tyty for the answers, @gundato, @plan6, @efesell. Guess I'm still feeling like a) This is a business decision, and b) The capital came from a political organization that has aims outside of games. Bearing in mind the goal is removing words from use in order to affect change while no-one knows, and the words are removed from not only the players in the constituency that paid in to the developers but players everywhere?

Maybe there's some truth to the devs limiting their exposure to liability in case there's a "Someone 'accidentally' turned inter-manufacturer crossplay on!" and suddenly players in China were exposed to words they weren't supposed to be. Apparently the list of words is more than "Local Dissidents 1", "Local Dissidents 2" or "Lifetime Leader of Nearby Geopolitical Ally", but also "Enemies" and "Words"(Reception, para 4). "Seriously whack" is all I got right now.

I'm curious as to what the Chinese Market's response would be if they were told they were getting region settings for North America and there was no way to opt out. Other than "That would never happen".

@petesix0: Not really sure what you mean there

If they were told "You are getting the NA version. No female nipples but a lot more blue colored force ghosts and skulls" there is a good chance that studio would lose their license for the purpose of having a chinese version and, if China-based, would likely get a knock on the door.

From a developer standpoint it is no different than making a version of CoD or Wolfenstein (before nu-Wolfenstein was declared art and exempt?) for Germany or removing some fourth grader panty shots from a dating sim for a western market. The main difference is that if you violate it you don't even get the option for an unrated release (although, I want to say that is also true in Germany? Or was? Never fully understood that) and may go to prison.

Which, again, there are definitely some Japanese games where that would apply but, to my knowledge, those never got ported in any form.

But yeah, that is why I generally try to focus my ire on the chinese government and less on the companies that know that audience is going to play regardless.

@gundato: Hypothetical NA language localizations: "Shanghai" is now "The City", all uses of the name "Chen" are now "Smith" and all mention of pro-CPC film stars by name gets you "Please Try Again" in red. These are bad examples.

My point is that maybe not every single person living outside China mentions Taiwan or Hong Kong everyday. But they might want to, or even be prevented from learning about it by others discussing it. So it seems bad to me that players of Genshin Impact outside of China are(Currently I think), subject to the language censorship that people in China are.

Which they could and I feel should do for Genshin but as I said already, maybe the risk of mixing between Chinese-only and non-Chinese servers is too great to risk being punished, but as their financial support comes with the language stipulations to disable speaking about divisive situations it still feels bad.

To boil it down further: Based on the words banned in the game, I think being deprived of those words sucks. To an outsider being deprived of those words feels like it would be isolating, although hardly surprising and that the list being applied to all players sucks and is such a flex. If I've still not convinced you, ask yourself why you don't know the name and face of the guy who stood up to the tank with his shopping bags. I'm not asking to be told his story, I'm asking to be told why his name isn't well-known, even for trivia. If I've just called you to your face and I'm wrong - you do know his name - then you're perfectly positioned to realise how odd it is that so few do.

"You keep implying that they were paid off to enable censorship" I wasn't implying that - I was under the perhaps mistaken impression the devs/pubs of Genshin had recieved state backing in the form of grants. As is in occurrence around the world. Maybe I should take the time here to apologize if I've spoken out of turn and I've crossed my own wires at some point: If the devs/pubs received no state aid then they received no state aid and it has nothing to do with this thread and I am sorry for any implications that my tattered brain pushed into my fingers.

My point I was making was that the language enforcement that is made by the CPC is iron-clad, unbreakable, to be considered dangerous to even talk about. To people in, and planning to go to, China(Apologies @crommi). This being something that is being made available and marketed to a non-Chinese audience while retaining the CPC banned list feels like something that ends with other nations writing their own lists along the lines of "You're not allowed to say this", or "You're not allowed to ban this". Which I do not want.

LMAO

Guess I'm not getting on any flights to China either. Great respect to the nation of China and the CPC but this sucks.

(Edited to say I respect the law of China. In China. Regardless of my own feelings of agree/disagree with the individual articles. This kind of national brand identity being spread in this way outside of China is bad.)

And here I thought I was making folks sigh and groan and even roll their eyes for good measure, with the most dramatic flair I have no doubt, for even suggesting duder was saying "don't let racists agree with you, or people will think you're a racist." Of course nobody actually thinks such an absurd thing, and that's not what's being said at all. I even clumsily recouched their own argument for them so it's not interpreted that way.

Ok then.

If, by chance, you find yourself questioning backing away from positions of criticisms of entire nations when you are surrounded by racists in stereo making similar arguments such as "Fuck China", congratulations, you've learned a life lesson, human, and it might even stick if you stay off social media for a few days.

* Even if it isn't obvious why now to you, it is incredibly important for the public good to not allow racists to determine the sides of an argument for you. Even if you don't care about polarization (and it's likely the surest path to more trinitite for everyone), you must understand that someone with truly evil intentions can easily use this tactic to exploit a well meaning public. A clever politician can use a public willing to engage in this behavior; self policing with threats of social ostracism and shaming for siding with the racists who shout such clumsy, ham handed, obviously racist dog whistles as "Fuck China". Meanwhile, it is best to sit aside and do and say nothing while millions of people are castrated and imprisoned and brainwashed and... oh wait, that's literally what's happening now.

So I guess what I'm saying is, FuckChina.

What is the best way to demonstrate an extended yawn? Bold? Italic? Using a lot of a's?