Chinese Game Ban is Fueling Steam Growth

AlphaAtlas

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According to a report by gamesindustry.biz, Steam gained about 23 million active monthly users in just over a year, bringing their active user count to 90 million. The research firm Niko Partners claims that at least some of that growth can be attributed to the Chinese market, which grew from 15 million to 30 million users in a year. Citing health reasons related to "children's eyes", China stopped giving out most game licenses earlier this year, and just recently closed the last official venue to make money of new games in China. Ironically, this seems to be driving Chinese gamers away from local publishers and into the arms of Steam, and China's ban on the Steam Community isn't slowing things down much.

The platform gained popularity due to DOTA 2, Niko Partners' analyst Daniel Ahmad said on Twitter, but has grown to thanks to localised games, regional pricing, local payment methods and a "wide variety of games banned/blocked in China" which are available on Steam. Valve is currently working with publisher Perfect World to create a China-only version of Steam, which would cater to the government's strict censorship laws. Tencent -- which operates the government-endorsed PC games storefront WeGame -- continues to see its value plummet, hampered by the lockdown which even resulted in the removal of Monster Hunter: World from the sale on the platform.
 
China bans games and platforms all the time.
It has pretty much zero impact on anything.
VPN's are not hard to get access to and the consoles they had banned were f'n made in China.

When consoles were banned (2000-2015), there were no less than 3 places selling them within walking distance from my house at the time. Countless people on Taobao (Chinese ebay) were selling them as well. You could also walk into any internet cafe (yeah, those are still a thing here) and play whatever you wanted.

They love making laws and banning things without enforcing anything. Until, of course, you forget to pay your bribes.
 
Show me the conclusive studies that playing video games hurts your eyes.

Just like sitting too close to the TV in the 90s didn't pan out, this has no substance.
Oh, evidence. The CPC and Chinese people do not need evidence. Theirs is not a culture where critical thinking and/or questioning authority are valued qualities.

Students in school have to do these absurd 'eye exercises/massage' twice a day every day and they do exactly nothing.
Most Chinese think cold water is akin to poison. Cold beer too.
They believe cold air can get into a baby/child through the belly button and do....something bad. I'm still not clear on what exactly.
Wind is damaging somehow and in a slight breeze children must wear hats for ...reasons.
Most of Chinese traditional medicine is bullshit practiced by con-artists with degrees.
They don't grasp germ theory and still think you can catch a cold just by being in cool/cold weather without wearing enough clothes to sweat in.
Many students are not permitted to talk while having lunch....so they don't choke. So students scarf down their food in 2.5 minutes so they can talk to friends ..... Hmmm....
 
Oh, evidence. The CPC and Chinese people do not need evidence. Theirs is not a culture where critical thinking and/or questioning authority are valued qualities.

Students in school have to do these absurd 'eye exercises/massage' twice a day every day and they do exactly nothing.
Most Chinese think cold water is akin to poison. Cold beer too.
They believe cold air can get into a baby/child through the belly button and do....something bad. I'm still not clear on what exactly.
Wind is damaging somehow and in a slight breeze children must wear hats for ...reasons.
Most of Chinese traditional medicine is bullshit practiced by con-artists with degrees.
They don't grasp germ theory and still think you can catch a cold just be being in cool/cold weather without wearing enough clothes to sweat in.
Many students are not permitted to talk while having lunch....so they don't choke. So students scarf down their food in 2.5 minutes so they can talk to friends ..... Hmmm....

I'm sure the government knows these things do nothing for the ails of which they're supposed to prevent or cure. It's all about a system of control.
 
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I'm sure the government knows these things do nothing for the ails of which they're supposed to prevent or cure. It's all about a system of control.
Yeah, you're not wrong.
The other part is the gov't is addicted to virtue-signalling. The CPC loves to paint itself as the savior and guardian of the Chinese people but it's usually at the expense of the Chinese people. Their real goal is to keep the masses docile while they continue to loot and pillage.
Many of the dirty pricks to this day have special farms where their food is grown because they know damn well most food and soil in the country is poison.
 
