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China's Bizarre Gaming Culture — Transcript

by Just1n · 4,661 words · 712 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00It's hard to deny that China is a very
0:02controver the greatest country of all
0:03time. Yes, the organ trade is
0:05questionable. Yes, a bunch of old people
0:07go missing every year, but did you know
0:09that they have the biggest video game
0:11economy in the whole world? NetEase, the
0:14company behind Marvel Rivals and Where
0:15Winds Meet, could buy Rockstar Games
0:17twice and still have billions of dollars
0:20left over. So, yeah, when day turns to
0:22night in the middle kingdom, it's
0:23recorded that half a billion people out
0:25of China's population dabbles in video
0:27games. However, something or somethings
0:30caught my attention. What's up with all
0:31these bans, disproportionate levels of
0:33PC gamers, game addiction boot camps,
0:35boot legs, boots in general, and
0:36unrestricted government authority over
0:38what goes on inside of these video
0:39games? China is a very unconventional
0:41country in great and disturbing ways,
0:43and as such has one of the most diverse
0:45and chaotic video game rabbit holes
0:47ever. And it all started in the 1970s.
0:50And in the '70s, China had $0. So, while
0:53Americans were getting their brand new
0:55Ataris and arcades, people in China were
0:57deep in the economic and political
0:58trenches with an estimated 770 million
1:01people earning under $1.90 a day, which
1:04is [ __ ] crazy considering China's
1:05population was still in the nonuple
1:07digits at the time. With most of China
1:08looking like this and this and this and
1:10this and this, there wasn't really any
1:12opportunity for people to play video
1:14games since times were so desperate that
1:15it became a symbol of status to simply
1:17own a bicycle, and even cars were seen
1:19as unheard of for the average Chinese
1:20citizen, obviously. Fortunately, by
1:231980, China had made significant
1:24progress towards leaving the deep end
1:26left by Mao Zedong. So, the first wave
1:28of arcades were finally able to see the
1:30light in urban China, and by the mid to
1:31late 1980s, arcades became commonplace.
1:34But China still wasn't completely caught
1:36up with the West, and especially Japan,
1:38who was leading the video game market
1:39after the United States' historic video
1:41game crash fumble. Unfortunately, for
1:43companies like Nintendo to import
1:44consoles into China in the late '80s and
1:46early '90s, they were forced to pay a
1:48130% tariff on hardware. So, not only
1:52did a lot of companies not want to sell
1:53their systems in China because of that
1:55paywall, but it was also expensive for
1:57China's general population to buy
1:59entertainment hardware like that. And
2:01when I say expensive, I mean that a
2:02brand new Famicom, the Japanese version
2:04of the NES, it came 2 years before the
2:07American version, a brand new Famicom
2:09would cost an average Chinese family 1
2:11month worth of labor, and that's if both
2:13parents were working. Thus began the
2:15great bootleg renaissance in China that
2:18took the console market by storm.
2:21Without a doubt, the most impactful
2:23console in China was none other than the
2:25infamous Little Tyrant, or as it was
2:27known in China, Xiao Ba Wang. The Little
2:30Tyrant was basically an NES emulator
2:32console that ran these multi-game
2:34cartridges, all the games saved inside
2:36of said cartridges being pirated, of
2:38course. The reason why it became so
2:40massive in an era where the NES had
2:42already lived its prime was because one,
2:44China couldn't experience the NES in its
2:45prime, China looked like this, and the
2:47console was like $40. It was a massive
2:50success. I mean, it held around 80% of
2:53China's console market at the time, and
2:54it was able to stay afloat as a product
2:56because China had abysmal copyright
2:58policy, so pirating and bootlegs wasn't
3:00just popular, but totally normal.
3:02Eventually, to bypass copyright
3:03infringement and justify the Little
3:05Tyrant's existence, future iterations
3:07came with a keyboard, and the console
3:08was advertised as a study [music]
3:10system. It could even be found in
3:11schools because it was equipped with
3:13programs to teach English, typing,
3:14programming, among various other
3:16subjects. But that doesn't mean the
3:18Little Tyrant didn't have its own hits.
