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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?"
And that's different with respect to other countries, how? Good thing businesses are so honest in the US or EU countries that they are never giving bribes nor are their people in power accepting them. If only China could learn to be as honest, upstanding and incorruptible as the people in the US Congress and people like Obama and Bush they'd just have such a wonderful utopia.
How is this flamebait?
.. the Mao years when he murdered tens of millions and the lucky ones merely froze in unheated factories and classrooms
He must have been a supremely active guy, doing all that single-handedly. It is cheap and easy to sing along on that tune; but it is such a shame, since you are not far from the truth of the matter. As you say, China has made massive progress, especially in recent decades, but even the years under Mao represent progress; the Communists would not have won without him, and China would probably not have made it to the top of the world as an independent nation under Guomindang.
Mao Zedong is far too often portrayed as a thoroughly evil person, which is nonsense. For one thing, nobody is thoroughly evil - if you can't acknowledge anything good about a person, then you are simply prejudiced. There is no doubt that some of his decisions in later years caused a number of major catastrophes; there is also no doubt that his leadership is what gave the Communists success. Where Guomindang's soldiers treated civilians with contempt and cruelty, the Communists did the opposite and therefore won the support of the people - and so on. If you study China's recent history without prejudice, you will find that Mao deserves at least a large part of the admiration he is regarded with in China; still, he should have left the power to more pragmatic types when the revolution was over. Great revolutionaries are rarely good administrators.