chinese steam explained

[25/02, 8:49 am] Wwww: - چین کی کمیونسٹ پارٹی اور اس کی پالیسیوں ، یا اس کے لئے اس کی قیادت کے لئے دور دراز سے تنقید کا شکار ہونے والی کسی بھی چیز کو سنسر کرنے کا عمل کوئی نئی بات نہیں ہے ، لہذا بھاپ

[25/02, 8:49 am] Wwww: - चीनी कम्युनिस्टपार्टी और उसकी नीतियों या दूरस्थ रूप से थैमैटर के लिए इसके नेतृत्व के बारे में दूर-दूर तक आलोचना की जा सकने वाली किसी भी चीज़ को रोकने का चीन का अभ्यास कोई नई बात नहीं है, इसलिए स्टीम

[25/02, 8:50 am] Wwww: - China's practice of censoring anything that could beperceived even remotely critical of the Chinese CommunistParty and its policies, or its leadership for thatmatter, is nothing new, so while Steam has been accessible to gamers in China for years, it's existed in a legal gray area and with significant partsof the platform blocked. Well, no more! Valve has finally taken a stand against Chinese censorship of its products by partnering with a Chinese company to make a PresidentXi-approved version of Steam. So thank you, Gaben, and godspeed. You're doing the lord's work now. Today's video is brought toyou by Private Internet Access. Oh, that makes sense. Stay safe and protectedon the internet with PIA. Their VPN service encryptsall your internet traffic and uses a safe, protected IP. Click the link below to learn more. (upbeat music) Before I begin, I hope it's clear I wasbeing sarcastic there. Not about our sponsor, but about my right to speak freely about mygovernment without fear. Allow me to demonstrate. Trudeau? Your falling-down-the-stairs party trick and your skill as a makeup artist are the best things about you. And O'Toole? You don't even have that going for you. Now, I don't even necessarilybelieve those things, but what's cool is I can say them without getting disappeared. So in summary, any support I might appear toshow for government censorship is ironic, satirical, orsome combination of the two. Back to the topic at hand then. Beginning February 2021, gamers in China will have the option of using an official Chinesebeta version of Steam, which raises an interesting question: why would the wanna do that? I mean, clearly very little if any effort is being put into blockingthe existing version of Steam, and given that almost 18% of Steam users selected SimplifiedChinese for their language according to Valve's own data, it's safe to say that a huge portion of their player base is in China. Does the Chinese version, then, offer some kind of compellingadvantage for Chinese users? Let's find out. Got a separate signup process. Does this seem like a lotof personal information for them to collect? Why does Valve need my phone number just to create an account? I mean, I can see for payment information, but I'm not entering acredit card right now. Personal identification number. I gotta have ID to create a Steam account? Yeah, maybe that's normal in China. Actually, we did go through this when we created our Bilibili account. Speaking of which, we'vegot a special build collab with another Bilibili influencer coming, so make sure you're subscribedboth here and on Bilibili. This seems to be my library. I think this is the library. I think that's what those books mean. Okay, so there's DLC for something. Is it the Year of theCow right now? Must be. - [David] Yep.- Okay, yeah. There's a bunch of Year of the Cow stuff. Got that red pocket. Basically, yep, that's Steam all right. But the community features, forum, guides, and Steam Workshop, so basically anywhere that user-generated contentcould be shared, are gone. So it's Steam, just, relatively speaking, devoid of content. Did they really change theSteam logo to red for this? Whenever you see somethinglike that you gotta go, "Who's idea was this?" you know? Which leads us to the samequestion we started with: why does this exist? Well, for a variety of reasons, depending on the party involved. For Valve the answer ispretty straightforward. The allure of the almighty yuan has clearly become toomuch for them to ignore. I mean, Gaben's gotta pay for a sick new crib inNew Zealand somehow. And as for the Chinese government, well, for that we need some context. Most gamers probablyhaven't thought about it, but like music, TV, and film, the Chinese government isn't too happy when Chinese citizens have access to unregulated or unapproved media, and that includes games. So if a game has beenofficially released in China, there are often differences compared to its Western counterpart. Let's look at "World ofWarcraft," for example. The Chinese client has had plenty of model and texture changes to appease the National Press and Publication Administration, most of them centered around removing any sort of gore, blood, or bones. Now, while these things aren'tspecifically banned in China, there are a number of