3:20Who could forget the 1993 blockbuster
3:22classic Somari? Somari had soundtrack,
3:25Somari had artistic direction. Okay, for
3:26real though, something weirdly
3:28impressive about this random bootleg
3:30rip-off is that it's a clone of Sonic
3:31the Hedgehog on the Sega Genesis while
3:33still being an NES game. So, things like
3:36the soundtrack are so comical because
3:38the NES's sound inferiority screws every
3:41track up, but for some reason, the
3:42developer Hummer Team just doubled down
3:45and didn't alter anything to work around
3:47the console's limitations. But I can't
3:49even hate on these. A lot of the early
3:50Chinese bootleg market was computer tech
3:53black magic. I mean, look at The Legend
3:55of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods. This is
3:57virtually a one-to-one copy of A Link to
3:59the Past, a 16-bit game for the Super
4:01Nintendo, a significantly more powerful
4:04brick of hardware than the NES. Yet
4:06because most of China was still running
4:07Famiclones in the '90s, a team of
4:09hardworking developers somehow managed
4:11to port it backwards to a previous
4:13console generation. But it wouldn't be
4:15fair to talk about the unconventionally
4:17innovative bootleg industry in China
4:18without acknowledging the many original
4:20great works of art that came out of the
4:22'90s Chinese video game market. A lot of
4:23RPGs inspired by Dragon Quest and Fire
4:26Emblem came out on early computers
4:28running MS-DOS, like Empire of Angel,
4:31which is a fantasy RPG where you play as
4:33a heroic woman with the task to stop a
4:35brewing war in the vast empire. But the
4:37game only features female warriors, so
4:39instead of scrapping with dragons and
4:41goblins like a traditional fantasy
4:42role-playing game, it's just other
4:44women. It's an original and comical
4:46early satire on RPGs. And other than
4:49this, there were a ton of other
4:51legitimate video games often developed
4:53by Softstar. Now, I assumed that
4:55Softstar, judging off their newer
4:56titles, wasn't doing too great post-'90s
4:59Chinese gaming. But they actually
5:00rebranded in January of this year and
5:02are making billions of dollars selling
5:04electrical equipment. So, uh good for
5:06them. But outside of plagiarism and
5:08economics, in the '90s, the general
5:10public in China grew to dislike video
5:12games as a concept and claimed it was
5:14harmful to the youth. Due to China's
5:15previous one-child policy, a lot of
5:17children would spend excessive amounts
5:19of time on these new gaming systems
5:21because they didn't have a lot of other
5:22sources of instant entertainment. So,
5:24parents began to grow concerned over how
5:26beneficial these study machines truly
5:28were. Things like the campaign against
5:30spiritual pollution, which was a
5:32movement initiated by the conservative
5:34people within the Communist Party of
5:35China, spoke heavily against anything
5:37that could be deemed as foreign
5:38influence, which of course video games
5:40fell into as they, like any source of
5:42media, are forms of art that have the
5:44power to criticize international
5:45politics. Okay, fast forward a little
5:47bit. Woah, the internet. Gaming's
5:50reputation in China was always on the
5:52decline with the leadership of Jiang
5:53Zemin, who was the head of the Chinese
5:55Communist Party from 1989 to 2002. Jiang
5:57believed the World Wide Web would be a
5:59great tool for reshaping China's future
6:01economy, but also considered the
6:02internet and video games to be, quote,
6:04"political, ideological, and cultural
6:06battlefields." I consider the internet
6:08to be more like political, ideological,
6:10and cultural purgatory, but it's
6:11important to take into consideration
6:13that civilian faith in government is
6:14extremely high in China.
6:16>> Was that Beijing?
6:17>> So, the values of governmental authority
6:19often bleed into the opinions of the
6:21general public. According to the Edelman
6:22Trust Barometer from 2022, roughly 91%
6:26of China's population trust the
6:28government, while only 39% of the United
6:30States trust theirs, which has since
6:33dropped to around 33%. I I couldn't tell
6:36you why. So, with that perspective came
6:38the early stages of internet censorship
6:40in China with the emergence of the Great
6:41Firewall in 1997, and later on the video
6:44game console ban in 2000 as a result of
6:47parents not being able to handle less
6:49swagger of their gamer offspring. And in
6:51China, education is like the most
6:54important aspect of a child's life. I
6:56mean, the National College Entrance
6:57Examination has the power to change a
6:59whole family's class, so gaming was
7:02definitely not what parents wanted their
7:03children to prioritize. The console ban
7:06was, by government control standards,
7:08relatively loose. So, even though the
7:10manufacturing and importing of
7:12console/arcade machines were prohibited,
7:14game retailers still managed to sell
7:16them illegally, often in broad daylight,
7:19especially outside of mainland [music]
7:21China. That said, prices that were
7:23already high went way up. So, even
7:26though you could buy a console if you
7:28really wanted to, it wasn't very
7:30financially ethical. You know what is
7:32financially ethical? Gaming in a cafe
7:35for under $1 an hour. So, yeah,
7:39ironically, following the console ban in
7:412000, which was established to save the
7:43youth, China saw their biggest year in
7:45gaming up to that point through the
7:47birth of internet cafes. Also, fun fact,
7:50Google got blocked across the whole
7:52country for 2 weeks because of a
7:53trending flash game called Slap the Evil
7:56Dictator Jiang Zemin. So, I guess he
7:58didn't really like that. From the years
7:592000 to 2002, PC game cafes grew from
8:03around 2,000 to over 110,000,
8:06and they of course continued to pop up
8:08throughout the country long after the
8:09initial startup era. Games like Command
8:11& Conquer: Red Alert 2 with Chinese army
8:14mods were huge in PC gaming cafes
8:16alongside other classics [music] like
8:17Counter-Strike and StarCraft. But
8:19arguably, the game that influenced
8:20Chinese gaming culture the most was
8:23Legend of Mir 2. The main factor about
8:25Legend of Mir 2 that changed gaming in
8:27China forever was the fact that it was
8:29free. But it wasn't free. Even though
8:31China was much more prosperous in the
8:322000s than it was in the '70s, there was
8:35still a large amount of people that was
8:36not going to drop a fair sum of money to
8:39legally own a game.
8:40>> [screaming]
8:41>> So, the game being free to play and then
8:42transitioning to a subscription-based
8:44service once the player semi-left the
8:46low levels was a brilliant way of
8:48capitalizing off people that didn't want
8:49to pay initially, but then had to if
8:51they wanted to keep playing their
8:52favorite game. Legend of Mir 2 also
8:55kicked off the first wave of gold
8:57farming in China, which only increased
8:59the popularity and appeal of MMOs even
9:01more. Gold farming is when you rot your
9:03life away grinding in-game currency in
9:05an MMO and then selling it for real
9:07world money. In 2005, it was found that
9:09China alone had 100,000
9:13farmers. So, games like Legend of Mir 2
9:15and later on Warcraft and Fantasy
9:17Westward Journey exploded in popularity
9:19and influence in the big C. It's
9:21important to note that Fantasy Westward
9:23Journey was developed by a company
9:25called NetEase, and they also acquired
9:27publishing rights for Warcraft in China
9:29in the far later 2000s. NetEase and
9:31another company, Tencent, that you may
9:33know for PUBG Mobile, Honor of Kings,
9:35and other enormous mobile cash cows are
9:37the two game development superpowers of
9:39China. And they have basically set the
9:41standard of what successful video games
9:44from China look like.
