China, gaming and 2024

 The CCP won't let me be- let me be me so, let me see- trying to shut gaming down globally, but we'll be so empty without our Wii... s...

Not my best.

China, home to 1.4 billion, one of the largest economies on the planet, and full to the brim of doctors who would do a damn sight better job of saving the world than any one of our pitiful western Avengers! Why even bother putting together a team for the multiverse saga in order to take down Kang or Doctor Doom or whoever Marvel manage to vomit out on the screen when you can instead replace all of that with attractive-young-doctors drama? God knows I'm 15 times more interested to know what's happening in the personal lives of my favourite 'Iron Man 3 Chinese Version' Doctors then I am in anything the MCU has cooking. Heck, any Chinese professional is a master at their job according to the Chinese movie edits I've spied over the years! Their justice system managed to both capture and reform Tyler Durden completely off screen in Fight Club! (That is commendable!) But if there is one thing that China doesn't have over the rest of the world, and it's only this- their government really hates games.

Well, I mean all older people hate games. The demographics are peeling back a lot these days, we're seeing middle aged people who grow up playing video games starting to realise that pieces of software are not, in fact, the devil incarnate; but the generation still clinging onto power just before them- they consider computers and their screens utterly anathema to their way of life. But China seems to harbour a very special hatred of games and gaming that touches a bit deeper than anyone else in the world. In fact, China's government were the one's who put out a statement bashing video games declaring them to be 'spiritual opium', which is wild conflation of two vastly distinct entities probably deserving of some deeper investigation of the psyche of whoever is messed up enough to even consider such a connection in their mind. Unfortunately the people who made that connection are in charge of the government, so they won't receive the concerned oversight and speedy retirement they likely require.

China already established utterly draconian rules cutting to ribbons the amount of time that young people are allowed to play video games, probably figuring that once they reach adulthood those people will be far too busy to fall to the 'spiritual opium' of the west. But as you can imagine, no country as big as China can be effectively policed by vague government guidelines and China has still pretty openly remained the largest enclosed video game market on the globe. Not least of all thanks to the many partnerships of Government backed 'Tencent' who has it's tendrils in so many international video game companies they might as well rename themselves to the 'gaming world order'- their influence is that ridiculous! Game companies wouldn't still be bending over backwards to develop Chinese censor approved editions of their games if there was no longer a market to sell them too. However, that market might have been in danger recently...

You see, the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA) were the fellows in charge of the many schemes to crackdown on the industry within China- from the stringent game approvals system to the proposed name verification imposed upon gamers. Last Year the NPPA decided to shift their gaze not just on the gamers, but at the companies who produce the games themselves with a wide-reaching set of rules and measures aimed at reducing the spending of gamers- within a market fine-tuned and shaped around encouraging spending: Chinese gamers. Merely the mention of these measures was enough to spark absolute chaos and panic across the market, reportedly wiping out $80billion worth of market value in China's two biggest gaming companies. That's not the kind of figures that just fly under the radar.

Hence the regulatory body in charge of directing the NPPA was recently relieved of their head, one Feng Shixin, reportedly for these very announced measures. Whereas before the NPPA was riding high on their efforts to stamp out the plague of gaming, it would seem the one time they hit a target that actually caused some damage the sheer magnitude of what they were up against dawned upon them. The NPPA are already opening up the possibility of amending their regulation based on public feedback, presenting a possibility for a push back that might just shatter their steel grip on the Chinese gaming market. And of this I consider myself of two minds. One of both applause and mild mannered scepticism if things are heading in the right direction. 

On one hand it is the regulatory decisions of the Chinese Government which is holding back the games industry from their biggest potential injection of customers. The amount of hoops that need to be jumped through in order to reach the Chinese populace requires a frankly infantile dumbing down of any art heading into the country in a manner that is downright insulting to the intelligence of their people. As though seeing a dead body in a video game is going to trigger the dormant psychopathy hiding in the hearts of all people, or something equally as dense. It's that same styling of ill-informed faux-science which makes it seem like the Chinese government learnt nothing about the aimless ineffectiveness of their 'limited child policy' from a whole other lifetime ago. And yet...

I can't just pretend like the overzealous pricing strategies of gaming companies, particularly those connected to the CCP through Tencent, aren't harmful to the entire industry. Those who saw the Diablo Immortal trainwreck and identified it as the absolute worst of the worst were fortunate never to have spied the many other China-centric online games with equally as horrendous monetisation practices. It's simply the way of game design around there, and any kick to the stomach that cancer on the industry takes is a win in my books. But it already seems as though this slap to the face is being recalled by the NPPA, and if that happens these sorts of practices will only become emboldened which will give Tencent and it's friends the courage to enact these ideas further and further abroad. There really is no winning with this one, is there?

So it's looking like another big year of industry changing over in China for how the country is attempting to define it's relationships with gaming in an international market that is coming to greater favour them with every passing month. Will China's Government stick to their guns and kneecap one of it's most profitable sectors all in the pursuit of proving a point? Will the NPPA turn around with their tail between their legs and relent to the money-moving industries that dwarf them? Will Feng Shixin live up to the vibe I get reading his name and use the resentment and shame from being removed as fuel to power his origin story as an anti-videogame pro-regulation supervillain? Find out in this year's season of: China hates games!

Diablo Immortal's very bad week

 Like Dominoes

During the high peaks of my sojourn, one of the most invigorating and depressing stories to follow was the whirlwind, turnbuckle insanity of 'Diablo Immortal's rollercoaster journey this way and that. "Oh, turns out it's a huge 20 million financial windful for Blizzard, guess they won guys!' 'Oh but that's a mere fraction of what Diablo 3 won in it's first week, 300 million for the record, so they lost guys!' 'Oh, but that's just what the prototypical growth model of mobile games looks like to begin with. They start small but with recurrent payments that build up over the years. They won guys, deal with it.' 'Oh, but it turns out that original figure of how much Immortal made isn't even direct figures but a broad-park estimate made by some outlet who's calculations got twisted into solid fact. I don't have any clue where they're at, guys!'. Yes, if you've been threating over the 20 million in one week figure that Diablo Immortal has had glued to it's name, fear not because there's no confirmation that is the case. Although maybe you should then fear more, because that's about the profit margins of a standardly profitable mobile game and Immortal's microtransactions are vampirically immoral; they most likely have made much more than that.

