Battlefield 4: China Rising Gets Banned in China

[Squilookle]

The beginning of your reply came off quite bitey, I will accept that it is probably the lack of emotional context in text in which case the following tangential rant need not apply further but if it was intentional then I ask here and now to please refrain from it and if in turn I commit to said venom that you in turn point it out without taking a sip. I am sick and tired of almost every rebuke to an opposing opinion on the Escapist, a supposedly civil place, possessing an air of passive aggressive ire. Once again I am open to it being a lack of emotional context and thus an issue on my end in which case I meant no harm.

Now to as civilly as possible address your reply and elaborate my position. Few have a reason to care about another's opinion until it affects them personally let alone said opinion being expressed for the sole purpose of being viewed by those whom it specifically concerns. That does not stop people from having or expressing opinions wich makes it curious as to why it is a point in this conversation to being with. Can we toss that out?

Now we both agree that China does not have the best system but I personally cannot agree with whatever their bother with the game is. It is the opinion of those in power and not the general population. With such control over what the general populations consume and how that can be a tool to shape opinions, is that not ripe for abuse? We can already observe it on a smaller scale with our own news stations and how there is normally an ulterior motive behind the curtains, controlling what we see for profit/ratings or ideology. Like you said, it was a pointless stab which I interpret as lacking motivation, statement, or genuine maliciousness. Actually, I would be more inclined to call it apathetic carelessness but if they can censor consumer media like that then is there not the possibility they can censor anything else that they do not agree with? People arguing in turn that it is inconsequential media opening up to the possibility that those in power choose what is or is not significant in a game of semantics to justify their censorship? Why would someone justify/rationalise the former without realising the consequences of the latter?

I hope I was not antagonistic in my reply.

Sorry- I'll rephrase that: The opinions of any individual outside of China, about China itself, and the impact of the country's actions on how the average citizens of the world view it is something China would hardly care about. Not trying to single you out personally here; just including you -as I am too- in the demographic of 'average non-Chinese citizen.'

I'm not defending China's state-run censorship or the way it treats it's media and population. All I'm saying is that I can appreciate why they'd be pissed off by Battlefield 4's carelessly (as opposed to blatantly) antagonistic depiction of China and Russia. How they reacted to it is something else entirely.

 

[Squilookle]

Also I'm surprised that nobody has yet asked what happened to China. It used to be cool.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

Tell that to the outrage surrounding Company of Heroes 2's portrayal of the "Great Patriotic War".

In their defence, Company of Heroes 2's portrayal of the conflict was horribly offensive. It seems like the only research Relic did for the game was watch Enemy at the Gates and read the memoirs of German Generals (such as Manstein and Guderian) that have long since been discredited. They probably at least should have made a glance at the wide variety of literature on the conflict. Most importantly the work done by David Glantz, Jonathan House, Alexander Hill (one of my professors ), David Stahel and Robert Citino. Hell, even John Erickson's stuff is pretty damn good despite being quite old.

Their portrayal wouldn't have annoyed me so much if they hadn't trumpeted about how CoH2 was going to bring this 'untold story into the light' and other bollocks like that. Don't profess to recount actual events and then totally distort them to the point of being fiction. That really irritates the hell out of me. I'm not even Russian. I'm just a military history graduate student who has spent years studying the 'Great Patriotic War'. The campaign in that game was just terrible. I think I get so worked up about that kind of stuff because for every decent movie, game etc., there are a dozen shit ones that only feed the existing historical myths and stereotypes./rant

OT: Anyway, China really needs to 'man up'. Battlefield 4 is not trying to portray actual events and EA isn't some puppet of the US government. It is fiction and should be treated as such. Oh well, not much anyone can do about their decision anyway. Other than continue to pirate the game and other such things.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

On the one hand, I'm against censorship.

On the other hand, that developers still make xenophobic shit like this in 2013 is pretty disgusting.

 

[Saulkar]

Sorry- I'll rephrase that: The opinions of any individual outside of China, about China itself, and the impact of the country's actions on how the average citizens of the world view it is something China would hardly care about. Not trying to single you out personally here; just including you -as I am too- in the demographic of 'average non-Chinese citizen.'

I'm not defending China's state-run censorship or the way it treats it's media and population. All I'm saying is that I can appreciate why they'd be pissed off by Battlefield 4's carelessly (as opposed to blatantly) antagonistic depiction of China and Russia. How they reacted to it is something else entirely.

Gotcha. After what you said I can understand them being upset. I can be hot headed when it comes to censorship and can forget to summarise the other parties position (agreeable or not) but am generally weary when it comes to China and their aforementioned antics.

