A hit new Chinese game has sparked controversy after gaming influencers who were given early access were told not to mention news and politics, Covid-19, or “feminist propaganda” while publicly discussing the game.
Black Myth: Wukong, which was released last week, is China’s first “triple A” rated game, an industry term meaning a high budget blockbuster game, and is based on the famous 16th-century Chinese novel Journey to the West.
Within three days it had sold more than 10m copies worldwide according to the game’s developers, Game Science.
But amid its success there has been debate over a list of topics to avoid that was sent to influencers and content creators along with access to a pre-release version of the game. The document, which was quickly shared on social media, listed issues to avoid while live-streaming the game.
Do NOT insult other influencers or players.
Do NOT use any offensive language/humor.
Do NOT include politics, violence, nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishization, and other content that instigates negative discourse.
Do NOT use trigger words such as ‘quarantine’ or ‘isolation’ or ‘Covid-19’.
Do NOT discuss content related to China’s game industry policies, opinions, news, etc.
It wasn’t clear what the instructions meant by “feminist propaganda”, but reporting on the directive noted Game Science employees had faced allegations of sexist and inappropriate behaviour, most notably in reports from game website IGN in November.
Game Science and Hero Games, a co-publisher which reportedly issued the directives, have been contacted for comment.
Among fans online there was heated discussion about the directive to gaming influencers, with many players linking it to the IGN reports.
On popular gaming YouTube channels, some also celebrated the directive as a pushback on what they saw as “wokeness” in gaming, noting some reviews which had criticised the game for a lack of diversity.
Rolling Stone reported that the directives – which were not sent to traditional publications and reviewers – were not accompanied by non-disclosure agreements and were not legally enforceable. In a highly viewed livestream, one user appeared to poke fun at the directives, titling his broadcast “Covid-19 Isolation Taiwan (Is A Real Country) Feminism Propaganda”, while commenters filled the chatbox with politically sensitive terms including references to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
It wasn’t immediately clear to what extent the list was issued to appease China’s strict censorship rules. People can face harsh punishment for publicly speaking about sensitive topics or criticising the ruling Communist party. Some streamers told gaming outlet Aftermath that such directives from companies were not unusual, including requests to not mention Covid.
“The normal language of ‘No politics, please don’t talk about current events (covid), etc’ have always been part of contracts,” Twitch streamer Ben Cassel told Aftermath. However he added: “I do many sponsored streams, and I’ve never seen anything about ‘feminist’ anything in any of them. That is new. And definitely very strange.”
The game has been a global hit, peaking at more than 3 million concurrent players across all platforms, including 2 million concurrent players on PC gaming platform Steam, in its first week – the second highest rate ever. On its first day it was the most viewed game on Chinese platforms, and in Singapore some workers were given time off to play it, according to the Straits Times.
Chinese authorities and media have praised the game’s success, with headlines saying it “builds pride, subdues prejudice” and “sparks interest in Chinese culture”.
In recent days Chinese state media has also hit back at reports on the controversy, accusing western media of using the game to attack China.
“Their strategy of attacking the game is just the same old Western tactic – politicising every Chinese achievement, even in the realm of gaming,” wrote nationalistic tabloid the Global Times.
The article said Black Myth’s success had triggered the “radar of some anti-China forces” and accused the BBC – which reported on the directives – of “wrongly accus[ing] China of censorship to dampen international perceptions of China”, but did not detail or refute the accusations.