Death depiction in World of Warcraft vs. Chinese government

[Owledge]

EDIT: changed title and subforum to reflect the new insight.

 

I was wondering: There is (media/)?entertainment censoring in China, forbidding any kind of depiction or mentioning of death, for example in computer games, where eg. you won't see skeletons.

Is this rooted in fearful superstition? And how does this fit with Taoism? Isn't it as a major religion more or less influencing the whole culture? Apparently Taoism doesn't have such a troubled relationship to the topic of death.

 

So what's it all about? Knowledge/insight instead of speculation preferred.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Owledge

[Walker]

Eh? The media here is nearly as full as violence as anywhere else I have been. When Khaddafi got killed last year they had video whole fiasco playing almost ceaselessly on the TVs in the subways in Shanghai for days, all day long. Suffice to say I saw plenty of tiny children staring transfixedly at the bloody scene during that period. Ditto for the recent pictures of US soldiers posing with Afghan fighters' body parts... Right there on the subway TV for all to see. People die all the time in the movies and TV shows here.

[Owledge]

Then it must be - for some weird reason - limited to computer games. Or is it maybe an age thing? Protecting children? Nothing to do with religion or superstition maybe? Because one big western online game (World of Warcraft) had to redesign everything that depicted or mentioned death when they entered the Chinese market.

That means no skulls, no sleketons, bones, no "death" in names and so on. Very weird. Even skills with names like "Death Strike" would be renamed to "Spirit World Strike", and Death Knights became Fade Knights. The playable Undead race got all their bare bones covered with flesh. This also extended to all kinds of enemies. As I said ... basically all depiction or mentioning.

 

Hm, maybe it's a silly government thing like no (red) blood in German computer games or the bleeping in public US TV.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Owledge

[Cameron]

Not accurate.

 

They have everything here that they have in the West. I bought a PS3 here and play lots of God of War

[Owledge]

Hm, OK, God of War seems to have a relatively high age threshold. WoW starts with 12. So I guess it's that.

 

Here's one example. They made this:

http://www.wowhead.com/npc=36612#screenshots:id=150774

into this:

http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz57/christoki/7eb3fd320668be12b7c8988495f20708.jpg

 

 

edit: I guess this topic can be deleted or moved into off topic as a joke, because by now there is info in the wikipedia about the reasons. I forgot to check again. The reason is hilarious:

 

"The Chinese government and NetEase, the licensee for World of Warcraft in China, have imposed a modification on Chinese versions of the game which places flesh on bare-boned skeletons and transforms dead character corpses into tidy graves. These changes were imposed by the Chinese government in an attempt to "promote a healthy and harmonious online game environment" in World of Warcraft."

 

OK, so you have a game centered around killing and war, and they want a healthy game environment.

Not to mention the irony of the disharmony this causes between players and government.

By the way, the WoW player community is far from being healthy or harmonious anyway, which only adds to the joke. The game, due to the makers' design decisions, becomes more and more a breeding ground for antisocial behavior.

Edited April 20, 2012 by Owledge

[Trunk]

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Moved into Off Topic.

 

~~~ Mod Squad out ~~~