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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?"
There are plenty of game developers that would love to capture part of the Chinese market. It's mainly developers that operate a bit too close to prohibited levels of hedonism and a few other touchy subjects that will have problems, and it's not like Chinese need games tailored to them - people taking the effort to make a game could go worldwide if their game won't work in China.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
But developing a game that pushes Socialist values and limits various gameplay could essentially RUIN your sales in every country BUT China.
Is China > 50% of the market?
Will China be > 50% of the market?
So it's just like everywhere else, rules and regulations apply, unless you're wealthy enough?
Umm... help me a bit, I'm confused, are that socialist or capitalist values again?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Its called a dogmatic National Interest. Welcom to international super power politics and self interest. Its how we all feel indignantly justified in our ethnocentric human nature. If the media is from a "foreign" undesirable culture then please feel free to steal it since we won't let you buy it, and you are a criminal anyway. But the legitimate stuff that they sell, first and foremost. America just can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that China, the most populous nation by far, is not a democracy. If it we're, they'd out vote us every time. Which is exactly how they handle us anyway. Its like trying to push a sleepy grumpy Yak up a mountain with a twig. Moooooo.
haha, people have been saying this since Tiena square. Not happening any time soon; however there form of socialist/market is very interesting, and due mostly to Tienanmen square.
There socialist i the half of income from imports goes into a giant savings that is used to establish and maintain a global business presence.
In effect, any single US company is competing with the whole of China. If we don't adapt to that, then we will be doomed. As long as people are lying about something as simple and obvious as getting health care to people, I don't see it being a good political move to suggest taxing imports for the sole reason of leveraging industry from verses, or supporting a solid business ground work in 3rd world countries going to fly.
The US and China are heading to the same point, but from different sides. The only question where will that point be?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Frankly, ten years from now, game developers will probably wonder whether it's worth the trouble anymore translating their games for the US market.
Well, that hardly seems likely, even if the US is still "only" the number one market in 10 years :) (Maybe a different story 20 - 30 years out.)
While I could imagine a collapse of UK/US to just "ENG", but I seriously doubt the English speaking market is going anywhere (UK, US, AU, CA, NZ, de facto second language for many in India, lots of other people who don't get to have games/manuals/books/etc. translated to their native language as part of the standard 8 or 10 translations done for most modern products.) Perhaps in another 100 or 200 years, English and Chinese will have begun to merge for real (if Chingrish isn't already on that path) but you're going to continue to have a huge English market if for no other reason than right now 400million+ speak English as a first language, and the majority of those are in countries that are not under any kind of population pressure or serious resource pressure (think US and Canada.). Also, you forget the language diversity within China... out of 1.2 billion "only" 850+ million speak Mandarin as a first language.
China is rising, yeah, the US is going down, yeah, blah, blah, blah. It makes a nice headline and gets peoples' emotions up a bit, but the truth is more like, "China is rising and the US is... rising much more slowly. But is way, way far out ahead." Anyway, did anyone really thing the world could remain so massively imbalanced in power and prestige forever? (The answer, apparently, at least if you listen to news and posts like this, is "Yes.")
Exactly what does controlling information and oppressing citizens have to do with Socialism?
For that matter, what does the government of the PRC have to do with Socialism? Their situation looks a lot more like crony capitalism and kleptocracy mixed with old fashioned totalitarianism than a system where the workers control the means of production and allocate resources toward the common good...
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"One of the things I have always found troubling about Westerners doing business in emerging market countries is that they sometimes take an almost perverse pride in discussing payoffs to government officials. It is as though their having paid a bribe is a symbol of their international sophistication and insider knowledge. Yet, countless times when I am told of the bribe, I know the very same thing could almost certainly have been accomplished without a bribe." --Source
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It goes just a little deeper than that.
You have to consider the fact that games like Grand Theft Auto 4 and Assassin's Creed are not even capable of being released in China - not just because of particular things in the game which could be set by a configuration file or bypassed with a boolean (the main character is Slavic, shooting of 'Triad' gang members), but because of the raw nature of the gameplay itself. Granted, GTA IV is a very visceral example, but with these new restrictions, China is now going to have a say in the gameplay of every game that is released in China - and game developers are going to have to pay for it. To be honest, only huge software companies (Blizzard, Electronic Arts) are going to find developing a game for China profitable, because these "bureaucratic fees" are going to crowd out everyone else - and they are going to have to design these games specifically for China. The root poster is right - these new games are probably going to be much tamer than their non-Chinese counterparts, and will probably sell horribly outside of China, and will likely not be translated. The cultural wall remains.
If you're talking typical theory, socialism is simply a transitionary stage towards communism.
Canada and Sweden prove you wrong. Both countries have very strong social values (incredibly high income tax, many other taxes, amazing benefits for the unemployed/unemployable, subsidized health care, education, etc). Neither country is on the verge of turning "communist" any time soon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
my point is that as a culture, the West as made an effort to rein in these abuses by the rule of law, as it makes our economy a less-dangerous place to do business than, say, a country that will nullify your contracts
You have an overly optimistic or perhaps an overly localized view. Is it perhaps the case that you are inured to the ritualized abuse that we engage in as a matter of course?
Do you work for a company that employs lobbyists? Does your company comply with certification requirements by "working with" regulatory agencies to craft inspection guidelines? Do you think that money among other considerations doesn't get exchanged? Do you think it only happens in small quantities? Do you wonder how one goes about getting the best contracts with U.S. government interests overseas? Have you ever seen a company's executive management go through an IPO? Do you think that that process is not an outright manipulation of the market, favoring only a small faction of the largest investors in order to concentrate and maintain their position of wealth and power?
We do have a more open system than some. We have a far more corrupt system that institutionalizes bribery than others.