The co-publisher of hit Chinese video game "Black Myth: Wukong" this week sent guidelines to foreign streamers urging them against discussing politically touchy topics like Covid-19 or feminism, players said.
Released globally on Tuesday, "Black Myth" rapidly became one of the most successful Chinese-made games ever, as measured by the number of players on gaming platform Steam.
[...]
But in the run up to the game's release, video streamers reported receiving a document from co-publishers Hero Games warning them to avoid topics including "feminist propaganda" or "politics" when they received a passkey to play the game, an email exchange seen by AFP showed.
Gamers were also warned against any reference to "Covid-19", "isolation" or "quarantine" -- likely a reference to China's pandemic-era policies that placed millions under arbitrary lockdowns and sparked civil unrest.
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Benoit Reinier, a French video game content creator, confirmed [...] that he had received the guidelines and shared his email exchange with the firm's representative.
In a YouTube video, Reinier said he would not stream the game on his channel in response to the guidelines, he described as "censorship".
"I have never seen something so shameful," he said in the video.
"It is very clearly a document which explains to us that we must censor ourselves and we must not talk about subjects considered negative such as politics."
[...]
But Chinese gamers have rallied to the game's defence, with some painting any criticism of China's first "Triple A" title -- some of it focusing on the lack of diversity in the game -- as evidence of foreign bias.
"Feminists have always tried to achieve their anti-China goals by smearing and suppressing traditional Chinese culture, but I believe they will definitely fail," read a post on Weibo, an X-like platform, which defended the game on Wednesday.
Other Chinese social media users also targeted reviews by foreign media that awarded scores considered low.
A review by Canada-based Screen Rant was ridiculed for marking the game down for "lacking in inclusivity and diversity".
"How can it be lacking diversity when it has so many monsters?" read one Weibo comment under a post about Screen Rant's score of 3 out of 5.
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Another post accused foreign gaming review platforms of "joining the ranks of those smearing China".
"Seeing that China has released a hugely successful game, they start relentlessly pushing ideologies like LGBTQ and feminism," the user added.
I'm a feminist and have been quite intrigued by Chinese history.
It's a shame, too, because they have a rich history, cool folklore, and a beautiful country etc. It's just all the BS that gets in the way. I would love to see more games take place in China and other unique places around the world.
Have you followed the game at all? I've only seen gameplay videos from one person, and I haven't seen much going either way to be able to say if the game is or isn't. I can't really tell if it's following specific the specific story either, as the footage is pretty edited.
There's 4 women characters I've seen so far, one was a goddess and the other three were family (mother and 2 daughters) and it was an unusual dynamic but I also didn't get the full perspective because it was a pretty edited gameplay video -- so the story for me isn't very coherent at the moment.
I've been wondering if it's the studio itself or is it putting a lens on the game because of those accusations or if it's something about the game itself which I haven't seen yet. If it's heavily following ancient Chinese myths then I mean... Games about the Greek gods would probably be facing the same issues if they followed it to those stories.
So is the issue that it wasn't adapted? Or was adapted but not with a feminist lens? I've seen a fair amount of gameplay and I've seen a fair amount of widely varying opinions from various articles, but I haven't seen anything specific about it. Just claims of accusations, lost in translations, and that it's not feminist.
I also haven't really looked into it, since Lemmy doesn't have a lot of threads of this sort of thing. This is the second post I've even seen about the game on here or Mastodon, and the other post was just the digital foundry performance video on the game.
Sorry, I don't follow. Could you turn it into a single short question?
Sorry lol. If you've followed this game, is there anything about it to you that aligns with articles about it being not, or anti-feminist?
The rest of my previous comment is me wondering what factors are influencing the reception of the game, like the studio or the use of source material, muddled by a 6 day work week lol
I cannot speak for Elise, but i don't think the issue people have been having is with the game itself or adapting Journey to the West. The issue is the developer having a history of sexism combined with the recently revealed list of don'ts pointed out in this article.
Right, regarding that list of don'ts, I do understand the Covid one. The others I agree, not good to push a narrative for your reviewers.
Yeah, with the hate being thrown at Chinese folks over COVID, I get it. The "no feminist propaganda" combined with the history of the devs just smells like "don't look too close, and if you do, don't talk about it."
Yeah that's the exact vibe I get from it too
I honestly don't know what they're on about.
I do think it's wrong to tell people how to review your game. You can give them some pointers and perhaps pay them to make it more visible. Better yet, you can pay them to consult you, as reviewers know exactly what works and what doesn't. I'm not a reviewer though so I haven't really thought about it. That's just my initial gut feeling.
I've made some games myself and you never know what people are gonna say. I'm always curious. Some people will hate it and others will love it. They'll love it so much that they'll do stuff you didn't even imagine was possible! I think you should remain focused on the positive ones and see value in the negatives ones for improving yourself as developer.
And about the game studio being sexist.. I dunno. I didn't read the entire article from the other reply to your question, but it seems like simple humor to me. Some people sit at their PCs all day in a dark room taking offense at anything.
I mean of course if there is a rape culture in a company, then that is an incredibly serious problem, like blizzard has. Or if you genuinely bully people on the workfloor for being trans or a woman or whatever.
Putting all that aside, at least from what I read in the first part of the article, it seems just like some guy making penis jokes. I'd probably get along with him just fine 😊
I've watched some gameplay on YouTube and the trailer, and I am impressed. What else can I say? I can't really judge someone's shitty sense of humor lol.