Chinese Steam Explained

[Thaldor]

This really isn't anything unexpected, after all every global company will face up with the question of either locking themselves out of 15-20% of global economy or getting on with it. That market is actually kind of big key to stay big today, like if Valve wouldn't have done this but done what some consumers would like them to do, some other company would really happily take that market spot from Valve and wouldn't give two cents about what US and EU consumers think about them (as these big companies usually would give two cents about the consumers, not including when brown stuff hits fan for reason or other and some PR is needed to be done, generally they couldn't give a flying duck what consumer thinks about them as long as they consume).

 

Completely same thing as with EU making privacy strongholds and and really pressuring corporations about privacy issues and consumer rights, as US doing what US generally does, gives freedoms to corporations to do as they wish as long as some things happen in the background (*cough cough* NSA *cough cough*) and Australia doing what Australia does. Just different market areas, different reasons and different cases.

No sane company is going to leave EU or Australia or China because they start to demand something the company doesn't want to do or it means they can't make as much profits. Just because we talk about huge sums of money and huge pieces of pie called marketshare. If China was same level country as Russia or India (I don't have any ill will, it's just as I see things) where there is possibility for huge amounts of customers but they don't have much money that they are willing to spent on stupid things, probably no one would give two cents about it, just like no one gives two cents about North-Korea and their censorship. But China has managed to economically grow and people are just mad whales, like really, you think some P2W mobile game that shines in stores with a lot of downloads and seems to have crazy amounts of money to do marketing is getting those amounts from just US, EU, Russia and rest of the world population (excluding China)? Nah, no way, generally we are smart spenders, our camels back breaks quite soon when you take China into account, like seriously sinking €£$1000/month to a single game sounds crazy to us, with Chinese whales (that are numerous) you can put one extra zero to that number... At least one, it's just insane playerbase and how much they are willing to spent. If their other consuming behavior is same kind of insanity, yeah... We bitch about games costing £$€60 and scream "madness" if someone tries to take $£€70 for their game and in China you probably could do same level of profits with £$€150 games and globally, no one would care because we don't hear Chinese bitching about things.

 

Yeah, people can get mad to you about doing it but luckily modern people are sheep enough to forget about it in week or two and move on to next thing, but you would be completely stupid not to at least try to please Ping Pong and his government in hopes to get your foot between that door.

[dogwitch]

i do overall hope the local game dev dont get hurt by this. i always support small dev of games.

[williamcll]

Meanwhile Linus hits 800K subs on bilibili

[Mling]

9 hours ago, wkdpaul said:

So better to focus on the video title here (Steam version for the Chinese market), rather than the CCP control, or even the human rights issues.

Human rights is not politics in that I doub't you will get ideological flame wars over it. Right and left-wingers have common ground here. I would be shocked if anyone was for, or downplayed, what is going on over there. And for some younger forum members it might be the first time they learn the horrible things in the country that manufactured their tech.

[Mling]

8 hours ago, Mad153 said:

The lack of community tools is interesting. I assume valve didn't want to get in the grey area of automatically removing "wrong" messages etc.

 

likely it would not be profitable for steam to do what the big social media companies do in content moderation.

[Chiyawa]

Well, just to clarify, those who choose Chinese Simplified language can be from Singapore and Malaysia, because we do use Simplified Chinese.

 

Anyway, for China gamers, most of them only cares for MMORPG or any form of online multiplayer games.

[williamcll]

To be fair most people in the mainland doesn't like steam CN either.

[WkdPaul]

6 hours ago, Mling said:

Human rights is not politics

regardless, it has nothing to do with the OP, and it DOES turn into ideological POV debates and whataboutisms.

 

15 hours ago, linuxChips2600 said:

Would mentioning a particular amount of money in relation to the censorship process (i.e. ____ cent-ers) be considered in this category?

Should be fine IMO.

