bans-kuku-from-attending-chongqing-major/)

[2][https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/11/17451484/steam-china-
anno...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/11/17451484/steam-china-announced-
valve-perfect-world)

[3][https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Low_Violence](https://dota2.gamepedia.com/Low_Violence)

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niyaven
The linked post has been updated and now says it's an unconfirmed rumor ; I
think it would be better to add this information in the title.

~~~
dang
Added.

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realusername
It's probably all bullshit reasons as usual with the CCCP to let their local
market to compete with local stuff.

> Fortnite by Epic Games/Tencent (Blood and gore, vulgar content.)

This has to be the most ridiculous reason, Fortnite banned for blood and gore?
It's just a cartoon game.

~~~
duchenne
It is probably a mistranslation, they obviously mean that the "battle royale"
theme is too violent: a bunch of strangers are gathered and have to kill each
other until the last one.

Personally, I enjoy that kind of games, but the fact that they display smiling
cartoon characters killing each others can make some people even more
uncomfortable.

On steam, a game where you play a school shooter was recently banned. Can
cartoon graphics and absence of blood make a school shooter acceptable?

~~~
realusername
You could argue about that but what about blood and gore? There's not even any
blood in the game.

~~~
danbruc
Maybe it is not meant to be taken too literally and just means violence, may
even be an artifact of the translation.

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throwaway2048
Interesting in light of the leaked CIA profile on Xi Jingping (Current leader
of the Chinese communist party)

[https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html](https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09BEIJING3128_a.html)

A choice quote:

    
    
       Xi knows how very corrupt China is and is repulsed by the 
       all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society, 
       with its attendant nouveau riche, official corruption, 
       loss of values, dignity, and self-respect, and such "moral 
       evils" as drugs and prostitution, the professor stated. 
       The professor speculated that if Xi were to become the 
       Party General Secretary, he would likely aggressively 
       attempt to address these evils, perhaps at the expense of 
       the new moneyed class.

~~~
craigsmansion
The road to hell...

The reason hardly anyone knows the names of important party members after Deng
Xiaoping and before Xi Jingping is that it was policy. Deng recognised the
dangers of creating a cult of personality, such as he had witnessed (and
suffered) under Mao.

Xi is quickly reversing this, presenting his person and ideas as central
tenets of the party. It's a direction that should cause concern, since I think
it's mainly Deng's policies that laid the groundwork for China's rise and
current status on the world stage.

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toine_toine
[https://i.imgur.com/qnSbTxM.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qnSbTxM.jpg)

rows 1-12: 责令改正 "changes ordered".

rows 13-20: 暂不批准或者退市 " _temporarily_ not approved or leave market".

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verroq
It is great to see a rumour posted on NGA, then badly translated and posted
onto reddit and now reposted on some other messageboard with some
editorialising and now reported as fact on HN.

~~~
paraditedc
Interesting. I forgot NGA as one of the influential online forums in China
when I wrote about that topic.

For those who don't know, NGA was originally a forum about World of Warcraft
(the online game). Then it got popular and became more generic , similar to
the "wow" subforum on Baidu Tieba (Chinese equivalent of reddit, but earlier
than reddit).

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SilverSlash
The irony would've been so amusing had they completely banned Diablo.
Considering how Blizzard made the new diablo mobile game mostly because of the
Chinese market.

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deltron3030
Keeps too many from studying or working I guess..

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point78
What is the solution to China either constantly banning our products and then
cloning them or counterfeiting what's not banned? We're losing billions.

~~~
majani
Their country, their rules. The US has no God given right to world domination
with their products.

~~~
votepaunchy
Just as long as we're on the same page here when the US debt spirals out of
control forcing a default on China-owned T-bonds.

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throwaway2048
Its likely somewhat obvious but "Harmonizing" and "inharmonious" are Chinese
Government euphemisms for censorship and banned political speech.

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zabana
[Off-topic] - What's with all the "China is evil" articles lately ? Are there
any websites (non-chinese) where I can find news about positive advancements
in the country ? This whole anti-China hype train got me intrigued.

~~~
wisdomoftheages
Well, in the Xi era China has a) become more of an overtly fascist
dictatorship and b) harder for Westerners to make money in, so because of b)
there's more incentive to focus on a)

Still lots of great stuff happening there, so long as you're not an ethnic
minority, religious, LGBT, disabled, an addict, mentally ill, interested in
social change, or too poor to afford your own private oxygen and food supply

~~~
zabana
Ethnic and religious minorities are also persecuted all over the US and
Europe, it may not be physically (except if you're black in the US) but
there's definitely a psychological warfare being declared against these groups
through mass media and culture (movies, tv shows, literature ...). I'm not too
sure we can give lessons to the Chinese government on this subject.

~~~
2bitencryption
> are also persecuted all over the US and Europe

Persecuted? I mean, maybe there's social stigma. But I can start a local
chapter of "<some_minority> support group" and no one is going to knock on my
door and disappear me in the night. I can make a website that's entirely
dedicated to criticizing my government, and my internet connection won't be
blocked. I can jaywalk across the street without a CCTV camera auto-detecting
my face, associating it with my Citizen Social Credit score, and then having
it be broadcast on a massive digital billboard to shame me in front of
thousands of people.

Okay, that started to drift from your original point a bit, my bad.