 

[Saulkar]

Tell that to the outrage surrounding Company of Heroes 2's portrayal of the "Great Patriotic War".

In their defence, Company of Heroes 2's portrayal of the conflict was horribly offensive. It seems like the only research Relic did for the game was watch Enemy at the Gates and read the memoirs of German Generals (such as Manstein and Guderian) that have long since been discredited. They probably at least should have made a glance at the wide variety of literature on the conflict. Most importantly the work done by David Glantz, Jonathan House, Alexander Hill (one of my professors ), David Stahel and Robert Citino. Hell, even John Erickson's stuff is pretty damn good despite being quite old.

Their portrayal wouldn't have annoyed me so much if they hadn't trumpeted about how CoH2 was going to bring this 'untold story into the light' and other bollocks like that. Don't profess to recount actual events and then totally distort them to the point of being fiction. That really irritates the hell out of me. I'm not even Russian. I'm just a military history graduate student who has spent years studying the 'Great Patriotic War'. The campaign in that game was just terrible. I think I get so worked up about that kind of stuff because for every decent movie, game etc., there are a dozen shit ones that only feed the existing historical myths and stereotypes./rant

OT: Anyway, China really needs to 'man up'. Battlefield 4 is not trying to portray actual events and EA isn't some puppet of the US government. It is fiction and should be treated as such. Oh well, not much anyone can do about their decision anyway. Other than continue to pirate the game and other such things.

Sounds like you know what you are talking about. I want to play the game in the future but have remained a little trepid over the controversy. What , if willing, would you share with me if and before I buy the game?

 

[Roxas1359]

snip

While I agree that the whole "US is in trouble and you must save 'Murica with your guns" is getting old, there is one game on that list in which I don't fully agree with, and that's Fallout 3. Mainly because in the Fallout games the US, along with the rest of the world, have already destroyed one another since the premise of the original games was if the Cold War went nuclear and M.A.D was actually achieved (also, replace Russia with China). Plus in Fallout 3 the main questline has you go against the Enclave, who are the remnants of the corrupt US Government. Now it does satire the paranoia that was present during the Cold War pretty well though.

Here's to hoping this current gen we'll be seeing a lot less of the "Modern Military" genre, and the industry will go back to milking clones of platformers again. XD

 

[Metalrocks]

lol. im just wondering if this involves hong kong as well since they have there own policies. still havent gotten the game since i have problems with the servers on BF3 and therefor i am afraid that i will have the same problems as well with BF4.
but well, at least i can get the english of the game in hong kong legallyso even then i should be able to get the whole lot.

 

[Do4600]

How do you ban a game in a country that was never for sale in that country to begin with? Also I think they banned it more because a Chinese person goes rogue against the government, and they don't want that thought to be anywhere near their country.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Yeah, this is hardly surprising. China doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to censorship, and they tend to get a little pissed off every time a video game developer sets their game in and/or against China. After all, Homefront even changed their antagonist to North Korea just to avoid the inevitable problems that would arise if they set it in China. Apparently, EA and DICE didn't bother to consider that as much.

 

[Grabehn]

TBH If you're country is getting out of a "Ban everything" face, and every time you get these "Dem Communists, so eeveel" stuff, it's not really that surprising that they banned it. Even though the theme of the game is China collaborating to save the world but you don't really get that from the title.

 

[A_Parked_Car]

Sounds like you know what you are talking about. I want to play the game in the future but have remained a little trepid over the controversy. What , if willing, would you share with me if and before I buy the game?

Hmmm, well there is so much wrong with the campaign of the game that I won't really bother explaining things bit by bit. Essentially, for all their talk about portraying the events in a new light, the campaign is basically a step-by-step retread of every myth and misconception that is held by the wider public. It is just the stereotypical image of the Eastern Front conjured up by German Generals post-war and given a sense of legitimacy due to the mess that the Cold War made of trying to do unbiased historical research on the subject.

Many of the themes that are outlined, events which occur and statements that are made within the game need careful qualification. Some of them are just out-and-out false. What I will do is recommend you a handful of books to read if you are interested:

(These two also talk about what was going on in the rest of Europe. Citino is a superb writer and does an excellent job of cutting the myth of the Wehrmacht's 'awesomeness' down to size.)

Citino, Robert M. Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.

Citino, Robert M. The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012.

(David Glantz is the leading English-language authority on the Red Army and the Eastern Front. Unfortunately he is a very academic and dry writer. He loves detailing orders of battle and such. This is one of his most readable books. He also has a MONSTER series of volumes on the Battle of Stalingrad. You can look them up on Amazon as the Stalingrad Trilogy. The last volume, which is actually two separate books, won't be out till spring 2013. I already have my pre-order in. )

Glantz, David and Jonathan House. When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995.

