Slashdot Mirror
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."
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).
I'm a big tall mofo.
The name of the new agency is Xinhua.
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
Last time I played FIFA 2005, I had to turn away because the gore was so bad. I mean soccer, geez, what's next, a ban on any E rated games?
The only reason I can figure that it's been banned would be if there is a Taiwanese team as an option.
Battlefield Vietnam makes sense from the perspective of Bejing, but the Sims? Maybe the strict control of your people hits a little too close to home :-)
Well... if women in Sims 2 are allowed to have more than one child, then maybe the Chinese people will start getting ideas.... The sims could lead a revolution, and their government simply can't allow that. :)
By banning BFV, FIFA 2005, and Sims2, the Chinese are doing it to protect their society from the misconceptions that America was the "good guy" in Vietnam, from the notion that Taiwan is sufficiently independent to get a soccer team, and a game featuring characters that elevate their moods by "meditating" with pseudoscientific mysticism, see "ghosts", can enter same-sex relationships, and who frequently hop into a bed for pixelated "woo-hoo" -- the latter of which oughta be grounds for a ban in any civilized nation. But all three games are being banned for the same fundamental reason: they threaten the stability of the Chinese government.
When our lawmakers do it, it's for the freedom and security of our children.
40 years ago, Ted Kennedy had to leave his girlfriend to drown so he could continue defending our children's future. And the Senators from Disney probably had to snort a lot of cocaine from between a lot of plastic starlets' tits before deciding it was time to ban the internets.
That's the difference between freedom and repressive communism. Honestly, we have no idea the sacrifices our lawmakers make for us.
Government bans Sims 2, they don't like competition when trying to run the lives of 1.5 billion people.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Speaking of bans, they mentioned during one of the Prince Dumbass (the guy who wore the Nazi outfit to the party) news blurbs about Germany's ban on the swastica. Do they grant waivers for things like history books? Or do they have to blur out the symbol in any historical photos, or something?
--- Ban humanity.
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:
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.
If you read the actual article, you will see, as many astute readers have pointed out, that this is an issue of China attempting to crack down on video game piracy, not ban games because they are evil communists.
It is my opinion that recently slashdot has started down the slippery slope of becoming what I despise about big time news agencies: a marketplace for sensationalized stories. Every dramatic article posted on /. recently ends up being far less dramatic upon further investigation. I used to love slashdot for the lack of glitzy CNN-esque flash headlines of empty news articles, now slashdot is becoming exactly that.
And don't give me that "well it's the readers who submit articles, so don't blame slashdot, blame the readers" crap. We all know how hard it is to get an article posted on the front page, and we all know that there are tons of articles submitted and only a few chosen by a handful of people who have their own ideologies/agendas. The only difference with having users submit the articles at this point is that the moderators don't have to dig up the articles themselves.
If trends continue along these lines, I think my days of reading slashdot are numbered. I can read sensationalized news anywhere (CNN, FOXNews, ABC, CBS, NBC etc). I come here for the in-depth, interesting, non-glamorous, I-might-just-learn-something-today news, and I am finding it harder and harder to come across on slashdot.
Mod this however you want. I might be a troll, but I feel like it needed to be said.
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.
- 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.
- 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>
It should be China promoting 50 new games
AP- In a flash of brilliant marketing, China has given 50 games the kiss of life by banning them. Young students were clamoring to see the list so they could figure out what games they wanted to get ahold of first. One unnamed student was quoted as saying "I've never had a way to find out what games would be good. This list is awesome".
-Nuke the moon