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takyon writes:

No cults, no politics, no ghouls: how China censors the video game world

China is the world's largest market for the world's largest entertainment industry. Today, the number of Chinese gamers, about 740 million, is bigger than the entire populations of the US, Japan, Germany, France and the UK combined. Its domestic market is worth more than $45bn a year. Yet, for decades, China has had a stop-start relationship with the entire industry.

[...] Any foreign gaming companies looking to operate in China are legally obliged to have a local partner. For Chinese firms such as Tencent and NetEase, this was a goldmine. These tech giants, the Chinese equivalents of Facebook or Google, have regularly part-acquired foreign video game firms and then helped them access the lucrative Chinese gaming market. One of the first and biggest deals came in 2011 when Tencent made an agreement with the American developer Riot Games. Riot went all in, selling a 93% stake to Tencent for a reported $400m. Four years later, it sold the remaining equity and become a wholly owned subsidiary of Tencent.

[...] According to the [game designer], Riot managers had provided a PowerPoint presentation that she assumed Tencent had made for them, although she didn't know for sure. The slides explained some of the hurdles they would need to overcome. First, Chinese regulators are notoriously squeamish about gambling, strong violence and nudity – not only in games, but in TV and film, too. This is partly because the country does not have an age-rating system. Daniel Camilo, a Shenzhen-based specialist in publishing games in China, has said the government's mindset is that "if something isn't fit for one person, it isn't fit for anyone".

The Chinese body responsible for censorship, the National Press and Publication Administration, has some very clear rules – no copyright infringement, for instance, and no sharing state secrets – but most of its guidelines are less precise. Works that "endanger social morality or national cultural traditions" are banned; as is media that "promote cults and feudal superstitions". This vagueness gives the censors almost unlimited power and flexibility when it comes to deciding what is and isn't allowed. Many of the rules come down to the "moral paternalism" of Beijing's leadership, says Lokman Tsui, an expert on Chinese censorship. "They really see themselves as moral authorities – not just the authority on the truth, but also the authority on morality."

In 2011, the designer at Riot learned of an unwritten rule that no video game can show characters emerging from the ground, as if rising from the dead. There were other rules of thumb, too. "There can't be exposed bones or ribs hanging out," she told me. If a game features skeletons, developers reworking it for China will simply add on flesh. Nor can games feature realistic-looking blood. "There was a vampire character, and instead of red, [the blood] had to be black," she said.

[...] Other recommendations were almost comical. "They said things like, 'they [Chinese gamers] don't really love grotesque monsters, goblins and ogres," the designer recalled. "They like the pretty, young, more anime style.'" She remembers a long discussion about "butts" and the subtle differences between drawing them for east and west. Another time, they talked about mermaids. "A mermaid is great because she has a female torso and fish bottom," she was told. "Here's what's not great: a fish head and sexy legs."

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