9:46This. It's kind of interesting looking
9:48back on Chinese video game history and
9:50seeing just how much it bleeds into the
9:53modern market. And I'm not saying that
9:55every modern video game that comes out
9:56of China follows this trend, that would
9:58be obscenely racist. But what worked in
10:00the Chinese market before definitely
10:02continues to work today. China has a
10:04very large whale culture and it always
10:07has. The term whale refers to people who
10:09spend thousands to hundreds of thousands
10:11of dollars on video game
10:12microtransactions. Often the way that
10:14free-to-play video games are designed in
10:16China is to appeal to the whale crowd,
10:18so that if you can spend thousands of
10:19dollars on the game, you can and will
10:21very much be rewarded for it. As
10:24typically the most powerful god-tier
10:26players in these games are those who
10:27have spent the most money. Now, there is
10:29of course a spectrum on just how slop
10:32these [music] gotcha whale games can
10:34stoop to. Genshin Impact, for example,
10:36is often ragged on by the general
10:37public. If you say you play Genshin
10:39Impact in most video game communities,
10:41it's on sight. But as a game with gotcha
10:43mechanics, it is way less predatory than
10:45a lot of alternatives because it doesn't
10:47have mandatory PvP. So, you can get
10:49caught up with the story without
10:50spending a single dime. Now, of course,
10:52pay-to-win mechanics exist everywhere.
10:54Elon Musk didn't slip his way into the
10:56government last year by progressing the
10:57campaign and games like Red Dead Online
10:59are way easier if you're sitting on
11:00thousands of gold bars to buy powerful
11:02weapons. But in Red Dead Online, a level
11:04one player can still kill a high-level
11:06player if they land a few headshots and
11:08with a decent amount of grinding can
11:09even match their rank. Eastern gotcha
11:11culture tends to blend a variety of
11:13evils from number-based power levels,
11:15gambling, and limited-time bonuses that
11:17separate the rich from the normal
11:18people. And it's interesting that the
11:20extreme implementation of these
11:22mechanics are all a result of early
11:24free-to-play gaming in China that
11:26resulted from economic uncertainty. And
11:28along with that style of gameplay came
11:31that economic uncertain style of
11:32advertising that made a lot of Chinese
11:34clone games so popular in the '90s. And
11:37that marketing technique is still
11:39pulling in racks of yuan today. Genshin
11:41Impact is an original title with
11:43original characters and an original
11:44story. I think I haven't actually played
11:46the game. Is Genshin Impact original?
11:48Uh, maybe.
11:50>> But before the game came out, its
11:51trailers resembled Breath of the Wild in
11:53a suspiciously
11:55familiar way. Now, Genshin, like I said,
11:57is original and isn't Breath of the Wild
11:59aside from having a similar art style
12:01and being open world, but other titles
12:03have been completely shameless. Marvel
12:05Rivals is another free-to-play Chinese
12:07game that has a massive community and it
12:09got that crowd mostly from people who
12:10already liked its main competitor
12:12Overwatch, but didn't like the way
12:13Blizzard has massacred its legacy.
12:15Free-to-play games with heavy
12:16microtransactions that are popularized
12:18by being similar to other successful
12:20video games is Chinese gaming's PK fire.
12:22Justin, why are you being so cynical?
12:25NetEase and Tencent primarily make free
12:28games. It's a miracle that so much
12:29content is already on the table for
12:31people that want to play these video
12:32games.
12:34Okay, Wherewinds Meet is a free-to-play
12:35open-world adventure game that has every
12:37mechanic ever. It's basically a cauldron
12:39of every single open-world AAA title
12:41loosely mixed into this one product.
12:43There's open-ended climbing mechanics,
12:45but your character clips everywhere.
12:46There's stealth and witness mechanics,
12:48but they usually don't work. The
12:49waypoints for missions don't reward you
12:51for exploring the open world and only
12:53react to you actually touching the
12:54waypoint. Hence the moments when I
12:56progressed the level, but then have to
12:57go back to touch the marker. Another
12:59time in a story mission, I went back to
13:01a previous area and my character
13:02repeated the same line she said before
13:04because the dialogue was tied to the
13:06literal spot on the level. So, there's
13:08another level below.
