Steam is finally coming to China but Chinese gamers don’t want it

[steven36]

Gamers fear Valve’s PC gaming platform will be heavily restricted in China

 

Valve officially signs with Shanghai’s government to launch Steam China in Shanghai, as well as bringing the next The International for Dota 2 to the city.

 

Right now, the global version Steam is in a weird position in China. It’s not officially approved for the country, and yet it’s there -- despite the fact that China has blocked thousands of websites ranging from Facebook, Google to Twitch, Steam somehow remains accessible.

But Steam hasn’t been immune to China’s censorship, either. Chinese regulators have blocked Steam’s community feature and applied pressure on Valve to ensure the storefront is as compliant as it can be.

Now gamers worry that the official version of Steam China -- which will presumably contain a much more limited subset of games, the ones that are approved for sale in China -- will mean that the government will shut off access to the global version.

Not helping the tension -- the Chinese government’s moves to tighten its grip on gaming.  It’s planning tough new regulations to curb video game addiction and myopia. And it has not approved any new games since March.

Since new games can’t be published through other legitimate channels, more and more gamers and game publishers alike inside China turn to the global version of Steam.

The biggest example? PUBG. The game quickly became a viral sensation around the world, but wasn’t officially available in China -- so Chinese gamers flocked to Steam, buying 15 million copies.

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is a "battle royale" shooting game. It's a little like the Hunger Games: 100 players have to scavenge for weapons and kill everyone else to be the last player standing.

 

The surprising success of The Scroll of Taiwu is another case in point. The small-budget indie game, only available in Chinese, ranked among Steam’s top-sellers for weeks. Shocked by their own success, the developers said that they chose to publish the title on Steam given China’s approval freeze. A developer said, “My team has an urgent need to survive.”

 

Within three hours following the announcement of Steam China, posts linked to its related hashtag have been read over 5 million times on Weibo.

 

Weibo is a Twitter-like microblogging service used by hundreds of millions of users. Launched by Sina in 2009, it regularly censors topics deemed sensitive or inappropriate by the Chinese government.

Many netizens say that they are bleeding green blood following the news. Why green blood? Because blood and violence is censored in Chinese games, the color of blood in video games in China is often changed to green.

A Weibo user sardonically wrote, “Pow! And I spit out a mouthful of green blood.

 

Source

[IronY-Man]

7 hours ago, steven36 said:

green blood

its not blood then , its vomit !! (global vrs.).

IMO; Global services that launch in China  like this are half-a$$ed &