[SurrealSoul]

So a game company removes one of their own games, and replaces it with a different version with a different name?

If the company decided to do that independently, does that matter? Maybe they could be capitalizing on nationalism?

If the government made them alter it, how would that be different than say Left 4 Dead having different censorship in Germany

[AndrewKemendo]

This is the difference:

"In its place, Game for Peace is very much the type of game that will pass the demands of China’s game censorship body."

The idea being that consumers aren't the primary drivers for changes in what is available in the market. Rather this decision was primarily influenced by a central government body that controls what is available in the market. It's an explicit example of levers being pulled by the government in a planned economy, in contrast to a more "democratic" if you will, market mechanism.

[jstanley]

FWIW, Left 4 Dead has different censorship in Germany because of levers being pulled by the government, not because the free market prefers it that way.

[cameronbrown]

L4D being censored in Germany was also bad, just to a much lesser degree.

[Insanity]

I think games do, or used to, remove swastikas for Germany as well.

L4D was also censored in Australia I think.

[ucosty]

Left 4 Dead 2 was censored in Australia, until the classification board started allowing R-ratings for games. It was re-released (if I remember correctly) without the censorship.

[sgift]

You are correct, swastikas (and other symbols of the national socialists) had to be replaced/removed in Germany in the past. Nowadays games have been recognized as art form and a game developer can request admission to the German market without removing the symbols first. I'm not sure if there's already a game which did this on the market.

[__m]

First game that was allowed to do so was “Through the Darkest of Times”[1] by Paintbucket Games. I’m not sure Wolfenstein or l4d would get a clearance though.

[1] http://throughthedarkestoftimes.com/

[Insanity]

L4D has no swastikas, so no problem there :) Wolfenstein yeah.. that's a different story xD

[sgift]

Would be an interesting case. After all, 'Inglourious Basterds' was allowed to show them and it seems hard to argue how that movie is different from a Wolfenstein game.

[rincebrain]

Recent Wolfenstein games are all about a timeline in which the Nazis won WW2 using advanced technology looted from an ancient superadvanced civilization.

So I could see "an entire world where the Nazis won WW2, and the resulting propaganda everywhere" getting a hard look.

[Fnoord]

Yes, games still do (all Wolfenstein versions were either illegal or censored). Not merely the Swastika used in Nazi Germany; also other symbols from Nazi Germany. See this video comparison for examples [1]. Summary: at least Swastika, SS bolts/runes, and Iron Cross (even though that one was used in Germany way before Nazi Germany). In this video they're using mostly the Wolfenstein logo as replacement but there might be some easter eggs as well.

IIRC in the past blood was also made green but perhaps I'm confusing with other countries.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/embed/1hK4Px4O8aE

[swampthinker]

Because the altercations included pro-Chinese language.

[thatoneuser]

I mean so? There are plenty of video games that are pro America. It's still OK to be pro China even in the face of their abhorrent social policies. Would you rather we just cut off all recognition that China exists or something? Don't think that's gonna help.

[swampthinker]

There hasn't been a game that was banned in the US until it had altercations made to be Pro-US. That's the difference.

PUBG is a simple battle royale game with no concept of nations in-game, and the Chinese government banned it until there was pro-Chinese content in game. Wh

[shrimp_emoji]

alterations*

"altercation" means "fight".

[swampthinker]

Ah, sorry I missed that. Typing on mobile.

[gshulegaard]

What's a little ironic given the tone of the article is this could be considered a region lock and many gamers call for region locking China due to rampant cheating.

[make3]

That seems like a very obvious false equivalence.