frenchfrynoob

"You can play it, but it's a bit of a hassle. The official version has given away some DLCs, but it's just not that popular in China."

However, it's worth noting that the first generation of Chinese Paladin (or The Legend of Sword and Fairy) is only available in Chinese on Steam, with no official English translation. There are fan-made English patches, but their quality varies. Starting from the fourth generation onward, some later titles gradually added official English subtitle support. For example, Chinese Paladin VI had an international version with English language options. If you want to try a version with English support, it's recommended to start with the sixth generation."

yes

thank you

The VCD300 carried the childhood memories of countless children from impoverished families, allowing them to access the outside world and experience simple joys through discs in an era of material scarcity

Thank you for sharing sincerely

Tomorrow I'm planning to write a short piece about how a simple translation difference created an unexpected connection between two games that couldn't be more different in style. The way Chinese gamers turned that into a running joke really says something about our sense of humor — self-aware, playful, and deeply rooted in the quirks of language.

A Final Note

China did have a few homegrown consoles with big ambitions — the Little Tyrant Z, Battleaxe, Snail OBOX. I never got to play any myself. From what I’ve read and heard, their problems were similar: they approached console making with the mindset of PCs, mobile games, or online games. The result: almost no game ecosystem, weak hardware, low value. In the end, they missed their target audience. It’s a pity. I hope future builders learn from those lessons. Maybe one day the console market won’t be just three giants, but four, five, even more. Looking back, those “failures” might not seem so worthless after all.

Imagine this: for the first fifteen years of your life, there are almost no legitimate console games within the law of your country. No official channels, no store counters, no advertisements. To play games, your only choices are smuggled goods and pirated copies. So when Steam — a legal, convenient, respectful gateway — finally opened, we rushed in with near-frenzy to buy games, including countless older titles we had missed. Not to “atone.” Not purely out of compensation. But because for the first time, we had the chance to be seen and respected by the game industry as ordinary consumers. “Paying back the ticket” was never a cheap moral performance. It meant: when the legal path finally appears, we embrace it without hesitation.

This is my gaming story. What’s yours?

Frequently Asked Questions

“Born in 1999, why do you write like someone from the ’80s?” This gets asked the most. The truth is simple: I caught everything at the end of its lifecycle. Growing up in a small county with slow information flow, when I finally got to play Famicom, people in big cities had long moved on. When I first entered an arcade, the PS2 had been out for years. So this isn’t “I was always on the cutting edge.” It’s how a child in a small place in the late ’90s slowly caught up through outdated things. That’s the real rhythm for many players from smaller towns.

2. Is any of this made up? To be honest: the stories are real, but not all of them happened to me personally. “Blowing into cartridges,” “Water Level 8,” “the noodle bowl” — these were passed down by word of mouth across our generation. Some happened around me, some I heard from friends or online — but they resonated so deeply that I wrote them in. So this isn’t my autobiography. It’s a group portrait of my generation of players.

3. Why is online gaming barely mentioned? Fair question. Honestly, it’s not that I look down on online gaming — I just played very little of it. I was strictly supervised as a child and rarely went to internet cafes. By the time I had free access to a computer, Steam was already here. My main path was always single-player, console, handheld. Online games — Legend of Mir, Fantasy Westward Journey — belong to another world, huge and brilliant. But I’m not qualified to write that story. To write it would disrespect the people who actually grew up in internet cafes. So I’ll stick to the path I know. Let someone better qualified write the online gaming chronicle.

6. Steam Arrives, and Chinese Players Begin Buying Legitimate Copies

After the ban lifted, the PS4 got an official China release. The first time I saw a PS4 in a shop, I was stunned. It didn’t look like a game anymore — it looked like art. That game was Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. Even now, it doesn’t look dated. The shop owner was patient — taught me how to turn it on, save games, check regional versions. I regret not staying in touch with him.

The PS4 wasn’t cheap. Then I discovered Steam. With China’s lower pricing region and frequent deep discounts, every major sale became a festival for Chinese players. Buy, buy, buy — may not always play, but definitely buy. We know this habit is a bit odd. We’re price-sensitive, we complain about publishers all the time. But when we truly love a game, we still buy a brand new PS4 or PS5 physical copy and put it on the shelf. That’s probably the Chinese way of supporting legitimate games. Not elegant, but genuine.

I’m optimistic about console gaming in China. The numbers are still far behind Steam players, but from CS to PUBG to Black Myth: Wukong, good games never lack buyers. We didn’t play easily. But we played happily. On that, gamers everywhere are the same.

5. When China Fell for Online Games, Why Were Consoles “Banned” for 15 Years?

In June 2000, China issued a ban: no selling game consoles. The reasoning: arcades had gotten too chaotic — fights, gambling, plus parents wanted kids to focus on college entrance exams. A blanket cutoff, simple and blunt. That ban lasted fifteen years. Buying a console meant going through grey-market imports. Some people ran host rooms out of their homes — secret bases for that generation of players.

But here’s the twist: consoles were kicked out, but online games exploded. Legend of Mir, Fantasy Westward Journey, World of Warcraft — all appeared. Chinese online gaming even ran ahead of the rest of the world. Not letting people play games? Then how did internet cafes outnumber those elsewhere?

In 2002, the Blue Extreme Speed Internet Cafe in Beijing was set on fire. Several minors were refused entry, bought gasoline, and came back. 25 people died. After that, a nationwide crackdown on internet cafes began. Minors were banned. The media began calling games “electronic heroin.” Parents were terrified.

Right at that moment, a psychiatrist named Yang Yongxin in Linyi, Shandong, rose to fame. He “treated internet addiction” at his hospital — electroshocks to the temples, confinement, medication. Disobey? Shock until you obey. Parents tearfully sent their children in. Some children, after coming out, would tremble at the sight of a white lab coat. The medical community had long rejected electroshock for addiction treatment. But public panic and media frenzy kept Yang Yongxin in the spotlight for years.

So you see: consoles banned, online games rising. The government wanted to block gaming, but couldn’t stop internet cafes or mobile games. Parents feared addiction, so some sent their children to have their temples shocked. Every decision was made “for the good.” But each one cut deep into the players. The ban was fully lifted in 2015. Online games never stopped. But for that generation, some parts of youth could never be brought back.