TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — In the latest example of censorship imposed by China, gamers on Tuesday (Oct. 6) noticed that the action role-playing game Genshin Impact is censoring the words "Taiwan" and "Hong Kong."
The issue first came to light on Tuesday, when Japanese journalist Hashimoto Kazuma posted a video on YouTube and Twitter, showing the terms "Taiwan" and "Hong Kong" being turned into asterisks immediately after typing and posting them into the in-game chat function for Genshin Impact. In response to queries about the censorship, game industry analyst Daniel Ahmad on Wednesday (Oct. 7) on Twitter explained that the maker of the game, miHoYo, is headquartered in China where based on local laws, a video game can be banned for "anything that threatens China's national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity."
Therefore, as a matter of self-preservation, Chinese games all censor any mention of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and other countries or regions of which Beijing claims ownership. Early on Wednesday (Oct. 7), Hashimoto responded to brewing controversy over the censorship of the game by writing that although Chinese law was the justification for the censorship, "that doesn't mean you can't have ethics."
Hashimoto stated that he would no longer be posting about the game because "I cannot use my platform to talk about a game that has these kinds of censors in place. That doesn't fall in line with my morals." The journalist specifically cited the censorship of "Taiwan" and "Hong Kong" as his reason for discontinuing coverage of the game.
On the section for Genshin Impact on the social media site Reddit, a gamer started a discussion under the heading "there's a bug in the game," in which they described not being able to type "Taiwan," "Hong Kong," or "Tibet" in the chat, signature, or nickname. Most comments took the fatalistic stance that such censorship is to be expected "from a company from country living under cruel dictatorship regime" and that no impact will be felt by the Chinese companies "unless somehow 90% of the player base stops playing."
Under the Twitter thread started by Ahmad on the subject, he suggested that one solution is for the game to have a global version, but that "it's not always that simple for Chinese devs specifically." In addition, there are plenty of instances of companies self-censoring themselves outside of China, such as the ban imposed on two Japanese VTubers Kiryu Coco and Akai Haato last month for mentioning Taiwan during their livestream.
Due to Genshin Impact censoring the words Taiwan and Hong Kong in the in-game chat I will no longer be posting about the game.
— Kazuma Hashimoto (@JusticeKazzy_) October 6, 2020
People have asked me why this is:
1. MiHoYo is a Mainland China based developer
2. China's laws and games regulator state that games cannot contain "Anything that threatens China's national unity"
3. All Chinese games censor phrases such as Taiwan / Hong Kong due to this https://t.co/QZ6PerqiTC
— Daniel Ahmad (@ZhugeEX) October 6, 2020
