China’s Government Has Some Issues With Protecting Its Image
For example, time travel and reincarnation without a license are both banned in the country, as well as any other countries which the government controls, or claims to control, and while these may seem bizarre, or impossible to police, but the history behind both is quite dark. Part of China’s unique standing in the world is its claim to control several countries – namely Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong – leading to those countries having disputed freedoms.
People have asked me why this is:
1. MiHoYo is a Mainland China based developer
2. China's laws and games regulator state that games cannot contain "Anything that threatens China's national unity"
3. All Chinese games censor phrases such as Taiwan / Hong Kong due to this https://t.co/QZ6PerqiTC
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 6, 2020
The Government of China likes to discourage any discussion over those countries sovereign status and so any games by Chinese developers – including the recent RPG Genshin Impact – have to censor those topics, leading to the reveal of the fact that when playing Genshin Impact online, the chat feature censors the words Taiwan and Hong Kong entirely. No word, however, on whether Tibet is similarly banned. As explained by Daniel Ahmad this is a legal requirement for Chinese games, or games published in China. Of course, that doesn’t mean that people can’t either discuss these topics via voice chat or simply resort to abbreviations, however citizens of China – or, indeed, these countries – may want to avoid it.
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Other banned words include Hitler, Putin, and Falun Gong – the name of a religious movement which sprung up in China in the early 90’s and has since faced persecution within the country, and has a reputation overseas for being highly critical of the Chinese Government while supporting right wing politicians. In short, the chat filter only allows you to discuss topics that the government of China deems appropriate.
Here is an extract from our China Regulations and Approval Process report that we released earlier this year. https://t.co/yhGlcuDojX pic.twitter.com/XtsPpPmjQ2
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 6, 2020
Bizarrely, it appears that the list of banned words that Genshin Impact was given includes some mistake, as among other banned words is the word words itself. Expect some revisions on what you can and can’t discuss, just don’t expect them to lift the ban on mentioning these countries any time soon.
What do you think of Genshin Impact so far? Let us know down in the comments, or hit us up on Twitter or Facebook.