But at the end of the day the bottom line is that Diablo Immortal is a game that is very much trying to push the bar against the rights of the consumer so that the dial of 'what's acceptable' can be turned up beyond the current comfort margin of society. We've seen this done time and time again in the game's industry and the only way we can push back on it, make sure that others who see this experiment don't take it as a sign to gratefully follow their trend, is to utterly and bitterly reject it so bad that whenever Blizzard so much as mentions the words 'Diablo' and 'Immortal' in conjunction with each other it costs them money. This is the same procedure as what the Star Wars gaming community did to EA after Battlefront 2; and it absolutely worked. Although with some of the, frankly shocking, misfortunes that the Diablo team is suffering, I think the gaming community might be stepping on their toes a little harder than they did with EA already.

First I should start by saying that there's the age old excuse for games like these where 'it's not the developers who cause this, it's the producers!'. And whilst a lot of the times that is very much the case, it's by no way a catch-all. Sometimes developers push and believe in predatory microtransactions meant to drain player's dry all on their own, and the support of the producers is just a guaranteed bonus in that endeavour. Of course, it's impossible to say which is which without some sort of insider whistle-blower feeding us that juicy internal deets; but if I was a betting men I'd wager that the director of Immortal, Alex Chen, is one of the bad ones. Not just for that weirdly affronted response of "What, do you guys not have phones?" When this whole project was first called into question by the public, but also for the fact we've seen over the years screens of Alex Chen personally selling the greedy monetisation propositions (some of which didn't even make it into the full product for how over-the-line they were) directly towards NetEase. That's not exactly a smoking gun, but it is a hefty waft of smoke indicating some sort of nearby fire.

Now, Immortal is losing it's prominence: fast. From the beginning what this game had was the strength of the brand behind it as well as an ARPG market that hasn't been as flush with competition recently so they could get away with giving players an average ARPG that ran smoothly and convince them it was a 'great game'. (I stand by my assertations; Diablo Immortal is not a 'great game' under it's predatory machinations; it's average at best, mediocre against any serious, even dated, competition.) That goodwill and fame was shored up with the release, mostly successfully, of 'Diablo 2: Resurrected'. Since then the Diablo name has been dragged brutally through the mud to the point where Immortal won the spot of worst user rated game on Meta Critic beating out the previous record holder- which was another Blizzard game, 'Warcraft 3: Reforged'.

In those early days there was a flush of content creators who wanted to stare in wonderment at the traincrash, but now the devastation is becoming too distasteful even for them. (Or they're just bored of the cycle; that would be fair.) One of the most controversial of which being the couple of big streamers who were intentionally 'whaling' on the game in order to mock the extent of microtransaction culture required in order to get cool gear or reach a competitive state. People raise their brow at such a backwards protest, but in truth is does really help to see that cycle played out in real time with a constant visual counter letting people know exactly how much money went into it. One streamer spent around about 15,000 dollars in order to get a single best-in-slot gem which, to remind you, is only the best on offer for the base edition of Diablo Immortal, the second there's an update that gem is going to need to be replaced. And another spent around 25,000. Both subsequently quit the game the moment they were done making their point, and with that the viewership of Immortal really dried up.

This live service dropped a month ago and is seeing around about 1.5k average Twitch viewers. A fan site for creating professional build guides, which worked on the beta and alpha for Diablo Immortal, ended up dropping their support for the game in protest of what it became. Sentiments are almost universally negative towards the game and any of the indoctrinated who blindly support it. Diablo just isn't living it's best life through Immortal right now, and it's starting to taint the confidence in Blizzard outside of the core fanbase who had already given up on the company in their hearts. Of course, this is a double edged blade for the people to wield as the dropping interest from the wider world is leaving the Diablo Immortal game to be gobbled up by the whales whom, assuming they stick around, will continue to feed this game for the money goblins free from the judgement of everyone else. It's so hard to see if we're spitting in Diablo Immortal's face or playing directly into their hands!

Although one instance which absolutely is not playing to the favour of the Blizzard ghouls is the Chinese release. The entire model of Diablo Immortal was built expressly to take advantage of the huge Chinese market for mobile gamers and exploit the heck out of their lack of community enforced game design standards. NetEase was bought abroad because of their connections in China. All roads led to that market. Which is why it is so incredible that someone, who cannot be identified so I can but assume he did so with full knowledge of how next-level of a protest this was, from the American-side of Blizzard logged into the Chinese marketing account and tweeted out a phrase to the tune of "When will the Bear fall off of his seat?" Now of course this refers to the embarrassing insecurities of China's leader Xi Jinping, for his detested visual comparisons to Winnie the Pooh, and the fact that he's a dictator who will never step down from his position. Pretty volatile stuff, and the consequence were swift and glorious.

For bending over backwards in order to curry favour with a dictatorship, Blizzard won themselves a immediately halted release for a game they were literally on the cusp of dropping and since then the game was banned from China completely completely. Maybe Blizzard will find a distribution method to sneak around this ban, but good lord is that a protest! Someone basically said "You ruin my industry, I'll gouge our your profit margins!" Way to kick Blizzard where it hurts! (Assuming this was done intentionally; which I absolutely believe it was but for the sake of the argument I have to accept the possibility that it might not have been. But come on; 'When will the bear fall of his seat'? Why would you text that in your personal accounts? What value does that vacuous statement have beyond triggering fragile egos?) Diablo Immortal is an example of the worst tendencies of the gaming industry being bloated into a disaster and those who excuse it are inviting those practises to become mainstays. So if Diablo Immortal is to die and drag Blizzard into the ground along with it, then I say good riddance; a company who allows that don't deserve any more benefits of the doubt.

Fortnite banned in China

 Uh oh, China Blog? Abandon ship now, these tend to get messy... 

Woe and damnation be me, for I have to once again talk about China which means bringing up the CCP and I've run out of imaginative ways to call their 'President' a cuddly teddy boi. Okay, actually I'm lying on two counts there, first for having to do this, my depression might dictate I write something everyday, but it's not specific about what, and my namecalling has never been creative. But I just can't help pondering and posturing about the polices and directorates of a state who's dominance and influence seems like the inevitable progression of modern life. Look at it as the musing of a snail, watching the slow progress of rubber garden boots trodding across the path towards him, yet incapable of doing a single thing to stop them. That's about the level of morbid fascination that sparks between my eyes when I see "oh, another censorship overreach from the Middle Kingdom, how fun!"

