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Despite being the biggest video game market in the world, the Chinese video game industry
faces many challenges.
For instance, until only quite recently, in 2015, video game consoles such as the PlayStation
and Xbox were completely banned from being sold in the country.
This ban had been enforced ever since the year 2000 and was due to concern that they
had a negative effect on the mental and physical development of children.
This is far from the only case of strict government regulation in the country though and this
is something that the channel has spoken about many times in the past.
Another recent case of games running into big issues in the country occurred last month
with all new video game approvals being frozen for an indefinite amount of time - a process
that games need to go through to get licensed in the country.
Making matters worse, new video approvals had already been frozen for 9 months between
March and December last year and only 350 games had been approved following being unfrozen.
This means that some of the biggest games in the region, such as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds,
are unable to earn any money from their games - with PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds being
estimated to be worth 100s of millions of dollars in the country.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is still able to be sold in the country though, they are
just unable to get the official license and earn money from it.
Some games, such as Capcom's recent Resident Evil 2, have it much worse as it was banned
from sale in the country.
Many games run into bans and other cases of censorship in the country over content that
could be consider controversial.
There are all kinds of reasons for this but, in Resident Evil's case, this was due to the
title's violent content.
This doesn't mean that Chinese gamers can't find ways to get their hands on these games
though.
One of the most unusual of these made headlines recently due to its almost comical nature.
To try and get around the regulations, some Chinese online vendors began offering Resident
Evil 2 for sale with crudely hand-drawn covers and vague code names such as “First Day
on the Job at the Police Station: Remake”.
As reported by Abacus News, this includes Taobao which is the biggest ecommerce website
in the world and the seventh most visited website globally according to Alexa.
As you can see, the game's cover is a hand-drawn attempt at replicating the game's official
cover and resembles a drawing that a child would produce.
Interestingly, the 'artist' has even attempted at replicating the game's sale sticker with
details such as the price, console and even the barcode intrinsically penned on.
We can also see that the cover is supposed to be a replica of the version sold in Germany,
as to the bottom left is a drawn on version of the game's USK logo - which is the rating
system used in the German region.
Other attempts at trying to get around the regulation issues include this cover with
a cute anime-styled drawing of Leon and Claire.
And then there's this version with a zombie from Plants vs Zombies, which is a completely
different game, on it.
Other code names for the game include: “Fried Cold Rice 2”, “Come Beat Me 2”, “Biochemical
Crisis” and simply "January 25th" - the date the game was released.
This is far from the first time something like this has happened though.
When Battlefield 4 was banned in China over "national security" concerns, some sellers
began listing the game under the pseudonym "Boyfriend Storm" instead.
It's not just cases of games being banned too.
Diablo 3 was released in China but only in the form of a heavily censored version that
removed violence.
For players wanted to experience the true version of the game, they could find uncensored
versions being sold under creative names such as "Demonbuddy".
Whilst that one may sound at least somewhat related to Diablo though, other names include
the very curious "Big Pineapple" - with pictures of Pineapples to go along.
However, this was in fact a clever pun on the Chinese words for Big Pineapple - with
the Chinese word for big being "dà" and Pineapple "bōluó".
Put them together and you have "dà bōluó" which sounds very similar to Diablo.
What do you think about these workarounds that some sellers are using in China?
As always, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below and consider subscribing
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Until next time, thank you for watching!