(This next book is superb. Stahel is an excellent writer and his work is basically at the bleeding edge of the historiography of the conflict. I would highly recommend this book.)

Stahel, David. Operation Barbarossa and Germany?s Defeat in the East. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

I have a lot more, but I will leave it at that. The game itself is totally worth the 19.99 price tag they have right now with the Steam sale. The Skirmish mode (all I play really) is amazingly fun and the AI is far more interesting to play against than it was in Company of Heroes 1.

 

[Erik Zarkov]

Banned eh? I'll have to wander through the various shops selling copies of the game to see if they've actually been pulled or not. My guess is they'll still be sitting there because nobody actually enforces any of these bans. When I ask them about the ban, I'll be surprised if they've actually heard about it.

 

[Ldude893]

You know, long before the release of Battlefield 4, I've actually been fantasizing about a fictional war between the U.S. and China that also involves a battle in Shanghai and eventually an epic battle in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. And I'm a freaking Chinese person from Hong Kong.
As much as I don't like how FPS games keep using foreign countries as enemies, the Chinese government is not doing much to clear its reputation as a bunch of pansies. This is a government so paranoid of anything that could suggest their politics are flawed, they had to put their entire internet on a filter just to shield everyone from anything they think 'threatens national security'.

lol. im just wondering if this involves hong kong as well since they have there own policies. still havent gotten the game since i have problems with the servers on BF3 and therefor i am afraid that i will have the same problems as well with BF4.

There shouldn't be a problem; most of the censorship laws in China don't apply in Hong Kong. At least not yet.

 

[ckam]

China needs to not take a fictional story about a general of the Chinese army going rogue so seriously. It's really hurting their reputation; I mean, look at how North Korea reacted to Olympus Has Fallen.

 

[ArithianFlame]

Why so serious, China?

It never ceases to amuse me that we as gamers find nothing wrong with butchering each other through a fictional medium, yet keep repeating this butthurt debate about one country always being portrayed as top dog. War by definition requires multiple sides, but why do we keep playing the favoritism card? Somebody has to be a villian, and somebody has to be the white knight of freedom.

The fact that these military shooters revolve around the US is only representative of the fact that we dominate the game industry. Anyone ever hear of target audience? If it wasn't us, you can be damned sure that whoever did would play their country in the favorable light.

Alas, as long as we insist on producing this game with believable and current context, somebody will always complain that they had to be the bad guy. I don't know about you guys, but the politically more-correct "X vs alien space invaders" would gut dull really fast.

 

[Shadow-Phoenix]

I'd say it's typical of China but since they've been portrayed as an enemy like Germany and Russia in FPS's for years I don't blame them, having Murica as the stereotypical hero all macho and gun ho has gotten really stale old and obnoxious.

And apparently people still love to use the "lol grow thicker skin you weakling" excuse, not surprising at all since that's become typical on here for a while and doesn't add anything new or enlighten anyone.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Video game with a fictional plot about a rogue military leader who happens to be Chinese starting a war. Nevermind the fact that who gives a shit about wargame plots, or any of that when the meat of those games are multiplayer... Which doesn't fucking matter a hill of beans what side anyone is playing as at any given time.
And really I hear so many people tossing out the inevitable "lets shit on America" because someone made a game about the US Military in a future setting with fictional happenings. Oh because it CLEARLY represents actual events... Look if you don't like America, thats fine. But taking an opportunity to shit on it because of a fictional representation seems like a bit of a stretch. People write stories, people make games, people make movies and none of them are recruiting tools (except maybe the game America's Army, which doesn't take sides as far as I'm aware, nor is it propagandistic).
Find something in reality to complain about if you're going to shit on a country instead of using video game fictional universes...

 

[Waaghpowa]

All these people telling China to "lighten up". What do you think would happen if someone made a game portraying America in the same way China was in Battlefield? The Right wing in America would be throwing a shit fit about FREEDOM! and try to ban it.

It's easy to say "Lighten up" when your country is the one being portrayed as the heroic "protectors of freedom". Fictional or not.

Hypocrisy all around, not just China.

 

[vIRL Nightmare]

Normally I'd sympathize, but this is just a case of butt hurt over a work of fiction. A game. Honestly seeing more parties in the series other than Russia and the US is refreshing. Adds a little more to the series. If China wants to ban the expansion it is their own business, but their government needs to learn not to take offense so easily. Works of fiction need to be recognized as such and calling it "propaganda" is hilarious coming from a country that is far from clean of their own propaganda.