~~~
zabana
> But I can start a local chapter of "<some_minority> support group" and no
> one is going to knock on my door and disappear me in the night.

Absolutely true. But you WILL not be given access to venues to host events,
and you will most certainly be labeled a "violent activist group" or (if
you're from a particular religious group) be accused of "feeding the fire of
terrorism". With all the negative consequences that come with that. (This is
not science fiction by the way, it happened in a certain west european country
not too long ago).

So yeah, I'm not sure it's a better deal.

I wasn't trying to start a flame war or anything. I just find the hate towards
china very curious and very dangerous. What bothers me isn't necessarily the
negative criticism it's rather the fact that we're accusing them of things the
US and Europe have been guilty of for centuries, but you're right we're
drifting away from the main topic of the article.

Thanks for replying.

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sbhn
In UK they use the PEGI rating system for games that influences the design
process. They also have OFCOM, ICO, HMRC and even more. Chinese companies cant
sell games in the UK without complying with all the laws. Sounds like another
case of dictator knows what dictator does. Perhaps china is retaliating for
canada locking up a huawei executive for violating US sanctions on iran, or
maybe china is exercising its import customs rights just like the heavy handed
customs enforcment as demonstrated by the US and the UK

~~~
johneth
That’s a completely pointless observation.

PEGI is a pan-European (note: not solely UK - it’s an industry body) rating
system. It doesn’t censor content or creativity, it just recommends that
younger people can’t buy extreme content. It’s not active censorship.

Ofcom doesn’t apply to games - it’s TV, radio, phones, communications
regulator (Office of Communications).

The ICO regulates data protection and privacy. In what way is this related to
game and creativity censorship?

HMRC is tax collection. The _only_ way this can affect game design is via tax
breaks - these tax breaks are not predicated on specific creative
requirements.

So - how is the UK in any way similar to China in terms of game censorship?

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sbhn
Perhaps you answered your own question. Uk has many cards up its sleeve to
censor china for whatever reason it needs.

~~~
johneth
I just pointed out how the UK does not have cards up it’s sleeve.

But as you seem to know something I don’t, please enlighten me - any examples
of the UK government actually censoring games?

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sbhn
Games are media. Even the app store has censorship requirements that you must
follow. You can lobby to your government to introduce more stringent
cencorship laws on Chinese exports to your country if you want, because, well,
its just not fair that chinese has inport laws, just like many other
countries.

~~~
johneth
Thank you for not answering my question.

~~~
sbhn
my first comment illuded to the eagerness of the hacker news community to
engage in china bashing. I also pointed out that censorship is considered
during the design process. Here is a list of games we are allowed to know
about before PEGI was enforced.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games)

Games you are not allowed to know about would be sympathic to the cause of
afghans, iranians, iraqis, syrians and many more things that sell newspapers
and political elections.

~~~
johneth
Pointing out hypocrisy in the Chinese government's policies (competition,
human rights, etc.) is not 'bashing'. Just as pointing out those things in
other governments is not X bashing.

The reason it seems to occur more often with China is because China is the
rising power, and probably the power of the 21st century - its actions will be
scrutinised because its actions have major consequences for the rest of the
world.

I will happily 'bash' my (UK) government over a whole range of things.
Censorship in creative industries is not one of them. China has a long history
of creative suppression and censorship.

I would assume that games sympathetic to the causes of Afghans, Iranians,
Iraqis, Syrians, and others are not 'banned' or creatively stifled, just that
there is no commercial interest or reward in such games. This is not
censorship by a government. There's nothing stopping anybody making games on
such subjects.

That's the difference between China (and other similar governments) and, for
lack of a better category, western governments. China's government will
intervene in creative processes, western governments will not.

~~~
sbhn
China is no different than england. Anybody on the raw end of English foreign
policy knows that.

~~~
johneth
Errm, OK.

That has nothing to do with what we're talking about - government interference
in creative industries.

It seems you just have an axe to grind.