[Supreme Cutie]

Linus you should stop posting videos on Bilibili or stop making video that disagree with CCP. This video make thousands Bilibili accounts get permanently banned because discuss it. (I know this video has not post on Bilibili but someone start discussion about this topic in Nvidia one. You know VPN is not so hard to use even in China. So lots of Bilibili user are already watched your video about Steam China.)

You should know that all those accounts are linked with phone numbers and personal ID. You may indirectly hurt those people or even kill them.

 

For now using VPN in China without approve is "illegal" not "crime" but it's still dangerous enough for users in China. Promote VPN to Chinese gamers may end up harmful. (Especially those impulsive young people.)

 

I know you want to help them. But as a Chinese lawyer for twenty years. I can clearly tell you it didn't help or even backfire.

I don't know how to help them. But I'm pretty sure I know how to keep them safe.

[LogicalDrm]

3 hours ago, Xi_tler said:

Linus you should stop posting videos on Bilibili or stop making video that disagree with CCP. This video make thousands Bilibili accounts get permanently banned because discuss it. (I know this video has not post on Bilibili but someone start discussion about this topic in Nvidia one. You know VPN is not so hard to use even in China. So lots of Bilibili user are already watched your video about Steam China.)

You should know that all those accounts are linked with phone numbers and personal ID. You may indirectly hurt those people or even kill them.

Linus is Canadian and has no obligation to change his content to fit some other country or culture's narrative. They may be aware as much as not to post the controversial stuff (which would probably get removed anyway and get the channel locked) to Bilibili. But thats about it. China isn't he's target audience anyway, so losing it won't have big effect. So in that sense he's in quite different situation to Activision/Blizzard and Valve who would lose big market share by not complying with local ways.

 

Overall, he is free to make any kind of content thats within Canadian (and in extent US) laws. The viewers make their own decisions on watching and commenting his videos. If he isn't there, someone else will be.

[Supreme Cutie]

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

They may be aware as much as not to post the controversial stuff (which would probably get removed anyway and get the channel locked) to Bilibili.

Yes. But some Chinese fans will watch the video on Youtube or even bring this video on Bilibili or other local platform and start discuss it. This will certainly draw the attention of the people even authorities to this case.

1 hour ago, LogicalDrm said:

Overall, he is free to make any kind of content thats within Canadian (and in extent US) laws. The viewers make their own decisions on watching and commenting his videos. If he isn't there, someone else will be.

Sure. You are right about that. But if this does really attract the attention of some unspeakable man. Next time Linus and his crew member visit China should be extra careful. I think you know what I mean.

 

I just don't like anything bad happen to Linus and his crew and all his fans because that.

Great work on those videos, keep on.

[LogicalDrm]

1 minute ago, Xi_tler said:

Yes. But some Chinese fans will watch the video on Youtube or even bring this video on Bilibili or other local platform and start discuss it. This will certainly draw the attention of the people even authorities to this case.

Sure. You are right about that. But if this does really attract the attention of some unspeakable man. Next time Linus and his crew member visit China should be extra careful. I think you know what I mean.

 

I just don't like anything bad happen to Linus and his crew and all his fans because that.

Great work on those videos, keep on.

Not going to go political, but I doubt Chinese government sees LMG as such big bad influence they are willing to make international conflict over it. Besides that, Linus hasn't been in China as public figure in years. As individual yes since he has relatives from Yvonne's side there. But for example visiting Computex wouldn't be issue.

 

And you pointing out that fans watching it and get influenced... I already answered to that. If Linus doesn't do it, someone else will. And I would recommend you look back in world history on how things have evolved to where they are now.

[williamcll]

13 hours ago, Xi_tler said:

Linus you should stop posting videos on Bilibili or stop making video that disagree with CCP. This video make thousands Bilibili accounts get permanently banned because discuss it. (I know this video has not post on Bilibili but someone start discussion about this topic in Nvidia one. You know VPN is not so hard to use even in China. So lots of Bilibili user are already watched your video about Steam China.)

