Oh, hey there. I was going to write similar post but found yours. So are we free to criticise chinese goverment on paradox forums? We need clear statement. Censorship or free speach here?
I disagree. What we "
need" is the privilege (not the right) of freely discussing PDX's censorship policy here. The existence of this thread proves that we have. In this particular case, PDX's actions speak louder than words.
There are also some nice-to-haves. If OT is going to have China threads, then all points of view (including pro-democracy ones) should be represented. If certain views are banned, then they should just ban the topic entirely. But again, this is long-standing PDX practice, so no statement is needed.
And I think it would be great if PDX issued a statement condemning the Chinese government's actions. But that
would come at a cost to Mr Wester and PDX staff: lost business opportunities on the Mainland, offending a strategic investor, and potentially a travel ban on the Mainland. I would encourage him to make such a move: I have protested against the Party on the streets and thought it was worth paying a price for that. But Sweden is a free society; getting the balance between his responsibilities to PDX's stakeholders and his democratic values is a matter of wisdom, not clear-cut right and wrong.
BTW personally I think it's better to say "Communist government" rather than "Chinese government". That emphasizes that the cause of Paradox's problem is the Communist Party & its online supporters, not all Chinese people.
Also, does Tencent, as partial owner of Paradox, get access to the data Paradox gathers about its players?
As an EU entity with EU customers, PDX is covered by GDPR. If they transfer customer data to a non-EU entity (Tencent), then they need a legally binding commitment from Tencent to abide by GDPR too. So you can find out whether Tencent hold any data about you by asking them: if they have it, then they
must give it to you.
Personally I would not regard any document Tencent gave me as legally binding to EU standards, because Mainland China does not have the rule of law.
As a strategic investor, Tencent probably has access to some data (see
@orochi2k 's very helpful paragraph above). It's similar to things we could all find on SteamSpy and a Bloomberg/Reuters terminal. I think it's very, very unlikely that they have access to data on individual customers, given the hassle of ensuring GDPR compliance.
Nope, the government denies it when players in China demanded in "government information publicity" process. Government claims there was no government order of banning. Thus, it's widely considered as Valve's self censorship in China. (Valve is known to remove lots of game in their China regional stores against developers/publishers' will, I can give you a long list of that if you want. But, it is understandable. China may block Steam via Great Firewall otherwise, just like Google/Facebook/Reddit/Discord are blocked by it. Gabe is doing self censorship to avoid that.)
As a result, people are still legally buying HOI4 today. Just not from Steam any more.
If it is a ban, all players in China are criminals. And I am one of them.
But, as it is proved not a ban, at least not from government officially. Nobody can put players in China in prosecution.
You have provided some good reasons why it is possible that Steam has self-censored HoI 4. But just because the Communist government says there is no ban, I would not believe them. Watch any mainland Chinese film about the Civil War: the Party thinks it's great for Communists to tell lies!
As you know (but other forumites may not), one of the most difficult things about operating in mainland China it's that you're trying to stay on the right side of an invisible line. There are
outright 'hard' bans of some things, but most of the time it's unclear what you can and can't say. That works to the Party's advantage, because the uncertainty creates fear, and people censor themselves. And sometimes there are 'soft' bans. For example, for many years GMail wasn't completely banned, but the government randomly cut the connection, so that we couldn't rely on it and people without VPNs stopped using it. The effect is the same, of course. I guess that is the situation regarding the withdrawal of HoI 4.
I can confirm Tencent has access to some data of Paradox games.......that are sold on Tencent's WeGame store. But, that's mostly because they are the store, not because they are the shareholder.
Business laws may be different in the world, but I think they may also access to Paradox's financial related reports which may involve some other data Paradox gathers such as sells.
Excellent points.
We have a big community(thanks to our population). But, maybe because of culture and Great Firewall reasons, players of China usually just stick among ourselves, rarely come out of local internet.
It's so sad. I would like to connect online with my friends on the Mainland much more, and make new ones, to discuss grand strategy games and many other topics.