13:10I never imagined such a place inside the
13:12clinic.
13:12>> I think that Wherewinds Meet has a
13:14serious identity crisis. It's an MMO,
13:16but you can really only progress through
13:18the single-player. It's a AAA adventure
13:20game, but there's a ton of menus and
13:22cutscenes that halt the flow of gameplay
13:24and make you sit and watch your
13:25character do things like how old
13:26computer MMOs were designed. Beyond all
13:28of this, the UI is just so so [ __ ]
13:31And it's clear that trying to make the
13:33game mechanics work together was
13:34NetEase's second priority under trying
13:36to implement microtransactions. For
13:38example, in Wherewinds Meet, you can
13:39host parties on your own boat if you
13:42spend $40,000. And there's a ton of
13:44outfits, too, that can be unlocked
13:45through playing the game, but mostly it
13:47relies on gambling. I know it's free,
13:49but aren't video games an art form?
13:51Shouldn't the number one priority be
13:52trying to make a game that's true to
13:53itself and not trying to fit the
13:55checkboxes of what makes something an
13:57open-world action-adventure game for the
13:58sake of selling cosmetics? You compare
14:00this to other open-world games like what
14:02I was talking about earlier, Breath of
14:03the Wild. Breath of the Wild doesn't
14:05need to give you a bajillion icons and
14:07notices telling you where a waypoint is
14:08or that you just got 12 million XP and
14:10can spend points. It embraces its own
14:12charm by leaning into letting the player
14:14explore the open world and find the neat
14:16little things that make Hyrule worth
14:18venturing through. I love that when the
14:19enemies stop chasing you, they're like,
14:21"Man, whatever, man." I love that
14:22there's silly little puzzles scattered
14:24around the map and I love the long
14:25moments of silence that respect your
14:26ability to appreciate them. You can open
14:28a wooden chest or you can slap it with
14:30your sword and it'll drop whatever was
14:31in it. In Wherewinds Meet, you'll open a
14:33chest and then text on the side of the
14:34screen will tell you what you got. In
14:35Breath of the Wild, you can combine a
14:37variety of items, throw them in a pot,
14:38and see what happens. In Wherewinds
14:40Meet, you open a menu and then suddenly
14:41you have food. Breath of the Wild isn't
14:43perfect. It doesn't have every single
14:45mechanic ever and it's certainly not
14:47that flashy of a game, but it doesn't
14:48need to be because it knows how far it
14:50needs to push itself in its own genre.
14:52Stalker 2 is an open-world game that has
14:54a lot of waypoints, but outside of the
14:55map screen, they're all crammed in this
14:57one convenient map bar. And as for
14:59flashiness and power levels, the
15:00player's ability all depends on the
15:01player's skill. Stalker 2 isn't perfect.
15:03In fact, a lot of the time it's
15:05[ __ ] Why can I not jump over this
15:06thing? Because my stamina is low. It is
15:08the most accessible ledge and I died to
15:11an anomaly. But it's consistent and
15:12knows its place in its genre. In Stalker
15:142, when I struggle, I just need to lock
15:15in. But in Wherewinds Meet, you'll
15:17encounter so many quests that start, but
15:18then you'll need to back away from them
15:20because the requirement to play them is
15:2130 levels above where you are. Now, you
15:23can argue that these are paid open-world
15:25games and Wherewinds Meet is not.
15:26Unturned is an open-world zombie
15:28survival game where you need to loot
15:29houses, get better weapons, and survive
15:31in the online apocalypse. There are
15:33cosmetics that you can buy, but they're
15:35far from shoved down your throat and the
15:36game itself is what makes it appealing.
15:38Now, I know this segment of the video
15:39probably makes me sound like Wherewinds
15:41Meet's number one hater.
15:44But with the sprawling market that China
15:46has achieved over the years, obviously
15:47people are going to want to play these
15:49video games and therefore be online.
