A Taiwan-developed horror computer game being boycotted by Chinese netizens over an image mocking Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) was removed from global digital distribution platform Steam on Tuesday, just seven days after its release.
The game’s Taiwanese developer, Red Candle Games, said on Facebook that it pulled Devotion (還願) from Steam because of technical problems and alluded to the boycott caused by the artwork that angered Chinese users.
“Due to technical issues that cause unexpected crashes and among other reasons, we are pulling Devotion off from steam store to have another complete QA [quality assurance] check,” the company said in an English-language statement.
Photo: Lo Tzu-hsin, Taipei Times
“At the same time we’d like to take this opportunity to ease the heightened pressure in our community resulted from our previous Art Material Incident,” Red Candle Games said. “Our team would also review our game material once again making sure no other unintended materials was inserted in.”
“Hopefully this would help all audience to focus on the game itself again upon its return,” it said.
The horror puzzle game was released on Tuesday last week, but soon faced a boycott by Chinese users, creating a controversy that has been played up in local media.
Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) defended the game and criticized China’s censorship and control over the media.
“Only in countries with democracy and freedom can creation be free from restrictions,” Chen said.
A screenshot on a Chinese microblogging site of a charm amulet hanging on the wall of a room in the game angered Chinese netizens after it was noticed that the names of Xi and Winnie-the-Pooh were written on the amulet in red.
The reference was unrelated to any aspect of the game.
Winnie-the-Pooh has been used to mock Xi since a picture of the Chinese leader walking with then-US president Barack Obama in 2013 spurred comparisons to Winnie-the-Pooh walking with Tigger.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS