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Censorship Entertainment Games

China Bans 50 Games 423

Posted by timothy from the it's-an-unfree-county-bub dept.
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."
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China Bans 50 Games More

China Bans 50 Games

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  • Sounds like a piracy crackdown, not a ban. (Score:5, Informative)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:29AM (#11479589)
    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).

  • Minor correction (Score:5, Informative)

    by manifoldronin ( 827401 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:30AM (#11479592)
    The name of the new agency is Xinhua.

  • FIFA 2005 (Score:4, Funny)

    by CoMmEnT23 ( 675063 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:30AM (#11479605)
    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?

    • Re:FIFA 2005 (Score:3, Funny)

      by shish ( 588640 )
      I had to turn away because the gore was so bad

      You get to play as fans as well as players?


      (Note: post may not be retain humour outside of England, where football fans are stereotyped as hooligans)

    • Next time, don't use a British team . . . :)

      hawk

  • FIFA 2005 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Airline_Sickness_Bag ( 111686 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:31AM (#11479607)
    The only reason I can figure that it's been banned would be if there is a Taiwanese team as an option.

  • Capitalist Overtones (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:31AM (#11479614)
    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 :-)
    • It's probably because one of the major goals in the game is to "woohoo". You can also make your Sim gay; I don't think they'd like that.
      • Having totalled more than a year of playing The Sims 1 and several months of TS2, I can however say that it will _never_ happen spontaneously. Unlike, say, "Singles" which gives you a gay guy and a lesbian among the character choices from the start, in TS all sims start as straight as a fir tree. You have to actually deliberately babysit them into same-sex love.

        So I'm not sure what Beijing is trying to protect the upstanding chinese youth from. From the idea that homosexuality does exist? Well, it seems to
        • So Beijing is trying to do... what? Keep their youth...safe from the idea that people can and occasionally do have sex?

          There are 1.2 billion of them - Sims or not, I think it's a bit late to hide sex from them...

    • I mean, as a die-hard The Sims and The Sims 2 player, I can't see much that would count as either capitalist or communist in it. It's a generic family, in a generic foreign country (they don't even speak English or any real language), and earning some made up currency (it's "simoleans" not "dollars", and you can't easily convert that into any real currency, because the price ratios and wages are all wrong for any real country.) They go to work, they spend their money on groceries and a bigger TV, and occasi
      • it's generic stuff that's no different in communist China from the USA.

        Like the idea of buying things for your family in order to placate them? Promoting mass consumerism as an effective way of life? Sounds like the Communist building blocks that the modern Chinese empire is founded on.
        (But it's probably because there is no official distrubitor of Maxis games as of yet, and all the games being retailled are pirated copies of varying quality)

  • Hmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by confusion ( 14388 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:31AM (#11479616) Homepage
    "This especially concerns pirated textbooks, electronic publications and illegal journals that will have negative influence on the youth. "

    I'm more concerned about my kids getting run over by a tank because they disagree with the government, or contracting some fatal disease because the country runs around like nothing is wrong, than with textbooks, publications or journals.

    Jerry
    http://www.syslog.org/ [syslog.org]
    • I'm more concerned about my kids getting run over by a tank because they disagree with the government, or contracting some fatal disease because the country runs around like nothing is wrong, than with textbooks, publications or journals.

      My friend, it is time to learn that all types of governments have one thing in common, and that is that they don't care about you in the slightest. They organize to use you for power. You don't even have a choice. There is only one thing that they do care about, and
      • See the difference is that I'm working hard to be the guy buying the polo ponies.

        Pretty depressing view of the world, there buddy. You might want to take a walk or something. It is true that governments will do what they want, the difference is that, for the most part, we are allowed to live our lives the way we want, while many others are not.

        Jerry
        http://www.syslog.org/ [syslog.org]
        • See the difference is that I'm working hard to be the guy buying the polo ponies.

          The delusion that this is possible is the reason capitalism works.

          You are correct that we enjoy more freedoms than many other countries. However, that doesn't make the the grandparent any less correct.

      • They organize to use you for power. You don't even have a choice
        In democracy, there is a difference between feeling like you don't have a choice, and not having a choice. Most people are too lazy to change things, that's the problem. True leaders, that have a vision, who can organize, and influence change are few and far between, most people just follow. Why do we still give favored nation status to China? It's because most average people prefer to save a few bucks on a DVD player than worry about the

  • Piracy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by DreadPiratePizz ( 803402 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:31AM (#11479617)
    The article says this is a crackdown on illegal games, and specifically mentions pirated versions of all the games listed in the summary.

  • Sims 2? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rahga ( 13479 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:34AM (#11479649) Journal
    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. :)
    • And yes, I have now read tfa. The headline was completely wrong. I blame slashdot editors.
    • "Well... if women in Sims 2 are allowed to have more than one child, then maybe the Chinese people will start getting ideas"

      Or, if Chinese couples who want more than one child are allowed by the government to have as many Sim children as they want, this could defuse the issue.

  • FIFA? (Score:2)

    by nherc ( 530930 )
    Are those soccer (err, football) games REALLY that controversial, to warrant a ban. Some of the others I can sort of see some rational, no matter how warped.

    I wonder if they published a localized version where the Chinese team can't be beaten if they'd allow it?

    I mean what else could they NOT like about the "world's" favorite sport?

    • Re:FIFA? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lxs ( 131946 )
      I mean what else could they NOT like about the "world's" favorite sport?

      Let me guess... Taiwan has it's own team?

    • Re:FIFA? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Leadhyena ( 808566 )
      FIFA 2005 was banned because of its recognition of Taiwan as a country, which China has been trying its best to supress for some time. It seems that while China is claiming that this is an action to combat piracy violations, in reality we must recognise that it is the Anti-porn minister who's running this campaign so there's more than piracy that's afoot here.
      • ...banned because of its recognition of Taiwan as a country...

        Does the Great Firewall of China block all of .tw then as the TLD system also recognizes Taiwan?

  • In A Related Story... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Ogman ( 591131 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:36AM (#11479681)
    Missouri has banned video games in their prisons. http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/ap_stories/high_ tech/1700/1-24-2005/20050124163019_19.html/ [findlaw.com]
    • Missouri has banned video games in their prisons.

      And this is a problem... why?

    • And the problem is?

      Why should criminals be given such luxuries, at taxpayer expense, when we have millions of law-abiding citizens living in poverty?
    • Funny - I guess they overhead inmates saying things like "Gee, 2005? The past 5 years have passed so quicly. I LOVE those games!"

    • I find that a much more interesting story, thank you!

    • In prison, inmates should "pick up skills and abilities that will allow them to go back out into society and be productive citizens," Blunt said. "Playing video games doesn't have anything to do with either of those objectives."

      Maybe playing Tetris will help them find a job packing supermarket shelves and shopping bags.

      But it's sad to see the person packing your shopping bags wearing an employ badge saying "serving you for over 25 years".
    • Jeezuz, it's bad enough that the Slashdot editors repost old stories [slashdot.org], now the readers start doing the same. What's the world coming to?

      (Only kidding, Ogman; I just don't want the editors to make a story out of your comment, in case they should bother reading the comment section. And it's quite likely that they read the comments, since they rarely seem to read the frontpage [slashodot.org].)

  • Chinese #1 news source - /.ed. (Score:3, Funny)

    by ceeam ( 39911 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:43AM (#11479753)
    Congratulations! There are more /.ers than there are Chinese on the Net. Apparently.

  • Restriction of Freedom for China is Freedom itself (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I can only applaud the Chinese government's effort to protect it's citizens.

    Firewalling, monitoring, and filtering out entire hunks of the internet. Imprisoning people that attempt to view restricted political, religious, and philosphocal content (have to break a few eggs to make a omlete)

    Now restricting games!

    Good job! This is the only way a government can protect it's people from the horrors of child porn and hate speach. All dissidents do is cause problems.

    I look forward to the day that DRM will all
  • With counter-revolutionary titles like The Sims 2 and Fifa 2005, it's small wonder that they were banned.
  • Ok, now this list is weird.
    Well, I'm used to see 3D Shooters on banned... er... "do not advertise the game, do not show the game, do not mention that you have games on this list for sale, sell the game only to persons 18 Years+" list (I live in Germany *sigh*), but...
    FIFA 2005? The game aint pornographic, or violent (except for fouls) and its not political either.
    Sims 2? Same a FIFA 2005...

