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China Enforces Even Stricter Regulation On Games
eldavojohn writes "Chinese gamers have a pretty hard life. From crackdowns on 'undesirable' games to bans on gangster games to delayed World of Warcraft expansions, they suffer. The worst part is that in order to qualify for operating in China, you face a maze of conflicting bureaucracy and regulation. Well, it just got a little worse. Now, if you want to operate, you need to hire a 'specialist' to oversee content, and you need to 'enhance socialist values' in your game. They also want to limit in-game marriages and how many player-versus-player combat sessions one can engage in. The circular issued from China's Ministry of Culture contained all the vague verbiage giving them easier reign over who operates and who doesn't. It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?"
It's a large market, but is it worth the gamble to game developers?
Are you nuts? It's a market that in a few years will be 5-10 times larger than the US market, taking into account that asian cultures are more open to gaming in general (see Korea for example). If there is any single market in the world that's worth it, it's China.
Other industry has been there, done that. Car manufacturers all knew after the initial surprises that if they open a factory in China, their blueprints will be copied and another chinese factory somewhere else will produce the same cars for a cheaper price. Some stayed out of China for that reason. Until the chinese began to buy cars. Then, they had no choice but to do it, because they couldn't sell on the chinese market without having a chinese factory. They did it knowing full well the damage they'd sustain.
Frankly, ten years from now, game developers will probably wonder whether it's worth the trouble anymore translating their games for the US market.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Don't worry, as with all business in China you just have to know who to bribe.
How about I develop a game that caters EXACTLY what the Chinese government would like, and then they use their overpowered censorship and propoganda to promote it and only it...
Question Marks
Profit?
There is a software market in China? I mean one that generatess actual money, and doesn't just pirate everything?
I guess 2% of a billion is a pretty big number.
Mod parent up. This law is basically saying "You must hit all of these subjective benchmarks." That's code for "You must pay us enough money to agree that you are hitting all of these subjective benchmarks."
Laws are rarely about what's good for the people. They're usually about what's good for the lawmakers. Occasionally the two coincide.
Mod parent up. This is how business is done in China. Anything from high finance to getting your kid into a good elementary school it's always about the who's, when's, and how much's of bribery. This mass of carefully crafted conflicting regulations is only the government officials fighting with each other over bribery turf. It is official policy. No one in China is ever prosecuted for this kind of crap unless they've run afoul of somebody higher up in political power. As soon as there is publicity, it's a signal that the person to be put on trial, innocent or not, convicted or not, has lost power and is now wearing a giant "kick me" sign.
By "take games seriously" are you referring to the people in their 20s that still spend all their spare time playing games? They need to grow up?
Or do you mean the people that think games have are extremely influential on people... you think they need to grow up?
Whether or not PvP is good or bad is one argument, but arguing that games don't really influence people is ridiculous. If nothing else, it consumes their time, for better or worse. Games - and all entertainment - is not a neutral activity, just as reading a book isn't. Movies, games, and books (and TV, radio, etc) all influence people; game creators, movie producers, and authors can push behaviors, points, agendas, etc. It's not the medium that makes something "neutral" or non-influential.
They want you to be in violation of something. With all the legislation, it is impossible to comply with every single law without driving yourself out of business. Everyone knows it, and the Chinese government (at central, provincial, city, and district levels, which are all different and have little relation with each other) knows it too. They like knowing that they can shut you down at any time, but are usually content to let things go as long as you play ball. This kind of ball-play can be laissez faire for years or it can be an "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it further" kind of situation. You really have no way of knowing how it will turn out, and the government likes it like that. This is why it's so important to have buddies in government who can warn you of upcoming problems or give you some lamb's blood to mark yourself so the inspectors pass you over. I had one high muckety-muck vice-director of the municipal propaganda ministry hold my product in his hand as if he were weighing it, and said it was about 80% legal. I couldn't puzzle it out, either it's legal or illegal, how can legality be a percentage, and a guess at that! Later I got it...I felt pretty dumb. It was obvious, only my cultural blinders kept me from seeing it.
And to those of you who are already hitting "reply" to say "durr, just like my country only my country is much worse", do you have a ministry of culture whose job it is to enhance socialist values? With lawyers and truncheons if necessary? You can joke all you like about capitalism taking over but there are plenty of true-believer Mao-worshipping socialists in the government.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
"China's going to be a HUGE market!" is the China fallacy, which operates with the assumption that consumers in China are like consumers elsewhere, and that as soon as they get money they will become a gold mine.