Yeah, you're not wrong.
The other part is the gov't is addicted to virtue-signalling. The CPC loves to paint itself as the savior and guardian of the Chinese people but it's usually at the expense of the Chinese people. Their real goal is to keep the masses docile while they continue to loot and pillage.
Many of the dirty pricks to this day have special farms where their food is grown because they know damn well most food and soil in the country is poison.

This kind of criticism is dangerous.
 
The other part is the gov't is addicted to virtue-signalling. The GOVERNMENT loves to paint itself as the savior and guardian of the people but it's usually at the expense of the people. Their real goal is to keep the masses docile while they continue to loot and pillage.

corrected to be more of a universal fit, sadly.

:sick:
 
China bans games and platforms all the time.
It has pretty much zero impact on anything.
VPN's are not hard to get access to and the consoles they had banned were f'n made in China.

When consoles were banned (2000-2015), there were no less than 3 places selling them within walking distance from my house at the time. Countless people on Taobao (Chinese ebay) were selling them as well. You could also walk into any internet cafe (yeah, those are still a thing here) and play whatever you wanted.

They love making laws and banning things without enforcing anything. Until, of course, you forget to pay your bribes.
The availability of legal copies and localised versions were very limited.
It was fine with me as I would buy 10-20 Xbox games at a time, picking titles from a binder.
 
YOU NO HAVE FUN, YOU WORK NOW!

It's going to be hilarious when there ends up being a huge Chinese revolt over the ban on porn and video games! At least the government will take care of the Chinese cheater problem in online gaming (because they will be dead).

Okay, that's enough racism (nationalism?) for me for one day...
 
Oh, evidence. The CPC and Chinese people do not need evidence. Theirs is not a culture where critical thinking and/or questioning authority are valued qualities.

Students in school have to do these absurd 'eye exercises/massage' twice a day every day and they do exactly nothing.
Most Chinese think cold water is akin to poison. Cold beer too.
They believe cold air can get into a baby/child through the belly button and do....something bad. I'm still not clear on what exactly.
Wind is damaging somehow and in a slight breeze children must wear hats for ...reasons.
Most of Chinese traditional medicine is bullshit practiced by con-artists with degrees.
They don't grasp germ theory and still think you can catch a cold just by being in cool/cold weather without wearing enough clothes to sweat in.
Many students are not permitted to talk while having lunch....so they don't choke. So students scarf down their food in 2.5 minutes so they can talk to friends ..... Hmmm....


Hilarious stuff by our standards. That breeze killing children thing must be originated from the earlier fan-death myth from Korea.

I just want to point out that there is some semi-truth/context to some of those claims:

(1) Cold water as in tap water has been and still is in most of China - unclean for immediate drinking. It was/is common practice to boil water and the older generation are all accustomed to drinking warm water. They don't like the taste and feel of cold water and have a natural distrust in it. They then perpetuate this idea to the next generation.

(2) Rubbing your eyes is something you do instinctively when your eyes are tired/sore. Rubbing your eyes in specific ways allows you to manipulate the muscles that move the eyeball around and works like massage on eyes that have been fixated to a particular position for too long. How effective this is in preventing things like myopia is totally questionable, but then I also enjoy a back massage when my muscles get sore, and I won't say no to most massages.

(3) Germ proliferation is linked with the natural immunity of your body. Whether you are warm or cold doesn't change at all the amount of contact you'd otherwise have with germs. HOWEVER, when your mucosal membranes are colder, the blood circulation is constricted and the combination of lowered blood circulation and increased mucous secretions increases the probability that germs can take hold and proliferate. Hence the name "the common cold", which although we don't fully understand in terms of its seasonality, what I've mentioned are some of the suspect factors as per western science at the moment. Given that much of China is dusty and unhygienic and there isn't much focus on wellness, I can see that every little bit counts.

(4) Talking while eating is considered rude in some asian cultures. I know that a lot of Japanese people also practice silent eating.

Critical thinking and questioning the authority is not a survivable trait in China, that's not going to change...
 
Oh, evidence. The CPC and Chinese people do not need evidence. Theirs is not a culture where critical thinking and/or questioning authority are valued qualities.

Students in school have to do these absurd 'eye exercises/massage' twice a day every day and they do exactly nothing.
Most Chinese think cold water is akin to poison. Cold beer too.
They believe cold air can get into a baby/child through the belly button and do....something bad. I'm still not clear on what exactly.
Wind is damaging somehow and in a slight breeze children must wear hats for ...reasons.
Most of Chinese traditional medicine is bullshit practiced by con-artists with degrees.
They don't grasp germ theory and still think you can catch a cold just by being in cool/cold weather without wearing enough clothes to sweat in.
Many students are not permitted to talk while having lunch....so they don't choke. So students scarf down their food in 2.5 minutes so they can talk to friends ..... Hmmm....

Western countries have loads of superstitious ideas with ladders, mirrors, black cats and cracks.
We also have this crazy thing called alternative medicine, and people that blow their fortunes and communing with the dead.
Look at the homoeopathy craze and 'dilution theory'.
For more crazy ideas ... vaccination is bad because of autism - Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccines

Chinese traditional medicine was amazing in its time and was very flexible in adopting ideas from other cultures.
In recent years the communist party has made 'Chinese medicine a thing' that is fixed and doesn't change.
I've met a few amazing Chinese traditional doctors but most are quacks that give conflicting advice.
The real issue of traditional Chinese medicine is the 'no why, just because", selling treatments without any understanding of the theory behind them.

Back to the topic, China and Asia have a massive problem with gaming addiction with people dying from sleep deprivation and one couple selling their babies to live in internet cafes.
 
I also don't recall warm beer being popular or pushed by anybody when I was China. I drank cold beer like everyone else although I will say the beer had a fairly watered down taste.
 
I am only on Steam cuz i am forced to, i really wish i wasent but i cant change that alone.
Same with movies ( if i was a owner of a DVD player,,,,which i am not ) but i would still prefer buying disks Vs some steaming service.
 
I also don't recall warm beer being popular or pushed by anybody when I was China. I drank cold beer like everyone else although I will say the beer had a fairly watered down taste.
Cold and room temp are both available, unless it is winter ... then you get cold or colder.
I bought some beers from a women when I was walking around Suzhou. I asked her for could out of habit and she got angry because she thought i was making a joke.
"cold beer, you want cold beer. Of course it cold, everything is cold." dirty look.

That said, I understand why some Chinese drink warm beer as it is easier on your stomach when drinking large amounts in a sitting.
It doesn't taste as good but it goes down easier. In the last few years, microbreweries have caught on, even outside of big cities.
 
I also don't recall warm beer being popular or pushed by anybody when I was China. I drank cold beer like everyone else although I will say the beer had a fairly watered down taste.
Cold beer is typically only found easily in cities with a fair number of foreigners. In the city I live in, which does have a fair number of tourists, I'd say cold beer is available in about half of the establishments I've visited. Outside of major cities...it's like finding money on the sidewalk.
 
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Western countries have loads of superstitious ideas with ladders, mirrors, black cats and cracks.
We also have this crazy thing called alternative medicine, and people that blow their fortunes and communing with the dead.
Look at the homoeopathy craze and 'dilution theory'.
For more crazy ideas ... vaccination is bad because of autism - Lancet retracts 12-year-old article linking autism to MMR vaccines

Chinese traditional medicine was amazing in its time and was very flexible in adopting ideas from other cultures.
In recent years the communist party has made 'Chinese medicine a thing' that is fixed and doesn't change.
I've met a few amazing Chinese traditional doctors but most are quacks that give conflicting advice.
The real issue of traditional Chinese medicine is the 'no why, just because", selling treatments without any understanding of the theory behind them.

Back to the topic, China and Asia have a massive problem with gaming addiction with people dying from sleep deprivation and one couple selling their babies to live in internet cafes.
There is no such thing as alternative medicine. It's either medicine...or not. Homeopathy is not medicine.
Yes, there are some real TCM docs....they are few and far between.
 
