- China's practice of censoring
anything that could be perceived even remotely critical
of the Chinese Communist Party and its policies,
or its leadership for that matter, is nothing new,
so while Steam has been accessible
to gamers in China for years,
it's existed in a legal gray area
and with significant parts of the platform blocked.
Well, no more!
Valve has finally taken a stand
against Chinese censorship of its products
by partnering with a Chinese company
to make a President Xi-approved version of Steam.
So thank you, Gaben, and godspeed.
You're doing the lord's work now.
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Oh, that makes sense.
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(upbeat music)
Before I begin,
I hope it's clear I was being sarcastic there.
Not about our sponsor, but about my right
to speak freely about my government without fear.
Allow me to demonstrate.
Trudeau?
Your falling-down-the-stairs party trick
and your skill as a makeup artist
are the best things about you.
And O'Toole?
You don't even have that going for you.
Now, I don't even necessarily believe those things,
but what's cool is I can say them
without getting disappeared.
So in summary,
any support I might appear to show for government censorship
is ironic, satirical, or some combination of the two.
Back to the topic at hand then.
Beginning February 2021,
gamers in China will have the option
of using an official Chinese beta version of Steam,
which raises an interesting question:
why would the wanna do that?
I mean, clearly very little if any effort
is being put into blocking the existing version of Steam,
and given that almost 18% of Steam users
selected Simplified Chinese for their language
according to Valve's own data,
it's safe to say that a huge portion
of their player base is in China.
Does the Chinese version, then,
offer some kind of compelling advantage for Chinese users?
Let's find out.
Got a separate signup process.
Does this seem like a lot of personal information
for them to collect?
Why does Valve need my phone number
just to create an account?
I mean, I can see for payment information,
but I'm not entering a credit card right now.
Personal identification number.
I gotta have ID to create a Steam account?
Yeah, maybe that's normal in China.
Actually, we did go through this
when we created our Bilibili account.
Speaking of which, we've got a special build collab
with another Bilibili influencer coming,
so make sure you're subscribed both here and on Bilibili.
This seems to be my library.
I think this is the library.
I think that's what those books mean.
Okay, so there's DLC for something.
Is it the Year of the Cow right now? Must be.
- [David] Yep. - Okay, yeah.
There's a bunch of Year of the Cow stuff.
Got that red pocket.
Basically, yep, that's Steam all right.
But the community features, forum, guides,
and Steam Workshop, so basically anywhere
that user-generated content could be shared, are gone.
So it's Steam, just,
relatively speaking, devoid of content.
Did they really change the Steam logo to red for this?
Whenever you see something like that you gotta go,
"Who's idea was this?" you know?
Which leads us to the same question we started with:
why does this exist?
Well, for a variety of reasons,
depending on the party involved.
For Valve the answer is pretty straightforward.
The allure of the almighty yuan
has clearly become too much for them to ignore.
I mean, Gaben's gotta pay
for a sick new crib in New Zealand somehow.
And as for the Chinese government,
well, for that we need some context.
Most gamers probably haven't thought about it,
but like music, TV, and film,
the Chinese government isn't too happy
when Chinese citizens have access
to unregulated or unapproved media,
and that includes games.
So if a game has been officially released in China,
there are often differences
compared to its Western counterpart.
Let's look at "World of Warcraft," for example.
The Chinese client has had plenty
of model and texture changes
to appease the National Press
and Publication Administration,
most of them centered around removing
any sort of gore, blood, or bones.
Now, while these things aren't specifically banned in China,
there are a number of vague regulations
that you have to follow in order to get your game
officially published in China.
You can't promote cults or superstition,
there's no endangering social morality
or national cultural traditions,
and there's no opposing opinions allowed
on the constitution of the People's Republic of China.
And that's just to name a few.
Now, some of these rules are arguably good,
mmm, or at least well-intentioned.
Any sort of loot box or gambling system, for example,
has to have transparency around drop rates
for every available purchase,
and minors also have a limit
on how much time and money they can spend on a game.
But when it comes to cracking down
on expressing opinions on government policy,
it's kinda hard to justify it with the classic,
"Won't someone please think of the children?"
So as we alluded to before,
Steam and the majority of content available on the platform
has been residing in a bit of a gray area for many years.
Currently you can access it
despite the Great Firewall of China,
but a handful of games have been blocked outright
and the entire community discussion page is inaccessible.
One of the most notable titles missing from the store
is "Battlefield 4," which was banned
for discrediting China's national image
and threatening national security.
You can still see the DLC packs for the game,
but the core game itself is nowhere to be found.
Oh, this is cute.
An error was encountered.
Yes it was.
I turned out my pretending-I'm-within-China VPN.
Obviously no Steam Workshop as well,
so basically it's the Chinese version then,
just clunkier.
The bottom line is basically anything with a chance
of painting China or the CCP in a negative light
is banned, full stop.
Nudity, memeing government officials,
offering a platform where players
could potentially voice dissenting opinions?
Banned, banned, and banned.
Are you sweating yet?
You might need some of these.
After years of work and regulation, then,
the beta for Chinese Steam,
known locally Steam Platform,
has launched, and while Valve
and their Chinese business partner Perfect World
has stated that they have no intentions
of taking away the current version of Steam,
the thing is: that's not really up to them.
Which brings us back finally, then,
to what's in this for the Chinese government.
Even if Valve's intention
was to keep full-fat Steam available within China,
the Ministry of Culture can at any moment
simply close off access to it
with their government firewall.
Presumably the only reason they haven't done so already
is that gaming, like Korean superstars BTS,
is kinda popular in China,
and the CCP knows that turning the heat up slowly
is much less alarming to the frog being boiled.
What does this slow and steady approach look like then?
Well, if you're already using Steam in China
and you want to swap over
to the government-approved version, good news!
You can transfer all of your games.
That is, the government-approved games
that are in the Steam Platform client.
Right now that's roughly 50 approved titles,
although there are more on the way.
So the plan then is to continue to add more games
so that when the time comes
to flip the switch and turn off global Steam,
the outrage will be much more easily overwhelmed
with the usual propaganda toolbox.
After all, if I'm a "Dota" enthusiast,
what do I care if my neighbor
wants to play "Animal Crossing"?
I don't play "Animal Crossing."
So the bottom line then is that if I'm a gamer in China
and every other overreach by the CCP
doesn't already piss me off for some reason,
I am pretty mad right about now,
not just because I could lose access
to potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars' worth
of content that I've paid for,
but also because of the impact that this could have
on the Chinese indie game development industry.
It's just beginning to show what it can achieve,
and as we know, extra bureaucracy and approvals
almost never catalyze innovation.
So let us know in the comments below:
if you're a gamer in China,
are "CS:GO" and "Dota II" enough to entice you to move
to the official Steam Platform approved by the government,
or are you already looking in investing in a good VPN?
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