10 Console Games That Will Probably Be Banned In China
If time-travel as a concept is banned under the idea that it is "disrespectful of history", what other games will never see the light of day in the Peoples' Republic?
14 years ago, China banned all foreign video game consoles to "protect Chinese youth from wasting their minds on video games," but in early January, The Party "temporarily" lifted the ban. The big players: Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo are now able to sell their consoles and games to the world's third largest video game market, for now. But with the recent ban of Battlefield 4 for including "content that endangers national security," there will likely be more games that don't make it past The Great Wall. If you take a look at the list of video games banned in China, they're all for ideological reasons. The forgotten Sega title Football Manager 2005 was banned for recognising Tibet as a country. Later, the developer Sports Interactive released an edited version. It is impossible to precisely delineate what the Chinese government will find unacceptable, but you can bet it's either extreme vulgarity or a unfavourable depiction of Chinese society (i.e. one that isn't 100% positive. Because, you know, reality). However, I maintain it is actually impossible to determine what media will or will not be approved. Despicable Me 2 was banned for no clear reason. Time-travel in media as a concept was banned for its' disrespect of history. It isn't just what the content in question depicts, but also how it is depicted, and why. The general outline of censorship in China had me keep in mind the political, moral, cultural, (a)religious, and economic implications of the console games in question, seeing if they violated the national narrative. For this list, I limited my results to recent major titles, the kind of 'triple-A' games console-makers desire. Since PC already dominates two-thirds of the market, I can't include obvious anti-authoritarian games like Papers, Please or The Stanley Parable, if they're not already banned. I tried to provide a mix of existing and upcoming games for good measure. What will also be banned in China? This list, presumably.