15:51There are a ton of restrictions built
15:53into devices there where minors around
15:5516 to 18 get 2 hours of screen time a
15:57day. Ages 8 to 15 get 1 hour and under
15:59that you're limited to 40 minutes. Now,
16:01to be honest, for the young children,
16:03I'm just going to come out and say this
16:05is good news. I have seen way too many
16:07neglected kids handed a device and left
16:09to do whatever they want all day every
16:11day and honestly, I think that is way
16:13more cruel of a punishment than
16:14government-ordered restrictions. But
16:16past 8 years old, I think it's up for
16:18debate. Along with these restrictions
16:20comes the nighttime ban, which doesn't
16:21let any minor access technology from
16:2410:00 p.m. to 6:00 in the morning. So,
16:25when I first read about the
16:26military-style internet addiction boot
16:28camps for minors in China, I had one
16:30question. How? How do these boot camps
16:33exist with so many restrictions? How do
16:35people even bypass these? Well, internet
16:38addiction boot camps have existed long
16:39before the recent era of online age
16:41restrictions, which are part of Xi
16:43Jinping's increasing push for internet
16:45safety in China. That said, you can get
16:47around the face scan sometimes prompted
16:48before opening a video game by showing a
16:50picture of an adult relative. And if you
16:51know their ID number, you can always
16:53drop that, too. even a black market in
16:54China where you can rent adult IDs to
16:56your heart's content. So, there are
16:58loopholes. The new laws on internet
17:00access aren't at all why there aren't as
17:02many reports on the anti-internet
17:04facilities anymore and actually shed
17:05light onto how international access to
17:07information within China is handled
17:09after massive scandals. So, a lot of
17:10reports come from before 2020, but that
17:13doesn't mean that internet addiction
17:14boot camps don't exist anymore. Whenever
17:16something comes out like a teenager
17:18being murdered within one of these
17:20facilities, that obviously looks really
17:22really really bad. So, the CCP makes
17:24sure that things like this get out as
17:26far and in between as possible. So, for
17:28example, internet addiction boot camps
17:30don't operate under the boot camp title
17:31anymore and are known as special
17:33training schools or something of the
17:35sort. Which honestly might be a good
17:36idea because if my parents told me I was
17:38going to a special training school, I'd
17:39be thinking, "Oh, hell yeah, I'm going
17:41to be Hokage shotgun." Oh, [ __ ]
17:44Additionally, companies are expected by
17:46the government in China to manage
17:47negative information about them and
17:49prioritize success. Tencent, for
17:51example, hey, I know those guys use AI
17:53and workers to mass downvote or even
17:55delete criticism and accusations on how
17:57they operate. So, reports from victims
17:59and journalists on the treatment in
18:00these places have naturally become
18:02scarce since the recent giga crackdowns
18:04on internet censorship. So, I've thrown
18:05the boot camp word around a lot, but
18:07what does that mean? What are and were
18:09these places before they supposedly
18:11became less strict, but are still kind
18:13of [ __ ] up? But credit where credit is
18:14due, definitely less strict now. Fun
18:16fact, China was the first country to
18:18consider internet addiction a clinical
18:20disorder and it's taken very very
18:22seriously. So seriously that the boot
18:24camps meant to cure it are often times
18:26run by ex-military personnel who bring
18:28the spiritually washed teenagers back to
18:30the real world by having them wake up
18:32early, do various intense exercises in a
18:34multitude of different therapies. In the
18:36early days of internet addiction
18:37facilities, there was a lot of
18:38suspicious practices that went on within
18:40the walls such as forced medication
18:42where the staff would use flashlights to
18:44check if the patients actually swallowed
18:46the unnamed pills, followed up by
18:48electroshock therapy, which is when
18:49you're put under anesthesia, a
18:51controlled loss of consciousness, and
18:52electric currents are run through your
18:54brain to give you a temporary seizure
18:55that is supposed to recalibrate your
18:57senses. This kind of therapy needs to be
18:59done right and it's unknown just how
19:01safe these experiments were because if