Cold beer is typically only found easily in cities with a fair number of foreigners. In the city I live in, which does have a fair number of tourists, I'd say cold beer is available in about half of the establishments I've visited. Outside of major cities...it's like finding money on the sidewalk.
I've travelled extensively in China and the only time I can't get cold beer is when they run out or they've just turned the fridges on. I've never seen a restaurant, even a small noodle shop that didn't have a fridge or freezer for beer.
Smaller cities are even carrying imported beers now though I'm not sure how much of it is real. I'm not paying 5x the price for imported. In 2008 I moved to a small university town in Hebei and the Xinjiang BBQ's even had cold beer on tap.
 
I've travelled extensively in China and the only time I can't get cold beer is when they run out or they've just turned the fridges on. I've never seen a restaurant, even a small noodle shop that didn't have a fridge or freezer for beer.
Smaller cities are even carrying imported beers now though I'm not sure how much of it is real. I'm not paying 5x the price for imported. In 2008 I moved to a small university town in Hebei and the Xinjiang BBQ's even had cold beer on tap.
Ok guy.
I guess all the places I've been without cold beer have been imagined.
 
Ok guy.
I guess all the places I've been without cold beer have been imagined.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying it isn't common in most of China.
Most of the younger generation drink cold beer. It can be annoying when I visit family that they don't keep cold beer but it just takes a call to the shop downstairs to get it delivered.
 
I have been sitting in front of a computer or TV screen for at least 5 hours a day in the dark, if not more, for the last 30 years of my life. I wear glasses already, but so do both of my parents. I had an eye exam last year, the first time in about 13 years (yeah I wore the same pair of glasses for 13 years) The optometrist gave me the whole thing about getting your eyes examined every year, but then said my eyes haven't changed and I am eligible for corrective surgery. Who knows, maybe wearing glasses actually protects you from the "harmful" LCD screens...

I know its kind of an n1 perspective... but if playing video games or staring at a screen did any real long term damage, well I would think the entirety of the US of A would be blind by now. I think genetics play more of a factor with degrading eyesight than anything else, as long as you aren't doing something stupid like staring into the sun or welding without a mask, which might actually be common in China... who knows.
 
lol wut

Oh, evidence. The CPC and Chinese people do not need evidence. Theirs is not a culture where critical thinking and/or questioning authority are valued qualities.

Students in school have to do these absurd 'eye exercises/massage' twice a day every day and they do exactly nothing.
Most Chinese think cold water is akin to poison. Cold beer too.
They believe cold air can get into a baby/child through the belly button and do....something bad. I'm still not clear on what exactly.
Wind is damaging somehow and in a slight breeze children must wear hats for ...reasons.
Most of Chinese traditional medicine is bullshit practiced by con-artists with degrees.
They don't grasp germ theory and still think you can catch a cold just by being in cool/cold weather without wearing enough clothes to sweat in.
Many students are not permitted to talk while having lunch....so they don't choke. So students scarf down their food in 2.5 minutes so they can talk to friends ..... Hmmm....
 
Critical thinking and questioning the authority is not a survivable trait in China, that's not going to change...

Yeah that's pretty much been the mantra for China for at least the last 3000 years of their history. The Communism takeover of China wasn't radically different than what was already going on before it, which is why it happened in the first place. They just replaced "Emperor" with "Supreme Leader" or "Chairman". Same with Russia. Both countries have existed for so long under oppressive governing bodies that its pretty much the norm. Its why the vast majority of Murican's with a 200 year of "free" history can't understand why things happen they way they do in China. Its a matter of ideologies among the people, and that takes a couple of generations to change.

Here is an ideology shift for you that is currently happening right here in good Ol' Murica... "Gonna" doesn't activate spellcheck... at least on this site. Yet I don't recall that being an acceptable form of contraction when I was in grade school about 20 years ago. You can blame Blake Shelton for that one.

'Murica ftw.
 
Most Asian countries have far less road space per car than the US, so it may be easy for a normal US driver to let a car pass before changing lanes, in Asia, you can expect that if you let that car pass, another will follow very closely (we tend to drive closer to the car in front than the US do when stopping their car, it's not uncommon for me to fail to see the headlights of the car behind be because its so close that its headlights fell below my rear windshield), so the rule generally is, if there is space, take it, if there isn't, make it.

Makes for an extremely annoying driving experience...
 
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