Although, I suppose this story could be seen as another example of the classic school yard game "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes", because the Chinese Government haven't themselves done anything far abroad from their previously stated values, it's really Epic Games who tried to wiggle through their fire wall and is now looking at years of wasted development time splattered all over their hands. Epic wanted to tango with the biggest market in the world and I can't help it if I don't exactly feel sad that the whole thing didn't work out for them. It's not like this whole endeavour is going to wound the multibillionaire company too much. I mean, they've had enough capital to comfortably seek lawsuits, that they themselves aggrieved, against Apple and Google in the same year, something tells me that losing China isn't going to sink them just yet. (Although it might lead to some internal groups being shut down, and that does actually suck)

Pointedly, Tencent didn't manage to win a licence for Fortnite and the consequence is a shutting down of operations going forward within China, because of the tight hold that the CCP attempts to hold over their citizens and the entertainment products that are allowed within the great Chinese firewall. Previous games have had to kowtow to pressures to limit depictions of 'sacrilege to the dead', which essentially means no skeletons or skull iconography and probably no Liches from Baldur's Gate either, but maybe if you don't tell them what Liches technically are you might be able to get away with it. (Just say that they're really emaciated people who float) What's more distressing, however, is the fact that the CCP are against excessive depictions of violence, which doesn't mean torture, but just people dying in general. Huh, that's going to be a problem for a Battle Royale game, isn't it?

'Game for Peace', the Chinese version of  PUBG, got around this by having dead players get up and wave before fading away in a somewhat comical display showing how no one is really dying. (And seriously skirting technicality laws, if we're all being honest with ourselves.) Rainbow Six Siege had to make separate versions of maps for their launch in China that cut out some skulls from decorations in one of the levels. (I think they also cleaned up some bloodstains too. They got thorough.) The message is clear, it doesn't matter how big your game is or how much potential revenue it could score for the economy, you either play ball with the CCP or they will kick your ass out of here. Money making it no where near as important as cultural control over there.

But one would think that Fortnite shouldn't be in too much trouble here given everything the game is and how it portrays itself. At it's heart, Fornite is a cartoony shooter with soft edges that doesn't even so much as show blood when people are shot. Bodies are never on the floor for more than a few seconds, no scary skulls are present, (aside from some skins I guess) so the only real point of contention I might imagine would be the total deluge of weaponry available to characters based on very real world guns and artillery. I can certainly see why some parents over here get worked up about seeing their kids seeking out killing implements and seeing them as power-ups, I think it's misplaced fear, but I can at least comprehend how that line of worry is spawned.

Things aren't getting any more lenient over in Beijing, however, as we've seen from the increasingly stringent crackdowns on online free time that's hitting the youth and trickling up into adults. But even then, it is kind of cruel for the CCP to keep Tencent's version of Fortnite in the testing stage for three years before ultimately shutting the whole thing down. Especially since, whilst in the testing phase, the game was totally forbidden from charging players, meaning that the company has literally wasted three years of profits that could have gone anywhere else trying to currying favour with the unknowable whims of a power obsessed dictato- are we allowed to call the CCP 'dictators'? I mean it seems logical but that also sounds very confrontative for what is ostensibly a gaming blog. I'm just going to go ahead and call their methods 'aggressive' and leave it at that. (I can't afford holidays anyway, might as well burn all bridges for a future China visit.)

Some are looking at this as a poor omen for the future of the gaming industry over in China, for if even this hugely popular game can't get a foot in the door over at China, then who feasibly can? I can't pretend to know more about the situation over there then I rightly do, in fact I don't think any outside of the shadowy investor board of Tencent has the privilege of that infomation, but I do know the sort of message that this sends. The headache of breaking into China is only worth it for games companies because of the number of players there that make it the biggest market in the world, but when Epic is screwed around like this on a public stage, it might just be enough to turn off future prospectives. I mean, were I in the sort of position to be making these choices I wouldn't be doing business with China anyway (because I have some sliver of self respect), but where I somehow already in such a relationship, this would be a big spook factor to convince me to look elsewhere.

We've seen some talented developers from Tencent leave the CCP bubble and market their talents to the wider rest of the world, and when you see the sort of evil eye of Sauron control which is being flaunted over there it's easy to see why. Total dominion over entrainment being exercised by a party who, as they've demonstrated historically and spectacularly, have proven at times to be utterly clueless with implementing these sweeping social reform measures, just sounds like a minefield of uncomfortable that no artist wants to have to deal with. Who wants to be toyed around for years and then be told that you're 'morally unfit' by a government body formed of unrepentant genociders? Oh is this blog getting a bit too heavy? You know I get this way when we're talking Chinese government, you can't say you weren't warned. Still, best I wrap this up before I start physically fuming onto my keyboard. This is stupid, it's further isolating Chinese entertainment from the rest of the world, but that's probably the point. Still, Epic suck too, so this story has no silver lining. The end.

China and playtime

 Xi Jinping has gone too far this time

Oh I've bitten down on my tongue for this matter, on a number of principles that felt good and right at the time. First and foremost being that this isn't a political blog, and I think that the very idea of a 'political blog' sounds like the single worst thing humanely imaginable, just behind the concept of Twitter. Secondly, and this was spurred on my other things that I read, I sort of felt like I didn't really have a voice in this matter, not being a citizen of China myself or knowing anyone from there, so who am I to comment on their social edicts? What flies just well for other parts of the world don't always land well everywhere and I think that's totally fine, I'm happy that we have such different ideas for what makes society tick around the world. (providing, you know, the ideas actually have merit and/or work.) But this has gone beyond the pale, Jinping and his CCP have crossed the Rubicon, and what's more it crossed into the realm of gaming and outside of strictly politics from the inception of the story, thus watch me as I expend far too much effort justifying the most tame take of 2021. China's mandate of limiting gaming time to 3 hours a week sucks. (Gasp! Rabble rabble rabble...)

