Game companies face challenge of censorship

• Source: Global Times
• [08:35 July 30 2010]
• Comments

A showgirl at ChinaJoy hugs an online game mascot Thursday. Photo: Cai Xianmin

By Craig Curtis

As China's largest game event, the 8th China Digital Entertainment Expo & Conference (ChinaJoy), kicked off in Pudong New Area's International Exhibition Center Thursday, Chinese game developers told the Global Times that the need to comply with domestic restrictions on content can hinder making games for the international market.

ChinaJoy opened almost a week after the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) approved a censored version of an expansion for the popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft. The expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, was released on the global market in November 2008, and its release in China has been long awaited.

David Wu, PR manager of NetEase, which holds the license to operate World of Warcraft in China, said he was unable to give details of how the game has been modified for the Chinese market to get it past censors. "Customers do have needs, but we have to be careful about major social phenomena or promoting violence, and must abide by GAPP and the Ministry of Culture's regulations," he told the Global Times Thursday.

Skeletons and gaping wounds are fleshed over for the Chinese version of World of Warcraft, and items that appear as skulls are masked over as chests and boxes.

"Just search the Chinese forums. No one likes to see the cut version of the game. We pay for this service and should get the full content," Zhang Shen, an avid World of Warcraft player since its release in 2004, told the Global Times.

Kelly Cui, chief marketing officer of the Shanghai office of Sunhome Networks, said that Sunhome had to remove skulls, skeletons and red blood from the Chinese version of its online game States of War. "It is much easier to foster creativity for overseas versions," she said.

Ivan Ouyang, manager of overseas business development at Chinese developer NetDragon Websoft, said the problem with game restrictions is clarity. "We want our developers to be the most creative in the industry, but at the same time our products have to be acceptable according to the norms of the given community," he said. "The restrictions are more and more serious, but then again, they are more and more clear."