19:03done wrong, it can do more damage than
19:05good, which is why professionals often
19:07use ECT as a last resort for treating
19:09people with disorders. Fortunately, ECT
19:12isn't used in internet addiction
19:13institutions anymore because of huge
19:15crackdowns that happened in the late
19:172000s and early 2010s. But that doesn't
19:19mean there isn't still a trend of
19:20horrendous conditions that these young
19:22people were and are put under. Because
19:24the people that run these places hate
19:26the internet and video games and believe
19:28them to be nothing but a hindrance on
19:30somebody's potential, there's a lot of
19:31aggression that goes into getting the
19:33message across. There are many many
19:35cases of people who are beaten in these
19:38boot camps or punished by being put in a
19:39dark room, sometimes for multiple days
19:41in a row. I mean, people most of, if not
19:44all of the time, are brought to these
19:45places without consent or because they
19:47were tricked into going somewhere else
19:48by their parents. The forced ideology on
19:51what the internet is and only is being
19:53pressed on these people every single day
19:55is nothing short of psychological
19:57manipulation. And the crazy thing is a
19:59lot of the victims sent to internet
20:00addiction institutions aren't even that
20:02addicted. Some parents consider 4 hours
20:04a day to be an addiction. So, there's a
20:06lot of questions to be raised on when
20:08does using the internet become an
20:09addiction over a hobby? To be fair,
20:12these boot camps and psychiatric
20:14facilities did kick off because of
20:16various incidents that painted video
20:18games in a bad light in China. In 2002,
20:20a group of four teenagers burned down a
20:22two-story internet cafe in Beijing
20:24because they weren't allowed in. This
20:25fire killed 25 people and injured 13
20:28others. Considering this was the
20:30deadliest fire Beijing had had in over
20:3250 years, this caused a wave of panic
20:34among the public on just how important
20:36these video games were to children and
20:37how far they would go to play them.
20:39Among a handful of other horrendous
20:40incidents, like a kid who had a stroke
20:42in an internet cafe after playing Honor
20:44of Kings for 40 hours straight, there
20:46were even cases in the later 2010s of
20:47people who committed real-life murders
20:49for various in-game benefits across
20:51different titles. Personally, I believe
20:53that [ __ ] up people are going to be
20:54[ __ ] up and it's unfair to claim that
20:56one outside factor is what causes
20:58somebody's deranged behavior. But,
21:00because of the suspicion over how
21:02influential games are over people's
21:04real-life actions in China, there are a
21:05lot of censorship laws regarding the
21:07contents of what can be seen in video
21:09games, like how there is a no tolerance
21:10policy on blood and gore. Aside from
21:12that, the censored games are mostly left
21:14the same regardless if you count or
21:17don't count video game violence. I think
21:19that this rabbit hole is so weird and
21:20interesting to get into because of the
21:21many random restrictions and factors
21:23that play into why Chinese gaming has
21:24the reputation it does and why a lot of
21:26AAA games from there carry the same
21:28principles and mechanics. But, it's just
21:30so freaking sus sometimes. Like, yeah,
21:32the boot camps are grim. Yeah, the
21:34bootlegs are funny and impressive. Why
21:36does Tencent own an anti-cheat software
21:38that has access to all of your files and
21:40stays on your PC even after the game
21:41it's linked to is uninstalled? ACE is
21:43always open and because of its
21:45mysterious excessive disk usage has been
21:47reported to speed up your SSD's
21:48lifespan. Genshin Impact launched with a
21:50similar kernel anti-cheat model. And
21:52while that's already kind of
21:53questionable, why is it a law that any
21:56and all user data is required to be
21:58transported straight to the CCP upon
22:00request? What? But, what do you think
22:02about China's place in history and video
22:03game culture? Let me know in the
22:05comments below and I'll check them out
22:06as soon as I possibly can. Thank you so
22:08much for This video is misinformation
22:10and subscribe now. And subscribe now.
22:13And subscribe now.
22:14>> is misinformation and subscribe
22:16>> This video is misinformation and
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