Now first I want to address the obvious point, in that I'm perhaps being a little alarmist with the way I phrased that, and I am. The mandate limiting the amount of time that people play isn't for all gamers, rather it's for children so that they can be programmed into imposing these limitations on themselves into adulthood. (Suppression works so much smoother with a healthy opening does of indoctrination thrown in) And that is the first thing people like to bring up whenever you offer a raised eyebrow to this forced gaming-time limit; "this is for the good of the youth to ensure that they don't become hooked to gaming that may hurt their grades and swallow up all their free time. It's for the children!" And who are we to say that public health mandates made in another country to fit a demographic you aren't part of is draconian? All good points which I accept, there's over a billion citizens in China and I'm sure their perspective on sweeping social policy is influenced by that unique fact. But here's a related question, should policing the free time of children really be the job of the government? Isn't that what the parents are for? I mean- that's why they became parents right? Because they want to raise this human, rather than watch it be raised for them? If this really is all about helping the children and solely about that, then couldn't the same end be reached with much less invasive and degrading measures, such as creating programs to teach parents how and why they should keep and eye on their children's free-time activities? (Maybe Xi just wants to feel like he's in everybody's living room with them, or something, playing Uncle Discipline.)

But wait, isn't this something of a toothless decree. I mean, how could the CCP feasibly enforce such an ungainly and wide reaching policy short of knocking down every door in the country (Which doesn't seem all that feasible given the population numbers.) Well they've actually solved that, because you see; China already had a pretty good stranglehold on all entertainment that can legally enter the country, and their government has the utmost control over entertainment created within their borders. As such, every Tencent game is fitted with a login feature that requires identifying data in order to play a session, proving the age of who's gaming. (As well as handily allowing the government to keep track of all player's gaming times so that they judge and manipulate social credit scores accordingly. This bracketed stuff is alleged, I feel legally obliged to say) Whatsmore, there's talk that logging into these games are starting to all require a live webcam section to the login so that details can't just be lent out to kids, the player will be clearly visible to... who? Will there be an AI checking ages with facecam footage? Do they have a team dedicated to just this task? Is Xi Jinping himself taking the opportunity to spy on gamers in their most vulnerable state like a creep? Who can say?

Now you might wonder, given that this effectively makes it impossible for any significant playtime to be racked up by young players, how the internal games companies are reacting to the time bans. Well if you wish to take state funded and run industries at their word, and who doesn't, then we can see the results on their profits are largely negligible. Tencent claimed only a measly margin of the money they make is off the back of children, and tossed away potential shortfalls with the carefree abandon of someone who's bills are covered by the government they serve. They're making enough money not to be wound up by these measures, but considering how every company on this diseased, greying, earth is forever in pursuit of all the money; I have to wonder if there are true, unspoken, thoughts bubbling away in the studios. (EA has shown just how profitable catering to children can be, afterall)

But if we're going to come down on real reasons, or rather the best assumptions we can make on the topic regarding the evidence to hand, then things become interesting. Whilst 'protecting the minds of our youth' seems like a noble goal, well- let's just say that nobility hardly makes for believable motivation when we're talking about a government who happily courts human rights violations on the regular. (Or at the least, that would be hugely hypocritical) Instead I think we saw a sliver of the truth leak out in a now infamous state article which attacked video games, tanking stock and spurring Chinese games companies to drastic measures. This article used a very specific term to describe gaming. "Spiritual Opium". A clear reference to the way that the British historically broke and addled the Chinese youth with the opium trade, resulting in several wars. An understandable reason for persisting animosity between China and the West. But what does that mean for the way they view video games? Well I think it's pretty clear, China see it as product of influence from the West that threatens CCP influence. At it's heart this isn't about the mental wellbeing of any children, this is about control. 

Recently this came to a head in my eyes when it was discovered that Chinese censors had made changes to the designs from outside the country in order to curve what they label as 'effeminate' characters. Actually, this push goes beyond gaming and into all cultural influences entering the country, but we have an example from the gaming world too. This is just another piece of evidence, if you needed it, that the CCP are so invested in managing their citizen's lives that they must dictate the very concept of what it is to be 'male' in order to appease some pathetic antiquated stereotype that they deem to be 'moral'. Too much chest showing? That's not manly. Wearing pink? None of that. Long hair? Better cut that down to regulation length now. It's not hard to see the unspoken attack on homosexuality barely hidden under these dictations, alongside the much more predictable disparaging of non-conformity in general. 

These are the sorts of standards that the CCP stands for, archaic and repressive as they sound, and those who buy into their narrative of 'positive social reform' and 'proactive policy establishment' merely need to look beyond the headlines. Again, this isn't a political blog, and so every opinion I share is primarily directed to the way these people view art and gaming, but when it bleeds into the real world like this I can't just ignore it. I think the idea of 'negative effeminacy' really struck a cord with me because I immediately reflected on how policy-makers like this would view a property I supremely love, like Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Most every member of the Jojo cast, main or side, are always depicted with lavish extravagance and eye-popping colours, often whilst posing like supermodels. Also, most of them are male. It's a style that often runs hard against the stoic, boring, tough-guy model of the stereotypical 'manly man', and yet I respect that image a lot more than I do of the dull male protagonists of most other anime. A microcosm of this debate, perhaps, but I feel that has a relevant place in this conversation, because I believe that 'masculinity' is in no way limited to something as vapid and ephemeral as how you look and act, but instead is derived from the strength of your character. And besides, what's a cuddly little Pooh-bear like Xi Jinping know about how to be a manly man anyway? His evenings are no doubt spent curled up in a ball under his bed with a comically large terracotta jar inscribed with the title 'Hunny'.

So now we can come back on the whole 3-hour time limit on video gaming and see what it actually represents. It's an identification of gaming, as they have already done before with other forms of art, as an act of expression that runs counter to the goals of the government, however they specifically pan out. (I don't claim to know the inner workings of the Chinese government's hivemind, I can only paint broad strokes.) It's action made to try and exorcize gaming, and other societal influences, from the routines of children in the hopes that they don't pick them up as an adult. And it's an attack on individual freedoms. Now perhaps the Chinese public don't hold 'personal freedoms' to the same standard as the rest of the world, and I don't mind them viewing things that way. They may be utterly happy with the rulings and what it represents. I, however, look upon it all and see a poor policy, established in bad faith, to dubious ends. (Yeah, I have a feeling I'm not going to get approved for that vacation to Shaanxi anytime soon...)