That is a fallacy that's been going on for three to four hundred plus years, and contributed directly to the downfall of the Qing Emperor, the Open Door policy, and all the other problems that China's been trying to recover from for the last hundred years. See, China's culture is very nationalistic and one of their flaws is that they believe they are the center of the Earth. In the mercantile age, that meant that China always exported its goods but would only accept silver from the West because western goods were always seen as 'inferior'. It almost bankrupted the British Empire, and did significant economic damage to the other Western countries, so they retaliated by basically taking over China's ports (and the whole country) to boot.
To assume that once THIS happens then China will open up to the West is wrong. China will continue what it's doing right now with the currency, and with it's trade policies: accepting money (in the form of Treasury debt and other convertibles) and exporting its goods without buying our goods, because they do not want to be 'dependent' on us. This is at the heart of the Chinese currency manipulation problem - that China is doing exactly what it did 200+ years ago - hoarding monetary assets while not accepting imports from us and slowly bankrupting us. They're not doing it out of spite, they're doing it because to them, all other countries and cultures are 'inferior' to a degree and they want to be the center of the world - and the center never accepts help from the edges.
That's why the best route for developers is to ignore China. Don't buy into the fallacy, because then you force China to accept your goods, and in doing so, you fix the imbalance.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
you're kidding right?
Bribery and corruption are accepted in many Eastern (and Middle Eastern) cultures. everyone does it, and if you don't, you don't get to play.
when someone tries the same thing in the US or Europe, they always end up facing charges or at the very least looking for work somewhere else. if money buys immunity, then why did Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, etc. all end up prosecuted?
So it's like our country - tons of laws that are rarely enforced, until the politicians decide to "make an example" of someone and then they use those laws to arrest anyone they desire to arrest, because we're ALL guilty to breaking at least one law. China's more like us than different.
BTW, why isn't China bankrupt yet? Perhaps it's because they watched the Soviet Union communist government fall, and they decided to evolve into a fascist state (privately-owned capitalist companies, but with strict centralized control).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
when someone tries the same thing in the US or Europe, they always end up facing charges or at the very least looking for work somewhere else. if money buys immunity, then why did Enron, Worldcom, Madoff, etc. all end up prosecuted?
Madoff? REALLY are you that brainwashed? Do you have any idea how long that man was stealing money? The only reason ANYTHING happened to him was because of the crash.
Enron? EVIL CEO Skilling is being held in a low-security prison in Englewood, Colorado. Enron's bankruptcy in 2001 eliminated more than 5,000 jobs and $1 billion in employee retirement funds. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months but that's being reduced sloowly now that no one is paying attention. I think it's now down to 15 years after an appeal. 15 years in club fed translates into what? 7 years? He'll be out and cashing in his hidden assets before you make 1/10,000 of it and all he had to do was spend a few years kicking back and watching TV? HA count me in!
You really should start making a list and checking up every year or so after the news has stopped caring.. Honestly that is a great idea for a website.. Hell maybe I will make one. It could be the next google.... Anyone wanna give me some startup money? I'll triple it within a year! Promise...
As far as the rest. Do your own damn googling... I know you wont and even if you do have these people get out with no one ever even noticing.
Keep living in your fairytale land where everyone gets a fair trail and justice is always severed. It must be a nice delusion, hell, maybe it's all those anti-depressants or something in those TV-dinners... Yumm...
The biggest difference between bribery and corruption in China and in the West. When the finally do prosecute the people who took bribes and corrupted government they also pursue those people who paid the bribes, in fact the greater focus is on the one paying the bribe. In China where corruption charges are largely driven by politics (the majority are corrupt when your out of favour, you just get convicted for it) the people paying the bribes are pretty much forgotten about.
As for China being a large market, that is a delusion, it might be a populace market but when you wages are cents on the dollar compared to western wages, that $40 game even when your forced to work a twelve hour day 6 days a week, is a whole lot of money letting alone dumping on top the cost of hardware and for online stuff and network connections.
Which is why those in control of the corporo-fascist power structure like to so fiercely protect what little there is of it. China's market is pure and simple the ruthless exploitation of it's work force and environment in which they live and, this will continue until it collapse under the socio-economic and environmental pressures.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen