There goes the idea of in-game marriages

Here is a head shaker for you.

https://www.mmorpg.com/news/proposed-chinese-game-rules-would-strictly-define-what-can-be-shown-to-players-1000052993

How many current games on the market will have to drop in-game marriages so the game can pass China's new laws if passed?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Wololo

intresting

but this seems to depend on age right ? and also alot on the final wording of sayd laws. like 'should show no scenes showing marriage' could also mean no visual ceremony but a quest for binding partnership could still work. i dont get what the chinese government is trying to get out of this tho.. maybe trying to prevent young men from becoming basement dwelling weebs that see real love in pixels?

Dygz

Seems like MMORPGs in general will be on the chopping block in China if the motivation is to crack down on gaming addiction. I don't think IS is planning a significant amount of romance or marriages in Ashes - that's going to be more of a player thing. And it will be emergent regardless of how little IS supports it because it's part of how humans socialize with each other. When masses of humans socialize with each other, some of those interactions will result in romances and marriage.
There just won't be official wedding dresses.

unknownsystemerror

Simple enough. Don't open in China. Mail.ru will have to sort out their issues with same-sex marriages and Ashes. But the Chinese laws are going to have no impact on Intrepid unless they put servers there. Just like the My.com refugees will have the option to play on NA servers if they want, Chinese will need to vpn to get around the Great Firewall anyways. They were banning players over on Atlas for talking about Tiananmen Square around the anniversary. But Grapeshot is owned by Ark, which is owned by Snail Games. Must show proper fealty to your Chinese owners. Unless Steven sells control to Tencent, not going to be an issue.

Shoklen

I'm not too worried about it...

Aren't undead still restricted in any mmo that has their game in China?

T Elf

Seems as though China wants to kill marriage and romance to reduce the population, and working against game addiction so they will have worker bees. <big stretch I know with a touch of sarcasm>

Jahlon

You already have to cut out same sex marriages if you want to publish in Russian/CIS. Look at Revelation Online for example. It was slightly tweaked from "spouse" to "eternal friend" (best friend)

Karthos

jahlon wrote: »

You already have to cut out same sex marriages if you want to publish in Russian/CIS. Look at Revelation Online for example. It was slightly tweaked from "spouse" to "eternal friend" (best friend)

Will you be my eternal friend?

Doesn't have the same ring to it.

Dygz

Honey, if you put a ring on it it does!

Karthos

https://youtu.be/4m1EFMoRFvY

Morashtak

This goes to the heart of "Make a game with a big enough player base (i.e. income) to keep the servers running".

Should IS believe that Ashes can be profitable without mainland China (yeah, I said it) then it's up to them to make the game they believe in and want to play.

odd

I don't think they were even going to have the game published in China. This game is centered around what Western players want anyways. For other games, they might follow these rules, but these are still suggestions under review and so they might not be put into law. If they were actually trying to combat addiction, they'd target the gambling and p2w mechanics.

Noaani

The proposed rules place a LOT of restrictions on storytelling, something I think few western MMO developers would be ok with.

I don't see this having much of an effect on the way this game is developed, or the content that is added in.

If Intrepid see value in launching in China, then the need to comply with that list can simply be added to the need to comply with other existing laws in changes they would need to make to the games client for China.

aevari

As long as it doesn't have any impact for the OCE servers (which I don't think it will) I'll be happy.

unknownsystemerror

aevari wrote: »

As long as it doesn't have any impact for the OCE servers (which I don't think it will) I'll be happy.

Depends on if they base them in Oz. At first they were listed as OCE/SEA as the region, but I guess someone figured out that Oceanic and South East Asia would be two different server clusters and now all we see are posts and confirmation of OCE. Wouldn't affect either region though. The hoops that Intrepid would have to go to have their game greenlit in China would bankrupt them, no matter how many gajillions Steven has. With no IP blocking planned there are going to be hordes of Chinese anywhere you go. People worried about western mega guild ruining play for people haven't seen nuttin yet. Wait till the Chinese decide they want in. There is a great video of Atlas out there and a Chinese crew just throwing wave after wave of naked pirates at a ship of the damned, like 150 of them with hatchets, and they kill it.

Jahlon

karthos wrote: »

jahlon wrote: »

You already have to cut out same sex marriages if you want to publish in Russian/CIS. Look at Revelation Online for example. It was slightly tweaked from "spouse" to "eternal friend" (best friend)

Will you be my eternal friend?

Doesn't have the same ring to it.

True.

But that is an issue with those countries laws; not with the game developers.

Child Item