Home Gaming Chinese games board stricter than Australia's

Chinese games board stricter than Australia's

2 min read
50

No Sleeping Dogs

Australia always seems to be the perfect punch line for any scenario, and their handling of games certification might make the rest of laugh while our Australian friends cry. Now we can say with certainty that our dear Stephen will have an easier time getting cool games than people in at least one country.

China has let the Great Firewall down just that little bit, allowing foreign consoles to go on sale. However, they also revealed that they were making plans to police those games with a set of guidelines. Those rules have now been revealed, and it doesn’t seem that Hong Kong-set Sleeping Dogs would make it through.

Games in Asia has given the full info on the rules, and I was at least happy to read that the approval process for games must be completed in 20 days and games that aren’t approved will be returned with the reason for their rejection. What sort of reasons can we look forward to? Well, it’s a relatively predictable list:

  • Gambling-related content or game features
  • Anything that violates China’s constitution
  • Anything that threatens China’s national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity.
  • Anything that harms the nation’s reputation, security, or interests.
  • Anything that instigates racial/ethnic hatred, or harms ethnic traditions and cultures.
  • Anything that violates China’s policy on religion by promoting cults or superstitions.
  • Anything that promotes or incites obscenity, drug use, violence, or gambling.
  • Anything that harms public ethics or China’s culture and traditions.
  • Anything that insults, slanders, or violates the rights of others.
  • Other content that violates the law

Those rules about anything that goes against China’s government or culture were to be expected, but I’m curious to see how broadly or selectively these rules will be interpreted. Nothing that promotes cults or superstitions – does that mean that zombies are categorically out? What about anything including Vampires? If those things are re-skinned, can they work around the rules? What about promoting or inciting obscenity, drug use, violence or gambling? Does that mean that the gambling mini-games from things like Assassin’s Creed would need to be removed? Of course, the AC franchise is all about undermining authority, which I’m sure goes against those other rules anyway.

I suppose this system is better than nothing, and it remains to be seen how the rules are interpreted. That said, at least Australia was eligible to eventually get Saints Row, even if it was a toned down version. Somehow, I don’t think any amount of toning down will let the Chinese experience GTA legally on consoles.

Last Updated: April 24, 2014

50 Comments

  1. Sir Rants A Lot Llew. Jelly!!!

    April 24, 2014 at 07:57


    Anything that harms public ethics or China’s culture and traditions.”
    So pretty much any game that has any shooting in it where said shooting results in any form of death because that’s not publicly ethical…. #justsaying

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief in Space

      April 24, 2014 at 08:01

      Your comment is not ethical

      😛

      Reply

    • Jedi JJ

      April 24, 2014 at 08:05

      What about banging your head against bricks and jumping on turtles? That also doesn’t sound publicly ethical.

      Reply

      • Admiral Chief in Space

        April 24, 2014 at 08:10

        That sounds horrible

        Reply

    • Dean

      April 24, 2014 at 08:32

      That’s the reason WoW in China has covered up Forsaken. The showing of bones goes against the veneration of ancestors and is against the culture.

      Reply

    • Wincethis

      April 24, 2014 at 09:12

      Don’t go there bro. The contradictions in the culture there are rife.

      Reply

  2. Jedi JJ

    April 24, 2014 at 08:05

    I sometimes love how off the radar games are for our government. You could sell just about anything here.

    Reply

    • Rock789

      April 24, 2014 at 11:34

      And you just ruined it… According to Murphy’s Law, we should now read about gaming being investigated by our government in the next few days…

      Ai, JJ… You just had to go there! 😉

      Reply

      • Jedi JJ

        April 24, 2014 at 14:15

        It’s not like they can read.

        Reply

  3. Hammersteyn

    April 24, 2014 at 08:07

    I’m sure the people will find a way.(refresh for image)

    Reply

    • Jedi JJ

      April 24, 2014 at 08:08

      Looks better than The Phantom Menace.

      Reply

      • Wincethis

        April 24, 2014 at 09:13

        Hahah 🙂

        Reply

  4. Alien Emperor Trevor

    April 24, 2014 at 08:09

    Those rules are so broad they’re basically arbitrary.

    Reply

    • Wincethis

      April 24, 2014 at 09:13

      It creates a space for the government to receive bribes to allow A though, and B receive the ban hammer.

      Reply

    • Brenz

      April 24, 2014 at 09:36

      It leaves room to be able to do whatever they want depending on mood and size of the bribe, rule #1 for corruption, always leave a little wiggle room in your laws so you can always be right.

      Reply

      • Wincethis

        April 24, 2014 at 09:36

        THIS^

        Reply

  5. Bobby

    April 24, 2014 at 08:49

    OMG, A Communist dictatorship has moar censorship than a Democratic, 1st world, anglosphere country?

    Get out of town!

    Reply

    • Wincethis

      April 24, 2014 at 09:13

      Technically socialist 😛

      Reply

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        April 24, 2014 at 09:26

        Shhhh you’ll just make it worse. Apparently it’s okay that a lot of censorship is better than even more censorship.