    From the article: As part of the effort to protect intellectual property rights and create a good environment for

  • Potential WTO fight? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bstarrfield ( 761726 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:47AM (#11479815)

    China seems to be if not exactly ignoring the WTO and GATT agreements, then playing loosely with them. American and European governments promised their voters that China's entry into the various world trade organizations would a) promote democracy, and b) allow the West to export high-tech products to China.

    Point A doesn't seem to be happening very quickly, but we can have hope for the future. On Point B, the Chinese economy is frankly wiping the West, exporting tons of goods and importing relatively little (while supporting the dollar's high value).

    We may think that this is only about IP, but software is one of the few things the West can hope to compete in. This seems like a legitamate GATT / WTO offense. It would be pretty fun to see these agreements actually work for the benefit of the US by overturning the software ban.

  • Other games (Score:3, Funny)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:50AM (#11479848) Journal
    They also banned Barbie's Horse Adventures, but I can't really blame them for that one.

    If they banned Katamari Damacy I think we should go immediately to DEFCON 2. And if they banned Ratchet & Clank games, well, it's time to send in Marines armed with sheepinators.


  • In another recent annoucement, the Chinese government has decided to ban fun, sex, and eating while watching TV. All of these activities are considered bad for the youth of China...

    Seriously, how could the culture that discovered gunpower, steam power, acupuncture, and nearly started the industrial revolution hundreds of years before Europe/America did end up in its current situation?

  • Duke Nukem Forever!!!!! Now we'll NEVER see it...

  • Easy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @09:52AM (#11479872) Journal
    Seriously, how could the culture that discovered gunpower, steam power, acupuncture, and nearly started the industrial revolution hundreds of years before Europe/America did end up in its current situation?

    They discovered ideology.

  • Civilization? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Himring ( 646324 )
    [Spies tell us the Chinese government has been overthrown]

    [Spies tell us the Chinese government is now a democracy: Mao, President of the Chinese]

    "The Chinese Ambassador wishes to speak with you."

    Chinese: "Tremble in awe ah before Mao, President of the Chinese."

    Chinese: "We grow jealous of your privileged lifestyle. We demand you give us [gunpowder]."

    Carthaginians: "Your civilization is not ready for such knowledge. Will you take [The Wheel] instead?"

  • Command and Conquer... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Sheepdot ( 211478 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @10:02AM (#11479974) Journal
    From Wired:
    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:

    1. What is Generals' story?

    EA Pacific have created a brand new storyline, units and tactics that have all been inspired by the technologies and ideologies of today's tumultuous world. Generals spans between present day and 20 years into the future, and offers up a metaphor for today's version of global warfare. Three very different sides are fighting for supremacy, the superpowers of the United States and China, along with an umbrella terror organization, the GLA. Each employs very different tactics in their war efforts. For example, the United States places a great deal of importance on human life, and thus has a small, but very capable, ground force among its weaponry. The Chinese, on the other hand, has a massive, swarming army that uses their numbers to their advantage. China also has an affinity for fire and uses it in much of its weaponry. Finally, the GLA relies on sneaky tactics and being hard to find... thus hard to kill.

    2. How about a more detailed story overview?

    Set roughly 20 years into our future, China is no longer governed by old communist beliefs and cold war mentality. While still communist, the new Chinese government are people that grew up on modern culture and things like MTV. These new leaders strive to make China a mainstream world power and part of the G8. The GLA, an umbrella terrorist organization, is stepping up its assaults on the Chinese borders and terrorist attacks inside China. Bent on proving their world super power status, China sets out to combat the GLA in a war against terror. To spite more countries, GLA launched a nuclear strike against Europe and the United States of America. While Europe was hit by the nuclear strike, the USA managed to intercept the missiles and now they have launched their own campaign against the GLA, to eradicate the terrorist organization.


    Anti-communist, maybe, but anti-Chinese, certainly not. Perhaps they were "smearing" the dreams of some political leaders? This came from Planet C&C [planetcnc.com], by the way.

