China Bans 50 Games

Stargoat writes "The official mainland Chinese news agency, Xinhau, is reporting that China is banning 50 gaming titles. These titles include Battlefield Vietnam, The Sims 2, and FIFA 2005. A similar game banning event occurred six months ago in China, but not to this scale."

Comments

Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[bigtallmofo]

From the article:

"Chinesegovernment in 2005 will focus on combating illegal publications. This especially concerns pirated textbooks, electronic publications and illegal journals that will have negative influence on the youth."

It sounds to me from the article like they're cracking down on piracy and not necessarily passing judgement on the games themselves (other than the people making pirated versions of them). But then, it was written by someone that likely doesn't speak my native language natively so who knows? (Although their English is likely far superior to my total lack of knowledge of Chinese).

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[MoonFog]

Further: Among the 50 illegal games, 26 are pirated game software including Age of Mythology: the Titans, The Sims 2, Manhunt, FIFA 2005, Battlefield Vietnam and Painkiller: Battle out of Hell. The remaining are illegally distributed foreign games including Conflict Vietnam, Vietcong: Fist Alpha and Devastation

I can't really figure out why they would outlaw FIFA and Sims..? I agree that it sounds like banning pirated games and not the games themselves.

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[wfmcwalter]

Taiwan

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[CiaranC]

Presumably these games are not legally sold in china - i.e. They dont have a legal distributer, so the Chinese government is banning all copies of these games because all copies are illegal.

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

can't really figure out why they would outlaw FIFA and Sims

I believe I read an article (can't find the link now, sorry) that in fifa, it recognizes Tiwan as a seperare country, which China does not.

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

I couldn't find a fifa article, but here's one saying that China banned Soccor manager 2005 because it "violated Chinese law, the Xinhua news agency reported..." because it "classifies Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau and Tibet as countries"

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

Sorry... the link:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6667257/

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[I8TheWorm]

That was in 1979... a full 4 years after Americans were completely evacuated, and SVN was overrun by NVN. The reasons for the invasion were Chinese claims of discrimination by the Vietnamese, the 1978 signing of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the Soviet Union led China to call Vietnam the Cuba of the East, and Vietnam's 1978 invasion of Cambodia being a threat. The invasion lasted four weeks, and was considered a punishment by the Chinese.

During the Vietnam conflict/war, China was instrumental in supplying the NVN with weapons and funding. My father's job in the USAF was to listen to Chinese pilots who were carrying military cargo to Vietnam... sometimes Chinese, sometimes Soviet.

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[jaiyen]

Among the 50 illegal games, 26 are pirated game software including Age of Mythology: the Titans, The Sims 2, Manhunt, FIFA 2005, Battlefield Vietnam and Painkiller: Battle out of Hell. The remaining are illegally distributed foreign games including Conflict Vietnam, Vietcong: Fist Alpha and Devastation.

If I read this right, it seems to be saying that pirate copies of 26 of the 50, such as FIFA 2005, are being banned as part of a piracy crackdown, and the other 24 are being deemed 'unsuitable'.

I guess this would mean that legal copies of games such as FIFA 2005 will still be available.

Re:Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban.

[ucsckevin]

Wrong. Taiwan does not have a team in FIFA. Taiwan plays as Chinese Taipei, which was a compromise between China and Taiwan. you'll note Hong Kong also has a team. BTW, they do this for the olympics too. So the reason can't be "taiwan."

Minor correction

[manifoldronin]

The name of the new agency is Xinhua.

In A Related Story...

[Ogman]

Missouri has banned video games in their prisons. http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/ap_stories/high_ tech/1700/1-24-2005/20050124163019_19.html/

Re:FIFA 2005

[eln]

Well, China already banned Soccer Manager 2005 for that very reason, so it's highly likely that's also the reason for banning FIFA 2005.

Re:FIFA?

[Leadhyena]

FIFA 2005 was banned because of its recognition of Taiwan as a country, which China has been trying its best to supress for some time. It seems that while China is claiming that this is an action to combat piracy violations, in reality we must recognise that it is the Anti-porn minister who's running this campaign so there's more than piracy that's afoot here.

Command and Conquer...

[Sheepdot]

From Wired:
And in early 2003, the same agency banned the Electronic Arts-produced title Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour Expansion for "smearing the image of China and the Chinese army," according to the state news agency.

While I understand that Command and Conquer and it's sequels/expansions could easily be seen as portraying China in a negative light, the premise of the "Generals" series is hardly anti-Chinese:

1. What is Generals' story?

EA Pacific have created a brand new storyline, units and tactics that have all been inspired by the technologies and ideologies of today's tumultuous world. Generals spans between present day and 20 years into the future, and offers up a metaphor for today's version of global warfare. Three very different sides are fighting for supremacy, the superpowers of the United States and China, along with an umbrella terror organization, the GLA. Each employs very different tactics in their war efforts. For example, the United States places a great deal of importance on human life, and thus has a small, but very capable, ground force among its weaponry. The Chinese, on the other hand, has a massive, swarming army that uses their numbers to their advantage. China also has an affinity for fire and uses it in much of its weaponry. Finally, the GLA relies on sneaky tactics and being hard to find... thus hard to kill.

2. How about a more detailed story overview?

Set roughly 20 years into our future, China is no longer governed by old communist beliefs and cold war mentality. While still communist, the new Chinese government are people that grew up on modern culture and things like MTV. These new leaders strive to make China a mainstream world power and part of the G8. The GLA, an umbrella terrorist organization, is stepping up its assaults on the Chinese borders and terrorist attacks inside China. Bent on proving their world super power status, China sets out to combat the GLA in a war against terror. To spite more countries, GLA launched a nuclear strike against Europe and the United States of America. While Europe was hit by the nuclear strike, the USA managed to intercept the missiles and now they have launched their own campaign against the GLA, to eradicate the terrorist organization.

Anti-communist, maybe, but anti-Chinese, certainly not. Perhaps they were "smearing" the dreams of some political leaders? This came from Planet C&C, by the way.

26 banned before import so they must be pirated

[clusterix]

That is the way I sorta understand the article/spin. They made a list of 50 games for their people to look for. The list includes 26 that were never imported officially (most likely not allowed due to censorship). The other 24 were imported and sold before being found containing thoughts that might pervert Chinese society.

Re:Really weird list of banned games...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they grant waivers for things like history books?

Yes, they do. It would be a little pointless and self-defeating to remove them or blur them out from historic documents.

It's not Xinhau

[magefile]

It's Xinhua.

This is not about piracy.

[Anonymous Coward]

This has nothign to do with piracy. The reason all of that software is being pirated in the country is because the government either A) revied it and found it 'unfit for the minds of youth' or B) havent reviewed it because the publishers already know it wont get approved. This is about censorship plain and simple. If the games could be bought legally they wouldnt need to pirate them as much, Also if the games could be bought legally they would be crakcing down on only pirated copies, not BANNING the games.

Very VERY wrong summary

[northcat]

China did NOT ban The Sims 2 and FIFA 2005. Please, AT LEAST the editors should RTFA. The news item reports two things:

1. Pirated copies of the following games are banned: Age of Mythology: the Titans, The Sims 2, Manhunt, FIFA 2005, Battlefield Vietnam and Painkiller: Battle out of Hell. PIRATED copies. Much to the delight of the makers of those games. They can still be legally sold and obtained in China.
2. These games were illegal in China (they weren't allowed to be sold -- banned): Conflict Vietnam, Vietcong: Fist Alpha and Devastation. But, presumably, people sold them anyway and therefore they have been banned. Let me repeat, only the following games have been completely banned from China: Conflict Vietnam, Vietcong: Fist Alpha and Devastation.

First slashdot reports an urban legend as true and now this.
<ranting about how incompetent news posters are and how careless slashdot editors have become>

Re:Very VERY wrong summary

[northcat]

OK, on reading the article again, it looks like even the second set of games were NOT banned. No games were banned. Some games were pirated so the pirated copies were banned. And then illegal copies of other games from foriegn countries were being sold so the foriegn copies were banned.