        Reply

        • Wincethis

          April 24, 2014 at 09:29

          Oh, my bad!

          Reply

  6. VampyreSquirrel

    April 24, 2014 at 08:58

    That sucks… they’re not going to get any cool games… well, not without any censorship on them.

    On another note, I’m still enjoying Sleeping Dogs… I’m sure Rince is too.

    Reply

    • Jedi JJ

      April 24, 2014 at 08:59

      Love that game. Need to get back into it. I’ve only done 26 hours on it and it deserves way more.

      Reply

      • VampyreSquirrel

        April 24, 2014 at 09:10

        I have no idea how much time I’ve put into it… I’m just playing it when I’m not distracted by other things, but that’s not the attention it deserves.

        Reply

  7. Mark Treloar

    April 24, 2014 at 09:02

    This reminds me of Gareth Cliff. Uncensored, Unradio sponsored by the most censored chat app on the planet.

    Reply

    • Wincethis

      April 24, 2014 at 09:14

      Hahaha! Isn’t wechatt a Chinese app?

      Reply

      • Mark Treloar

        April 24, 2014 at 09:31

        Yip, and servers are hosted in China and censored by the government. Oh the irony.

        Reply

        • Wincethis

          April 24, 2014 at 09:40

          Indeed!

          Reply

    • Marigold

      April 24, 2014 at 13:10

      Garth Cliff is a chop.

      Reply

  8. Norm the Horrible

    April 24, 2014 at 09:05

    With strict guidelines like that, will they even get Pokemon?

    Reply

    • VampyreSquirrel

      April 24, 2014 at 09:11

      my vote is no

      Reply

      • Norm the Horrible

        April 24, 2014 at 09:20

        Probably just getting games featuring tentacles…

        Reply

  9. Wincethis

    April 24, 2014 at 09:12

    This brings back memories living there. Man it was kak. They would ban this, but let that through, why? Money under table. As for banning anything superstitious, that;s a bloody laugh, most of their culture is based on superstition. Burn money for the dearly departed? Feng-Shui (okay, more Hong Kong but that is their’s now) list goes on and on.

    Reply

    • Brenz

      April 24, 2014 at 09:31

      In Vietnam I saw them burning fake money for the departed, burning real money is just fucking stupid.

      Reply

      • Wincethis

        April 24, 2014 at 09:32

        HAHA! Ya, it is fake!

        Reply

        • Brenz

          April 24, 2014 at 09:33

          Dem Asians, a funny bunch.

          Reply

          • Wincethis

            April 24, 2014 at 09:36

            Look at Geoff 0-o Just not too closely.

          • Brenz

            April 24, 2014 at 09:37

            I wonder if Geoff eats dog?

          • Wincethis

            April 24, 2014 at 09:38

            Ohhhh, I could say something, but even I have limits. Not that he doesn’t deserve it.

  10. MakeItLegal

    April 24, 2014 at 09:14

    So they skin animals alive while u wait ( think KFC but different ) but god forbid a couple of polygons having there brain splattered … Wow , double standards

    Reply

    • Wincethis

      April 24, 2014 at 09:16

      Dude, you have no idea. Was in Guangdong ‘if it isn’t an airoplane or table and it has wings or legs they’ll eat it’ and they do this. Shocked me and forever scared my soul 0-o

      Reply

      • MakeItLegal

        April 24, 2014 at 09:55

        Hectic hey ….

        Reply

  11. Wincethis

    April 24, 2014 at 09:20

    It’s amusing the laws they have. Pornography is illegal, yet the moment you step out of a train station you will see vendors peddling the stuff all over the place. Was as easy to buy porn (so I hear) as it was to buy cigarettes. These ‘guidelines’ are really just that, the blackmarket there is part of everyone’s life. ‘I want to buy Sleeping Dogs’, hang a sec, just popping down to the station.

    Reply

  12. Brenz

    April 24, 2014 at 09:29

    So almost every game then?

    Reply

    • Wincethis

      April 24, 2014 at 09:38

      They’ll ban Tetris too, cus Russian!

      Reply

      • Brenz

        April 24, 2014 at 09:41

        Cos Russia challenges the size of their land mass, and the land was procured by the ancestors, thus the Russians are insulting the ancestors, and they refuse to burn money at them to cancel out the insult, so thus ban Tetris.

        Reply

        • Wincethis

          April 24, 2014 at 09:49

          This…

          Reply

        • Norm the Horrible

          April 24, 2014 at 09:49

          Seems legit.

          Reply

  13. Devourer of Small Bunnies

    April 24, 2014 at 10:31

    So, basically they cant play anything.

    Reply

  14. Marigold

    April 24, 2014 at 13:09

    So no battlefield 4?

    Reply

  15. Aussious

    April 24, 2014 at 13:39

    Well there you go, they basically just only Nintendo is allowed.

    Reply

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