96
China pursuing justice for all by arresting HOI4 modders for a chuddy "wot if the world went more bonkers after covid?" Mod
(hexbear.net)
this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
96 points (99.0% liked)
Games
21182 readers
190 users here now
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
Rules
- No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
- Mark spoilers
- No bad mouthing sonic games here :no-copyright:
- No gamers allowed :soviet-huff:
- No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
- Anti-Edelgard von Hresvelg trolling will result in an immediate ban from c/games and submitted to the site administrators for review. :silly-liberator:
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
So some cops came and door knocked one of them asking about it and the entire mod team collectively shit their pants.
Over reaction on the part of the modteam tbh.
Because you don’t fuck around in China when the cops invite you to “drink tea”.
If that's the case for the average person making a videogame mod China absolutely needs to dial shit back a bit because it's ridiculous.
The rich should be this scared. A bunch of map painting nerds making a mod that might have some brainworms but is otherwise alright should not be. If they're spooking both this much they've got the balance wrong.
Not really I suppose, but I also think the team has overreacted anyway. Let the "National Office for the Fight Against Pornography and Illegal Publications" come down on it officially like other works if they want to, total pre-emptive shutdown is still an overreaction, they aren't about to be murdered or disappeared or anything of the sort.
I know we have to fight the “anti-CCP propaganda” but people do get detained and disappeared, it’s exaggerated by the anti-communist propaganda but the reality is that it does happen.
As long as you’re not disseminating any anti-government propaganda, bringing up sensitive topics, or touching the interest of the elites, you’re going to be fine. Everyone knows this and has learned how to lay low.
You think a bunch of gamers who just want to play video games want to take that risk?
i don't understand why the government takes the effort. i'm trying to avoid petty moralism in either direction but in this case what is the purpose of even taking notice?
The government is not one entity. Most of the times it’s provincial/municipal governments. For example, the queer fanfic writers that were detained last time, if I remember correctly, were just some local cops.
Nobody really knows why. Sometimes it’s power tripping, sometimes it’s to meet a certain KPI especially now it’s the end of the year, so some departments need to meet their quarterly/annual targets.
Look what's happening in Europe. It's easy to critique a state for being paranoid and how they use excess force on censoring speech. I personally think China is focusing way too much on these video gamers and mangakas, when they should focus more on making Ayn Rand illegal to read.
If I dare say they might be acting somewhat reactionary, by buying into Western propaganda that's blaming increasing violence/crime on GTA, like how I have heard them blame lack of births to homosexuality. But I also wonder how these decisions are reached, China is a difficult country to manage with a lot of people and if they really do have a decent amount of influence towards policy making, could it be that the population is seeing what's happening in the West and is demanding their governments to do something?
What do you do if you're the government in that situation do you just say screw democracy? What if people want you to get in trouble for making these games and they really are concerned about the mangas? This doesn't justify the actions of China, but I do certainly not envy their position because idk what I'd do honestly. It seems like a genuine trolley problem kind of situation.
That is a very rude assumption to make. I am quite intimate with the cops knocking on my door. They worry me less than the time the national newspapers were knocking and camping outside.
Isn't China extremely controlling of anything that could be considered "publishing" in China? I remember a while back there was a Chinese guy who wrote dumb fantasy web novels, and one of them had some content that the government didn't like and they basically told him that webnovel had to end, period. He could write other stuff but that one was done lol
I wouldn't be surprised if something similar happened here
Edit: Here's a
thread about it actually: https://www.reddit.com/r/ReverendInsanity/comments/1chfbxu/about_the_ban/
A Reddit link was detected in your comment. Here are links to the same location on alternative frontends that protect your privacy.
Least hexbear hexbear post I've ever read on hexbear