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Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

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Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#31

Post by z2 »

jtms wrote: post #23
z2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#32

Post by petre »

komali2 wrote: post #2

>We are deeply sorry for hurting everybody,” Damn. While I get the position of the Taiwanese, I sometimes wish they'd send more middle fingers at the mainland. "yeah, xi jinping is a dumpling, fuckm, we apologise for nothing." As if Taiwan is an existential threat to prc by hurling insults as dramatic as "Winnie the Pooh" across the strait. Just seems like more bullying to me.

In reality China is the one bulying Taiwan through the one China policy, open threats, reminders to reunification (through force), military bases on shoals in the South China Sea etc.

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#33

Post by cromwellian »

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

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

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#34

Post by myrandomcomment »

z2 wrote: post #12
komali2 wrote: post #2

>We are deeply sorry for hurting everybody,” Damn. While I get the position of the Taiwanese, I sometimes wish they'd send more middle fingers at the mainland. "yeah, xi jinping is a dumpling, fuckm, we apologise for nothing." As if Taiwan is an existential threat to prc by hurling insults as dramatic as "Winnie the Pooh" across the strait. Just seems like more bullying to me.

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

Easter eggs and the like are a very long and old tradition. Heck, there is even stuff one of my past employers shipped, including in production networking code. The customers that found it laughed quite hard and asked for the details.

I suggest that you refrain from buying anything.

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#35

Post by despera »

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

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

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

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

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#36

Post by duxup »

xfs wrote: post #25
anonytrary wrote: post #19

> The new horror video game called “Devotion” created an uproar among Chinese netizens when a poster in the game was discovered to mock Chinese leader Xi Jinping, by referring to him as “Winnie the Pooh.” What? That's it? Damn. That's nothing. Maybe free speech being rampant breeds thick skins, maybe free speech is a good thing.

That's not it, but it'd be pretty effective to paint the other side as ridiculous with an incomplete picture. Check who wrote this piece. My best guess is Winnie the Pooh was a hint that prompted people to look for more political innuendos, which they found plenty, mostly consisting of ethnic slurs at the mainlanders that mapped exactly to IRL Taiwanese slurs against the Chinese. This game was praised with a passion…

So is that other content you're talking about actually in there?

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#37

Post by z2 »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #34
z2 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Easter eggs and the like are a very long and old tradition. Heck, there is even stuff one of my past employers shipped, including in production networking code. The customers that found it laughed quite hard and asked for the details. I suggest that you refrain from buying anything.

This is going to sound like a killjoy, but it's all fun and games until an Easter egg unintentionally introduces a weak point. Microsoft made a point of banning them entirely, and high profile easter eggs these days are well designed and tested, not inserted by one person for kicks :)

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#38

Post by polotics »

petre wrote: post #32
komali2 wrote: post #2

>We are deeply sorry for hurting everybody,” Damn. While I get the position of the Taiwanese, I sometimes wish they'd send more middle fingers at the mainland. "yeah, xi jinping is a dumpling, fuckm, we apologise for nothing." As if Taiwan is an existential threat to prc by hurling insults as dramatic as "Winnie the Pooh" across the strait. Just seems like more bullying to me.

In reality China is the one bulying Taiwan through the one China policy, open threats, reminders to reunification (through force), military bases on shoals in the South China Sea etc.

Yep. The best bit was a mainland military leader stating that anyone opposing the death of Taiwanese democracy is committing a war crime, hence deserving the death penalty. Xi is no Winnie the Pooh, and his lackeys are not happy piggies.

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#39

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

xfs wrote: post #25
anonytrary wrote: post #19

> The new horror video game called “Devotion” created an uproar among Chinese netizens when a poster in the game was discovered to mock Chinese leader Xi Jinping, by referring to him as “Winnie the Pooh.” What? That's it? Damn. That's nothing. Maybe free speech being rampant breeds thick skins, maybe free speech is a good thing.

That's not it, but it'd be pretty effective to paint the other side as ridiculous with an incomplete picture. Check who wrote this piece. My best guess is Winnie the Pooh was a hint that prompted people to look for more political innuendos, which they found plenty, mostly consisting of ethnic slurs at the mainlanders that mapped exactly to IRL Taiwanese slurs against the Chinese. This game was praised with a passion…

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

Re: Taiwanese horror game boycotted, removed from China market, company apologizes

#40

Post by xfs »

duxup wrote: post #36
xfs wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not it, but it'd be pretty effective to paint the other side as ridiculous with an incomplete picture. Check who wrote this piece. My best guess is Winnie the Pooh was a hint that prompted people to look for more political innuendos, which they found plenty, mostly consisting of ethnic slurs at the mainlanders that mapped exactly to IRL Taiwanese slurs against the Chinese. This game was praised with a passion…

So is that other content you're talking about actually in there?

I found this link from r/Games to be more informative https://www.spieltimes.com/news/xi-jinping-winnie-the-pooh-m...

Again, much cultural context is lost in presenting this issue as merely censoring Winnie the Pooh. Remember, the Winnie the Pooh meme was invented by Chinese netizens to mock Xi. They continue to do so, but things stop being fun and games when the meme is used to mock themselves.

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