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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Steam's Reluctance To Approve Hong Kong Games

Azzanation on 07 December 2019

There has been a lot of suspicion about Steams delay on releasing games that are about the Chinese Government or Protests.

Liberate Hong Kong is a game based on the protesters of the events in Hong Kong. 

Karma is another game that is about the events in China and its sales profits will be donated to a Chinese anti-government, democracy movement.

Both these games are on the waiting list on being released on Steam and Valve are delaying the releases due to the content in them, claiming it illegal...

Now these games might still make it to Steam one day however currently they are not and there is no future date on there releases. Valve are not a company I associate with quality control who have allowed School shooting games, Trump games and basically rape games and yet those games releases on Steam with no questions asked but the moment you mention Hong Kong or China, it seems to be another story. Steam is just another US company who wants to make money just like Blizzard.

Now before you all attack Steam for this, let me make one thing clear. I do not support those who base there hate on companies who are trying to make money especially since China is such a huge market. For those who spat on Blizzard's decision for banning a gamer who broke the rules at a Games show, I go by the logic of as long as they make good games I could care less what they do in politics. The logic of hating a company for political issues like this is no difference to them hating and boycotting Mercedes Benz for supporting the Nazi's in WW2. Its childish and brainless. That's your choice to make and my opinion wont change.

Valve and Blizzard are two of my favourite gaming companies in the industry and ill continue to use and play there games as long as they continue making quality services and games.

Jim Sterling explains the matter quite well. Now i don't agree with him hating on Steam however if gamers are going to give Blizzard all the hate than I guess you better save your spit for Valve aswell. 



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Azzanation on 07 December 2019
Hiku said:

The main issues are

1.) Consistency in their policy.
They banned Blitzchung for saying 'Free Hong Kong' for 1 year and took all his prize money, while they didn't punish two people at all for saying 'Boycot Blizzzard."
They later revised some of those decisions, but that was after massive backlash.

2.) China is an authoritarian regime that considers any unfavorable comment about their country as an attack. When it comes from inside their country, people some times diappear, never to be heard from again. (See the 'definitely not civilian dressed cops' that systematically beat up Hong Kong protesters, or police shooting them.)
When it comes from the outside, they use their massive economy to shut them down. (See the NBA debacle.)

This is likely not something any of us would be comfortable with affecting the products we consume, let alone our daily lives. So when our companies bend to this sort of authoritarianism, it makes people worried about the future.

A lot of those issues are out of our control. Boycotting or hating on a company will only stop the brand from selling in that country, the Communism will still exist. It changes nothing in our world. Has Hong Kong been set free due to the back lash from Blizzards banning of Blitzchung? Reality is people need to blame something to justify bad actions, that's always the case. In this case, Blizzard was an easy target and so are corporations who don't have much of a choice aside from lose a crap ton of money and shares. You wouldn't half your income to help the protesters, no one is expected to, and that's the reality of it. Like a murder, someone or something needs to be blamed. Its something I have grown and seen past.