vague regulations that you have to followin order to get your game officially published in China. You can't promote cults or superstition, there's no endangering social morality or national cultural traditions, and there's no opposing opinions allowed on the constitution of thePeople's Republic of China. And that's just to name a few. Now, some of theserules are arguably good, mmm, or at least well-intentioned. Any sort of loot box orgambling system, for example, has to have transparency around drop rates for every available purchase, and minors also have a limit on how much time and moneythey can spend on a game. But when it comes to cracking down on expressing opinionson government policy, it's kinda hard to justifyit with the classic, "Won't someone pleasethink of the children?" So as we alluded to before, Steam and the majority ofcontent available on the platform has been residing in a bit ofa gray area for many years. Currently you can access it despite the Great Firewall of China, but a handful of gameshave been blocked outright and the entire communitydiscussion page is inaccessible. One of the most notabletitles missing from the store is "Battlefield 4," which was banned for discrediting China's national image and threatening national security. You can still see theDLC packs for the game, but the core game itselfis nowhere to be found. Oh, this is cute. An error was encountered. Yes it was. I turned out mypretending-I'm-within-China VPN. Obviously no Steam Workshop as well, so basically it's theChinese version then, just clunkier. The bottom line is basicallyanything with a chance of painting China or theCCP in a negative light is banned, full stop. Nudity, memeing government officials, offering a platform where players could potentially voicedissenting opinions? Banned, banned, and banned. Are you sweating yet? You might need some of these. After years of work and regulation, then, the beta for Chinese Steam, known locally Steam Platform, has launched, and while Valve and their Chinese businesspartner Perfect World has stated that they have no intentions of taking away thecurrent version of Steam, the thing is: that'snot really up to them. Which brings us back finally, then, to what's in this forthe Chinese government. Even if Valve's intention was to keep full-fat Steamavailable within China, the Ministry of Culture can at any moment simply close off access to it with their government firewall. Presumably the only reasonthey haven't done so already is that gaming, likeKorean superstars BTS, is kinda popular in China, and the CCP knows thatturning the heat up slowly is much less alarming tothe frog being boiled. What does this slow and steadyapproach look like then? Well, if you're alreadyusing Steam in China and you want to swap over to the government-approvedversion, good news! You can transfer all of your games. That is, the government-approved games that are in the Steam Platform client. Right now that's roughly50 approved titles, although there are more on the way. So the plan then is tocontinue to add more games so that when the time comes to flip the switch andturn off global Steam, the outrage will be muchmore easily overwhelmed with the usual propaganda toolbox. After all, if I'm a "Dota" enthusiast, what do I care if my neighbor wants to play "Animal Crossing"? I don't play "Animal Crossing." So the bottom line then isthat if I'm a gamer in China and every other overreach by the CCP doesn't already pissme off for some reason, I am pretty mad right about now, not just because I could lose access to potentially hundreds orthousands of dollars' worth of content that I've paid for, but also because of theimpact that this could have on the Chinese indie gamedevelopment industry. It's just beginning toshow what it can achieve, and as we know, extrabureaucracy and approvals almost never catalyze innovation. So let us know in the comments below: if you're a gamer in China, are "CS:GO" and "Dota II"enough to entice you to move to the official Steam Platformapproved by the government, or are you already lookingin investing in a good VPN? Speaking of investing, invest in the best prices andselection on computer hardware from our sponsor fortoday's video, Micro Center. They've got 25 locations across the U.S. and you can even use theirMicro Center Custom PC Builder to spec out the bestsystem for your budget. The PC Builder will ensure that all your parts are compatible, it'll help you find stock that's available at your nearest Micro Center location, it'll help you add it to cart, and can even arrangesame-day in-store pickup. For a fee you can check the boxmarked Same-Day Pro Assembly and Micro Center's expert technicians will assemble the PC for you. 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