INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightRed Candle Games/DevotionImage caption
When players interact with the poster (L), the poster (R) appears
- with the words "Winnie the Pooh" and "Xi Jinping"
A Taiwanese games company has had its latest release pulled from
mainland China, after players noticed subtle references mocking Chinese President Xi Jinping, including comparing him to Winnie the Pooh.Red
Candle Games released Devotion, a first-person horror game set in 1980s Taiwan, on games platform Steam on 19 February
The game quickly went viral after players spotted so-called "easter eggs" and publicised them
However online discussion has since been censored
An "easter egg" is a hidden message or joke in a computer game, normally only picked up by some players paying close attention.Red Candle
Games has apologised, saying it will refund offended users
Taiwan is an island that is for all practical purposes independent, but China sees it as a rebel region and insists that other countries
should not have diplomatic relations with it.Taiwan's current president has sparred with Beijing over the island's political future
In January, Xi Jinping said Taiwan "must and will be" reunited with China.Hidden messagesOne of the easter eggs in Devotion is a poster
containing the words "Xi Jinping" next to "Winnie the Pooh", in an ancient style of writing
Winnie the Pooh has been censored on Chinese search engines and social media since 2017, after bloggers began comparing Mr Xi to the
children's story book and film character.Gamers have also spotted an old newspaper in Devotion that refers to an individual who has
received a prison sentence, nicknamed "baozi" or "steamed bun"
Image copyrightAFP/WeiboImage caption
This meme showing Xi Jinping and former US President Barack Obama began
circulating in 2013
"Steamed bun" is another sensitive term in China, as social media users have used it to refer to the
president and evade government censors.'Awfully unprofessional'Red Candle Games confirmed that Devotion had been removed from Steam China on
23 February, and issued an apology, saying the poster with the Winnie the Pooh reference had made it into the game by accident due to a
technical issue.It said that it was aware some players may have been offended by the images, and said that it was in touch with Steam to
ensure that such players could obtain a full refund
"The whole team of Red Candle Games bears the responsibility of this awfully unprofessional mistake," a statement on Monday said
"It is not Red Candle's vision to secretly project extensive ideology, nor is it to attack any person in the real world."We sincerely hope
that this ends with Red Candle, and please do not take it out on all of our innocent partners." Taiwanese Vice Premier Chen Chi-mai has
praised the game, saying: "Only in countries with democracy and freedom can creation be free from restrictions."Image copyrightFacebookImage
caption
Red Candle Games apologised and confirmed the game had been removed from Steam China
Chinese
online censors, meanwhile, are trying to scrub references to the game and its hidden messages.Searches for both "Red Candle Games" and
"Devotion" in Chinese on Weibo are showing no results.What's On Weibo, which tracks content on the site, said that over the weekend posts
containing the hashtag #Devotion were racking up hundreds of millions of views.But on Monday, a search of the hashtag #Devotion showed only
four posts, none of which refer to the game
Posts that mention the game's title in English, which the censors are often lax in censoring, show that China-based users are receiving
messages on Steam saying that the game is "no longer available" to play in their country
Meanwhile Red Candle's account on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo service has been suspended, preventing the company from publicising
Image copyrightSina WeiboImage caption
Weibo users shared posts saying they were no longer able to play the game
In Taiwan, where social media is not government-controlled, thousands of social media users are joking about the easter eggs.Some on
Facebook are posting pictures and gifs of Winnie the Pooh, and others are showing printouts of the offending poster
Gaming in ChinaThe episode has raised questions as to whether Steam will be the latest overseas online platform to be blocked in mainland
Technically, Steam has not gained official approval to operate in the country, but it remains accessible
Some 30m people are estimated to use it in China.The platform allows China-based users to download and play games that have not received
official authorisation.Over the last decade, the government has banned games if their content is considered to be violent, or anti-Beijing
However many recent releases have never made it to China anyway because of a years-long backlog of games that regulators are yet to
examine.The top media regulator has also just announced that it will not be granting any new licences to gaming companies until the backlog
is cleared.The result is that wildly popular games such as PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Fortnite, both of which were released in
2017, remain neither banned, nor authorised in the country
TheIndianSubcontinent Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world
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