PUBG Axed in India

 Another Nation shuts it doors.

So I talk about the proliferation of Chinese money rather regularly on this blog. Like too regularly for what should be a gaming themed nonsense blog, so that either says something worrying about me or really worrying about the industry. I'd like to think that this all extends from an apparent distaste I have towards the very concepts of 'monopolies', not only because they usually spell harm for the community, but also because I'm a sad individual who hates to see anyone else succeed too much. (Screw you, Disney! Why don't you take your share of crippling despair once and a while?) Honestly, as a consumer it's quite a different affair to be trying to scrape some enjoyment out of their entertainment products when they exist within the grip of a monopoly, because everytime something cool comes your way it immediately becomes suspect. I'm always thinking, "Okay, so this wasn't made for the consumer, but to benefit their supremacy, so in some way this new game/feature/hotfix is going to start twisting my arm for money and I've just gotta figure out when." As such, China's increasingly solid grasp on international online gaming is turning into something of a substantial turnoff for a guy like me.

And perhaps it is unfair, like they say, to equivalate the actions of the Chinese Government with that of the Chinese company Tencent when they are officially separate entities, but I think the amount of control that government exerts over Tencent is apparent for all to see. Otherwise why else would it be that the second Tencent starts to get controlling stakes in anything the product in question begins to warp to the nauseating standards of the Chinese government? Suddenly Top Gun can no longer display the Taiwanese flag, Rainbox Six Siege has a big back and forth over images of skulls in their maps and PUBG has to rebrand itself 'Game for Peace' and create a whole new Chinese-only ecosystem where defeated players get back up and wave before disappearing. (That one's just creepy) And it seems that the Indian Government are one's who take this correlation very seriously, given their distaste for China.

Now once more, this here ain't no political blog by any stretch of the imagination, but it hardly takes a seasoned political analyst to spot that India and China do not like each other. To a serious degree. (I'd even go so far as to say a worrying degree, if I wasn't afraid of coming across a little alarmist.) And in the realms of Entertainment this has already been made soberingly clear between the two giant nations. Most notable with the recent ban on Tiktok by the Indian Government which was originally supposed to be mirrored in the US before that fell apart because Tiktok is apparently immortal. That makes perhaps the biggest and most profitable social media platform of the day suddenly blocked off from 1.3 billion potential users. (I'll bet that was a hard pill to swallow.) But such is the cost of trying to aim for the two most dense ecosystems in Asia, you get either China or India; securing both is becoming increasingly unlikely. 

Recently the animosity has spread to gaming because out of the blue it seems that India has taken a swipe for the battle Royale game which started the movement all those years ago; PUBG. Now PUBG's involvement with China has been one of biggest points of contention surrounding the game given that the controlling stake of Tencent has proven so influential on the development team. As of yet the public hasn't been made of any way in which such a relationship has affected the wider international audience (At least not directly) but they went and made an entirely separate version of their game specifically to get around Chinese censors, so there's an obvious collaborative effort there somewhere. As such it's hardly a surprise that India, in their desire to swipe at Chinese international domination, would eventually settle on PUBG's door.

The effect this will have both on PUBG and other games around it is where I'm really interested in this story. Afterall, suddenly the question of where your money comes from can be in the equation for whether or not you are allowed to operate within a country, and that could prove to be a serious concern for a lot of companies going forwards. More and more often a lot of studios are beginning to accept Tencent's significant promise for revenue under the presumption that the momentary potential backlash would be vastly undercut by the profit; but losing India is really going to throw that into doubt going forward. Epic games are supported by Tencent, as are Supercell and Riot games; will potential bans be heading their way too? (I certainly don't favour Supercell's odds.)

Though it must be stated for the record, India have officially stated that the reason for this ban has nothing to do with financially attacking a potential competitor and is much more about blocking apps that are "prejudicial to the sovereignty of India, Defense of India and security of state and public order." (Whatever that means.) To be clear, this is the same argument that India and the US used to ban Tiktok, although there I'd argue there was perhaps a little more water. Tiktok was farming data from devices on which it was installed at an alarming rate (alarming= a little bit more than it's contemporaries still do) and thus it's algorithms were, and probably are, some of the best in the industry. I don't know if any concrete evidence has been uncovered to reveal that PUBG is doing anything similar but I feel like that would be the sort of revelation someone in my position would hear about. Not to call the Indian government liars at all, just to throw a little shade.

Curiously, however, it seems that India are following the US' shoes with their handling of Tiktok, in that there are talks of a recent merger between PUBG's developers and Krafton, a south Korean company, which could pave the way for an overturning of this ban. PUBG have reportedly severed ties with Tencent in the region as an act of good faith and if the gods are smiling down on them then PUBG mobile could be back up and running by early 2021. Does this mark the dawning of an age where developers will have to choose their International partners? Perhaps not just yet, as 'Game for Peace' is still up and running, so it does look like both sides are being played at the exact same time. (Although, I've heard some say that GFP is unrelated to PUBG but still linked to Tencent so consider me royally confused.)

Ultimately this is another in a long line of Video game restrictions hitting our industry with questionable intent. As a consumer I am reasonably miffed whenever anything like this comes our way, for fear of it becoming a trend, and I can only imagine what sort of effect this is having on Indian gamers who just want to play their favourite game. Censorship in general is a practise that is rarely pursed for the 'moral' or 'safety' reasons that are claimed and we as the consumers are the one's ultimately stuck paying the price after it's all said and done. That being said; screw the overbearing reach of Chinese censorship. (So I guess you could say I'm off two minds here.)

Strict restrictions from the Middle Kingdom!

Times up!

At this point you may have cottoned onto the fact that I, lover of games that I am, do not see myself as the most outspoken fan of the Chinese Government and their need to assert themselves around the globe. In fact, I don't like the idea of any government body inserting their ideals into matters of art and entertainment as it's a relationship which, historically, had never ended well for any party involved. (Least of all the consumer.) So colour me concerned when I hear about a sweeping restriction shackled onto the act of gaming by a government that is renowned for it's oppressive tendencies, even if the apparent intention is for a somewhat admirable cause.

That is the mindset with which I approach the news that the Chinese Government is imposing a curfew on gaming time for minors in an effort to fight against the effects of Video game addiction. It is a policy that sounds dubious on announcement and somewhat unenforceable with our current knowledge about how video games are distributed and played, but seeing as how this is China we're talking about, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't just announce the policy and let fear do the work in managing the populace. Although it must be noted, this policy only goes into effect for those under the age of 18 with presumably no restrictions imposed upon those that are considered adults. (Beyond having to play heavily censored China-only versions of international releases.)

This curfew isn't anything to be sniffed at either, specifically when it comes to it's specifications. Firstly, minors are forbidden from playing between the hours of 22:00 and 8:00, and they are limited to 90 minutes of gaming on weekdays with 3 hours on weekends and holidays. (No word if that restriction is by day or cumulative.) Ostensibly this is meant to curb Video game addiction, which officials claim is 'damaging to children's health', but these are likely the same officials that claimed the same about 'Peppa Pig', so I'd put serious doubt into the expertise and wisdom of these individuals. Also, a little fun thing to note: Despite claiming that Video games harm children, the government has not put a blanket ban down on children playing games because they know how much money they stand to lose from cutting off the most lucrative revenue source in their populace: dumb children. (Really doing it for the kids, huh China?)

To their credit, a phrase I would never thought I would use directed at the Chinese Government, this is a legitimate issue that they seem to have taken a stand against. The most prevalent and extreme cases of video game addiction, (You know, the one's involving people who neglect food and sleep in favour of gaming) tend to come from the Eastern world of gaming with us hearing a lot about these cases coming out of Japan. Now, of course Japan is almost night-and-day in social structure when it comes to China, but there are some fundamental cultural ques that run similar. Namely, the overbearing work ethic that stretches out individuals and wrings them dry through back breaking labour from working age till death. (Not to sound critical of such a practise. For one in my current situation, perpetual labour almost sounds like a paradise.)

One could throw on the 'amateur pyschologist' hat on all day and make assumptions as to what births and nurtures such an addiction, but I would guess that the shape of that society likely plays a significant role. There is certainly a degree of ostracizing that happens to those that aren't laser focused on their studies and those that fall behind are rarely caught back up as no systems really exist to accommodate for that. In this way it can be easy for those who struggle in their studies to fall into bad habits in which they never pull out from. Those who spend all of their time playing video games instead of interacting with the world are shunned, causing them to recede further into their seclusion and exile and eventually become outcasts. (A process I am more than familiar with.)In Japan, that is just one of the many reasons why organizations such as the Yakuza are never short of recruits. They have the opportunity to pick up any and all who fall to the wayside and give them a place to belong and a purpose to work toward. I couldn't claim that the Chinese Triad (or whichever name the organization goes by today) do the same, as I am not as familiar with the way they operate, but I certainly wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a mirror in that process to some degree.

The Chinese Government are ostensibly throwing this ban into action with the intention of stopping the gaming habit from forming early and becoming a problem that they don't have the tools to fix. Some could argue that it is a solution, but from where I'm sitting this looks like a classic case of battling the symptoms and ignoring the sickness. Although, I can't say that I'm quite surprised of that approach coming from the Chinese Government; afterall, they are the ones who concocted the One-child policy (Now a two-child policy) in order to combat a hypothetical overpopulation issue. A sweeping and extreme social policy which has resulted in a wholly new impending crisis wherein a third of their workforce is rapidly approaching retirement age simultaneously, a situation that has the potential to cripple many of China's industries.

I doubt that this gaming curfew will have such a drastic effect on Chinese society, however I do foresee a potential negative striking the modern gaming market. (Although you could see this as a positive depending on your point of view.) You see, I've spoken before about how the modern video game model (games as a service) turns your spare time into a currency and tries to gobble up as much of it as possible with recurrency incentives out the wazoo. In the long term this model is unsustainable for many reasons, but chief among them being that there are only so many hours in the day, this means that live-services are already competing with each other on such a high-bar that any game which isn't an instant hit will become dead wood for the company in matter of months if not weeks. This new policy from China accelerates that process tenfold.

Children who only have 90 minutes to play a game for that entire week no longer have the free time to throw around on whatever game comes their way, (Or rather, whatever game they can bug their parents into buying) which means that they would have to pick and choose to the extreme. Seeing as how China currently makes up the largest pool of gamers in the world, (Somewhere near 800 million individuals as I recall. No, I'm not sure how many of them are Children) this could result in a huge blow to Video game companies who were just starting to draw up plans for launching themselves at the Chinese market with the lifting of the console ban. And that isn't even taking into account the effect this will have on long-form games like MMOs and RPGs. Who knows, maybe a generation who grow up without the time to invest themselves in these grand sprawling adventures will find themselves easily bored with games that don't offer instant gratification once they grow of age. This could shatter the RPG market in China and really hurt those franchises which do well in the East like Dragon Quest. Of course, that would theoretically have a knock on effect for the western markets, due to the prevalence of the Chinese player base, resulting in a crash for the RPG market. (Of course, all that is hypothetical but certainly within the realms of reason.)

If your curious about how this new policy will go down with the public, (I.e. will it incite public backlash) the answer may already be in the wild. You see, this may be the first time that such a stipulation has made it into law but the Chinese have dabbled in overbearing restrictions before. Just look at Tencent, the government scrooge that J. Allen Brack claimed was entirely autonomous of political influence. When the gaming regulator was first announced and the Chinese government started putting heavy restrictions on gaming (The Government uses 'gaming' as a whipping horse whenever they need to fool people into believing they're working on public safety) Tencent were some of the first to capitulate by limiting playtime for under 18's to 2 hours a day. (Clearly that wasn't enough in China's eyes.)

Just like with every dumb decision the Chinese 'public servants' make, this is sure to have a rough effect on the wider gaming industry. International gaming companies have been bending over backwards to try and fit into the narrow margins of 'safe gaming' that the Government keeps shifting, but right now they may have just shrunk those lines a tad too much. If things keep going in this direction and China ends up banning all non-native video games, we may have an actual exodus on our hands as money-hungry executives scramble over themselves to relocate to the middle kingdom, taking the majority of the gaming industry with them. Is this the likely future of the industry? Maybe not, afterall that example is worst-case; however, if there is one thing that I'm beginning to understand lately, it's that one should never underestimate the capacity for situations to worsen.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-China

Warning: If you are a member of the Chinese government; there is nothing to see here, carry on.

I hold a considerable amount of respect for the particular type of activism posited by the gaming community. Whenever we are faced with an unfair or unjust scenario, we have a tendency to speak out and fight back against the offending organizations in the places that hurt them most. Of course, sometimes in our fervour our sights can get a little off-target, but recently we've reached the point where we can affect actual change with enough support from our end. This way we have been able to prove to gaming companies that ours is a voice to be heard and that we have real power in the decision process. Almost every fight that the collective gaming community has fought have been ones that it is feasible to win. However, I find myself doubting whether that is the case with this new foe that has earned the ire of gamers. That is because this week, gamers have rallied against the most powerful country in the actual real world, 'the People's Republic' of China.

Maybe you've caught wind about this in snippets and thought; "Wow, China's in the news a lot recently. I wonder if it's all related?" To which the answer is yes, it all very much is. That is why it can be hard to explain everything in a cohesive manner. Nevertheless, I will try and promptly fail, so bear with me. (Oh, and a lot of this is general world news, so if I get some details wrong blame it on my disposition against watching TV news. BBC makes my eyes bleed.) Very basically; there was a 19 year old man who was vacationing in Taiwan and ended up murdering his pregnant girlfriend. (Gruesome, I know, but this is only the background right now.) He ended up fleeing to Hong Kong before being arrested by police. Taiwanese officials then asked for the man to be extradited back to their country, however this could not be achieved due to the lack of an extradition treaty between the two countries. A bill was drawn up; however, Taiwan, which is treated as a puppet-state by China, added a clause that would rope China in and allow them to enforce a lot of their imposing censorship laws upon Hong Kong and extradite anyone to the mainland for punishments.

At this point, the specifics of the story go into the background of Hong Kong as a city, and the weird area it sits in as an independent entity and another extension of China. This goes back to 1997, at least, when Hong Kong was transferred from British rule over to China after an expiration date, and likely a lot further back with all kinds of backroom dealings. I'm no expert of all the minute details happening over there, but I am a believer in personal freedoms and understand that surrendering more control to the most powerful tyrant in the world is a good way to lose those freedoms.

The people of Hong Kong rallied against the bill and took to the streets in order to voice their displeasure on the world stage. That is the state of strife that has existed in Hong Kong for the past few months now, and despite the time that has elapsed in which the government could have killed the potential China deal, not enough has changed and the riots are still getting worse. Very recently a protester was shot and wounded by the police, and this is just the beginning of how bad the situation could end up. I don't intend to incite any undue fears, but the Chinese government do have a history of dealing with protests in a very brutal fashion. Remember the Tienanmen Square massacre that definitely happened? China says it didn't.

But what does any of this have to do with gaming? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, there is this little game that goes by the name of Hearthstone; it has a modest following and even boasts some competitions with quaint prize pools. Okay I'm being facetious, Hearthstone grandmaster tournaments are some of the biggest events in E-Sports and have some of the grandest prizes. For those that like such things, I.e. not me, your yearly highlight is likely these legendary card game matches that are sponsored by Blizzard themselves. This is probably the reason why the livestreams that broadcast these events pull in millions of eyes from all over the world, all fans excited to see the best of the best duke it out for extensive prize pools.

One such contender was a fellow who goes by the name; Blitzchung. I will admit that I am unfamiliar with this man or his style, but he was good enough to win some prize money through these events so I'm sure he had some sort of following prior to last week's conundrum. What conundrum? Oh, just the livestreamed interview with Blitzchung that ended with him donning a gasmask and speaking these words in Mandarin: "Liberate Hong Kong. Revolution of our age." Hailing from Hong Kong, Blitzchung expressed how his involvement in the movement back home had got in the way of his Hearthstone preparation and he felt it was his duty to spread the word about Hong Kong on the biggest platform that he could.

The consequences were swift and harsh. Blizzard promptly removed Blitzchung from their Grandmaster tournament, seized his prize winnings and banned him from the tournament for a full year. They also thought it prudent to fire the two commentators who were present for the message and who ducked under their table when he spoke. Apparently Blizzard had concluded they must be involved due to one declaring "Say the eight words and then we'll end the interview" before his declaration. In explanation of their actions, Blizzard cited a vague clause in their TOS about 'not bringing dispute upon oneself or Blizzard' before calling it a day.

This, understandably, left a whole number of people very confused as to what just happened, and more importantly, why? The man was a citizen of Hong Kong, after all, so why would an American Company take a hard line stance about him making a political statement related to his home? Sure, they could be dissatisfied about being used as someone's platform on Blizzard's Stream, but that would only warrant a slap on the wrist, not this salt-the-earth approach. Well, the answer is quiet simple, really. Prepare thyself for business talk.

You see, Activision was bought by Vivendi back in 2008 in order to merge their subsidiary, Vivendi games, with Activision's subsidiary, Blizzard, so that they could benefit off the success of World of Warcraft. In 2013 Activision Blizzard announced their plans to buy back their shares from Vivendi and become independent, however they would need a considerable pool of money for that. Luckily, like Satan himself, Chinese company Tencent swooped in and funded the transition for an undisclosed amount. To this day, Tencent still hold 5% of Activision Blizzard's soul- I mean, stock.

In the years that have followed, Activision Blizzard have held a close, exclusive, relationship with China. Even releasing a Chinese exclusive Free-to-play version of Call of Duty which had a crappy Battle Royale system back before even Fortnite was a thing. It shouldn't come as any surprise, then, that Blizzard would be willing to censor China's attempt to seize control of Hong Kong without a moment's hesitation. "But isn't that a little bit conspiratorial? Why would the Chinese government use one of their private companies' influence to silence dissent on their political actions? I mean, I know that their censorship is legendary, but this would be taking that concept a bit far." Well, if you don't believe me, just take a look at another example of this very same thing that happened in the same week. (Amazingly.)

NBA (The real one, not 2K's travesty of a game series) has always been as big in China as it is in America. In fact, some hopeful players have come from the scene in China to America in order to make it big. The populace enjoy it too, with matches and official merch being provided to their millions of Chinese fans due to a very lucrative partnership between sports companies who's names I don't care enough to look up. That harmony came into question, however, when the manager of NBA's Houston Rockets sent out an image on his private twitter account reading "Fight for freedom, Stand with Hong Kong."

This fallout was even more apocalyptic than the Hearthstone's. The tweet was deleted in hours with the manager issuing an apology shortly afterwords. CTrip, China's biggest online travel website, burned all of their NBA related tickets and travel products; Dicos, a Chinese fast-food chain, suspended all marketing and publicity activities and Wzun, a skin care brand, straight-up cancelled all of their cooperation with the NBA. (That one was probably for the best. Who the heck wants skincare products with Dennis Rodman's face on them?) Then there came a slew of public statements from big NBA stars which amounted to little more than kowtowing as spineless spokespeople rattled through a laundry list of things they love about China whilst mentioning how deplorable the manager was. Rumor has it that he's going to be on the chopping block too in the next couple of days. (He and Blitzchung should start a band.)

All that is pretty wild anyway; but, believe it or not, there was yet another issue of international censorship last week, although this one came from a very likely source; South Park. Matt Stone and Trey Parker's comedy series is well known for causing controversy with it's irreverent satire and often poe-faced commentary; and their latest episode: 'Band in China' was no different. (They should win an Oscar for the title alone.) In the episode, Randy Marsh decides to expand his new business, 'Tegrity farms, into an untapped market with plenty of potential customers; China. Unfortunately, Randy's business produces and sells Cannabis, which is highly illegal in China. He finds himself being thrown into a Chinese work camp, get tortured relentlessly and have Piglet and Winnie the Pooh as prison mates. (Current Chinese dictat- I mean, President- Xi Jinping is very sensitive to the fact that people compare him to Winnie the Pooh. As such, the regime has banned Winnie the Pooh in the whole country. I'm not joking.)

The B-Story follows the children as they start a band (again), only to have a manager come in and tell them to change a lot of their act in order to better fit the Chinese market. (Holding a mirror to the way that American companies capitulate to the demands/whims of Chinese audiences. Just look at the cringeworthy China-only additions to Iron Man 3 to see what I mean.) Predictably, the episode ended up being banned in China. Actually, the entire show was completely erased from Chinese Internet sources. Forums, social media, and streaming sites were scrubbed of all mention of 'South Park'. Matt and Trey noticed all this (and were likely expecting it) so they took to the show's twitter page to issue a statement. (I wish I knew how to insert Tweets, but I'll just quote it.) "Like the NBA, we welcome the Chinese censors into our homes and into our hearts. We too love money more than freedom and democracy. Xi doesn’t look just like Winnie the Pooh at all! Tune into our 300th episode this Wednesday at 10! Long live the Great Communist Party of China! May this autumn’s sorghum harvest be bountiful! We good now China?”

With all this context is mind, suddenly the Blizzard situation doesn't look so crazy, but that doesn't make it all any less disgraceful. Everyone who's anyone has started to voice their displeasure at Blizzard for bowing to the Chinese government, and you can bet that Reddit is the battleground for a lot of it. The forum had to be temporarily shut down due to the influx of messages, but is has since returned with all the memes, rants and denouncements that you would expect. (Including the beautiful image below that was posted by one u/Lawlow_lofi.) People want Blizzard to know that they are disgusted with their actions and stand by Blitzchung in solidarity (although I have noticed that the majority of this movement seems to be directed rage towards Blizzard rather than support for Hong Kong.)

Even people outside of the consumer market have weighed in, although not always verbally. Outside of Blizzard's office the company has a garish black statue that features the companies' values engraved into the floor. Some unknown Blizzard Devs, who seemingly disapproved of the removal of Blitzchung, stuck paper covering over the plaques that once read "Think Globally" and "Every Voice Matters". Even none games-industry folk have started to weigh in. United States Senator Ron Wyden tweeted; "Blizzard shows it is willing to humiliate itself to please the Chinese Communist Party. No American company should censor calls for freedom to make a quick buck." and Marco Rubio echoed similar sentiments. Does this classify as an international incident yet?

The general feeling, right now, seems to be that; those who support Blizzard are indirectly supporting the Chinese regime, and it honestly does feel that way. Many Hearthstone Vets are announcing that they're walking away from the game in disgust and Overwatch and WoW players are slowly picking up on the trend too. Modern Warfare fans seem to have completely ignored the fact that they are contributing too, (Activision and Blizzard are partners) but they already had to deal with the 'Survival mode' controversy last month, if they had to take anything else into account their brains might just explode!

All of this may not last longer than a week, except for those with a history for holding a grudge. (like me) But until the white hot fervour cools down and everyone goes back to pretending none of this happened, consumers are fighting dirtier than I ever seen. By far my favourite act of defiance has been people painting fan art of Chinese Overwatch character Mei as a symbol of the rebellion. Blizzard's Overwatch is a huge source of revenue for the company, and it's one of the few games that is allowed to be sold in China completely unchanged. (PUBG was re-named 'Games of Peace' and forced to take out the blood and rework all death animations to show players getting up and waving.) Protesters, realizing this, have drawn Mei wearing the banned gasmasks that represent the protests and donning pro Hong Kong attire. The ends of this is to turn Mei into a symbol of the protest, thus invoking the wrath of Chinese censors and forcing them to ban Overwatch in China, kicking Blizzard's bottom line right in the unmentionables. Now that's playing dirty and I absolutely love it! (Above image from u/Fish-IP)

Ultimately, I'm proud of the gaming community for taking a stand against these repressive practises, even if I think that it's an argument we'll never win. China is one of the most profitable markets in the world and arguably the most influential, what they say goes and the rest of the world are powerless, or unwilling, to stand up to them. We're talking about a regime that has been complicit with untold amounts of on-record Human Rights violations in direct response to it's own one-child policy alone, and has now introduced a two-child policy to start the cycle all over again. A regime that butchered people in one of the most brutal police actions in recorded history, (I'm talking about Tienanmen Square) and then just pretended that it didn't happen. A country who's President, Winnie JinPooh, decided to make himself president-for-life, and no world leader so much as batted an eye. I've often semi-joked about how Disney will be the first corporation to become a world-ruling sovereign entity, well, China's already half way there. They have the power and will to do whatever they want, however they want, and a small-scale, likely short-lived, consumer revolt isn't going to make them think twice. It's a fight that us gamers have no chance of winning. But I've watched enough Anime to know, that doesn't mean it's not a fight worth having.