You should know that all those accounts are linked with phone numbers and personal ID. You may indirectly hurt those people or even kill them.

 

For now using VPN in China without approve is "illegal" not "crime" but it's still dangerous enough for users in China. Promote VPN to Chinese gamers may end up harmful. (Especially those impulsive young people.)

 

I know you want to help them. But as a Chinese lawyer for twenty years. I can clearly tell you it didn't help or even backfire.

I don't know how to help them. But I'm pretty sure I know how to keep them safe.

Have you actually read the comments on the video? Most of the users agree that SteamCN is a pile of trash.

Besides, it's not like Linus being the only critic

Hell, with a PFP like that are you even a real lawyer?

[Supreme Cutie]

7 hours ago, williamcll said:

Have you actually read the comments on the video?

Which one? Nvidia one which disappeared nearly 3000 comments in one day? I read almost all of the comments. Or this 10 videos you just post? No, I didn't read any of them.

7 hours ago, williamcll said:

Besides, it's not like Linus being the only critic

I won't question whether you watched the video (Chinese Steam Explained) or not. But I'm pretty sure Linus is the only one who focus the topic on the Chinese government and use FHK content twice in one video as I know.

7 hours ago, williamcll said:

Hell, with a PFP like that

I am not a machine without feeling. Although in real life I do look like a machine without feeling and act exactly like little pink. But I hope you will eventually understand that I have no choice. For inappropriate PFP I'm sorry for any inconvenience and changed already.

7 hours ago, williamcll said:

are you even a real lawyer?

It's a good thing to be suspicious. You will never know who or what sit on the other side. Keep on.

But I'm not here to prove myself. And due to obvious reasons I won't put any more information about my identity. Hope you can understand that too.

 

Have a nice day.

[Grant Chen]

On 2/26/2021 at 12:25 PM, Highest said:

Linus you should stop posting videos on Bilibili or stop making video that disagree with CCP. This video make thousands Bilibili accounts get permanently banned because discuss it. (I know this video has not post on Bilibili but someone start discussion about this topic in Nvidia one. You know VPN is not so hard to use even in China. So lots of Bilibili user are already watched your video about Steam China.)

You should know that all those accounts are linked with phone numbers and personal ID. You may indirectly hurt those people or even kill them.

 

For now using VPN in China without approve is "illegal" not "crime" but it's still dangerous enough for users in China. Promote VPN to Chinese gamers may end up harmful. (Especially those impulsive young people.)

 

I know you want to help them. But as a Chinese lawyer for twenty years. I can clearly tell you it didn't help or even backfire.

I don't know how to help them. But I'm pretty sure I know how to keep them safe.

So, part of the video isn’t right at all. If a person who’ve spoken something “wrong”on Chinese Internet would be easily arrested, then how dare them to do so?Actually the discussion about the video has caught tens of thousands of views. VPNs can be an open topic on Wechat. 

[Grant Chen]

20 hours ago, williamcll said:

Have you actually read the comments on the video? Most of the users agree that SteamCN is a pile of trash.

Besides, it's not like Linus being the only critic

Hell, with a PFP like that are you even a real lawyer?

As a Chinese gamer,I can tell that it’s not that crappie(Some games are cheaper without any difference in content), and folks still use the original Steam. 

[Supreme Cutie]

30 minutes ago, Grant Chen said:

If a person who’ve spoken something “wrong”on Chinese Internet would be easily arrested, then how dare them to do so?

There are different levels about "wrong" (Like FHK / FTB or something about X) and some randomness plus there is no standard about "wrong" speech. So, better safe than sorry.

36 minutes ago, Grant Chen said:

VPNs can be an open topic on Wechat. 

Casually private chat? Sure. Group chat with some sensitive content provide by VPN or just advertising or promote VPN? Please don't. If someone report it will definitely cause problem. (Like banned or worse)

 

This is all I can say without off topic too much.