  • Please list this under Business instead of Right. Chinese government only control 1% of the game distribution. The other 99% is illegal pirate which government has no control over. If you look at the titles banned in the list:

    1. EA: FIFA 2005, Sim 2, Battlefield Vietnam,
    2. Microsoft: Age of Mythology

    I am sure must of the reminding games are from major publishers. China use the ban as a leverage with the foreigner companies. It happened before that cnn.com, abc.com and other US medias are banned in China. B

  • Way, to go, /. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mrn121 ( 673604 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @10:12AM (#11480073) Homepage
    In a related story: Slashdot's credibility dropped another ten points today by means of yet another over-zealous printing of a story with little actual content.

    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.

    • Amen. There is way too much teenage carping about "stuff costs money, everything should be free" on Slashdot. Get over it. Get a job. Pay for the stuff you want. This is not the *AA asking for copyrights to be extended to (forever-1day), this is software companies making legitimate products and asking to get paid for them, in the first few years after creation. Entirely reasonable. Come on guys, how many of you want to be software developers? How many of you want to get paid enough that you can move
  • Every parent knows there no more sure way to convince a teenager to do something than to prohibit it. China's campaign will encourage many of the young men hanging out at the computer cafes to acquire and play these banned games.

  • Game Programmers' Paradise (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @10:54AM (#11480596) Homepage Journal
    I've got a great VCD published by the Chinese government documenting their China/Vietnam war. After the US finally completely pulled out of Vietnam in 1975 (under Donald "Surrender Monkey" Rumsfeld), China turned on the Vietnamese Communists they had backed in the war against the US. And became the last in a long line of imperial losers trying to defeat the Vietnamese. (Betcha never heard of that dirty little chapter in the International Workers Paradise brotherhood.)

    The VCD is entirely first-person movies of actual military action, shot by China from their troops, and some captured from Vietnamese troops who shot their own footage. It's black and white, but full of action and fast cuts, along with subtitles in Vietnamese and (I guess) Han and Cantonese Chinese, over pair of Vietnamese and (I guess) Mandarin narration voiceovers. It all flies by so fast that I want to slow it down, which would stretch its hour into at least two, an epic on a war both hidden in the West, and doubtlessly fictionalized in the East. It looks like a trove of material to illustrate a historical game, even if crudely integrated with overlaid interactive game graphics. And I doubt it could represent that tawdry little commentary on Communism any less accurately does than its Chinese propaganda version. Plus, I'd expect its inevitable banning by the Chinese mafia government to spur its underground popularity in the vast Chinese market. Who's with me?

  • It's not Xinhau (Score:3, Informative)

    by magefile ( 776388 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @11:23AM (#11480997)
    It's Xinhua.

  • Very VERY wrong summary (Score:5, Informative)

    by northcat ( 827059 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @11:27AM (#11481053) Journal
    China did NOT ban The Sims 2 and FIFA 2005. Please, AT LEAST the editors should RTFA. The news item reports two things:
    1. 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.
    2. 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>
    • OK, on reading the article again, it looks like even the second set of games were NOT banned. No games were banned. Some games were pirated so the pirated copies were banned. And then illegal copies of other games from foriegn countries were being sold so the foriegn copies were banned.
    • Keep in mind that the Xinhua story was not altogether clear. It's a translation, so that's not too surprising.

  • Slashdot got the headline wrong (Score:5, Funny)

    by snakecoder ( 235259 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @11:48AM (#11481323)


    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".

  • Wow, Slashdot sure ate that propaganda up (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Enoch Root ( 57473 ) on Wednesday January 26, 2005 @12:08PM (#11481577)
    The article says China is banning 50 games, 26 of which are pirated. Since they are banning the game and not going after sources of piracy, the explanation is simple: it's disguised censorship.

    Take a game like "The Sims 2". It's not published in China. Hence, all copies of "The Sims 2" in China are pirated. Hence, China can claim they are fighting piracy... But the truth is, if EA decided to publish "The Sims 2", they would not be able to because it is banned. (Interestingly, Ubisoft tends to publish EA games in China; for instance, Call of Duty. AFAIK, EA doesn't publish in China.)

    That being said...

    The dychotomy of China is that, while a game, movie or book might be banned from legal publishing, the Government makes no real effort to prevent piracy! If you're a movie director who does gay movies in China, the Government will most certainly 'ban' your film, which means you'll never find a distributor and cannot make money from projections. Your movie can still be found for a buck on the street corner, though.

    So, the result of banning a pirated game just means publishers will never be able to publish it in the Mainland.

    Result: it encourages piracy by preventing legal publishing.

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