10 Major Controversies That Killed Great Video Games

Released in February 2019 by Taiwanese game developers Red Candle Games, Devotion is a proper back-to-basics first person psychological horror game whose fantastic potential was marred by controversy. The game follows Du Feng Yu, an unstable screenwriter and his family living inside their apartment during the 1980s.

The developers of the game wanted to put Taiwanese culture in front of people, and Devotion is filled with folklore references that really help sell the tension that comes from the ability to keep players sucked in.

However, upon release Devotion was bombarded by critics from China that took issue with a particularly unflattering reference to the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, within the game. The game's reviews on Steam went from 'overwhelmingly positive' to 'mostly negative' almost overnight, and Red Candle Games suddenly found themselves drawn into a messy battle against China's infamous online censorship.

The Taiwanese vice Premier, Chen Chi-mai, stepped in on the game's behalf and spoke about the importance of allowing freedom to criticise in a democratic country, but Red Candle proceeded to pull the game from Steam entirely and remove the offending reference.

The controversy sparked outrage online, but Red Candle's Sina Weibo account remains blocked to this day and the #Devotion trend on Twitter has continued to be heavily censored in China.