“Red” Games - A Profile On China’s Communist Videogames

Jul 09, 2012 by Jeremy Blum
2 | 0

Photo Credit: http://newgame.17173.com/_liangjian2/pic.shtml

As far as Asian videogame industries go, Japan’s is the oldest and most respected, having birthed a vast collection of software and hardware since the 1980s. South Korea is also now known in the videogame world, particularly for the multiplayer online titles that the country has been rolling out by the dozens ever since broadband internet became affordable to the masses. China, on the other hand, has only gained international attention in the last few years due to large numbers of mobile phone games that are published by Western companies but actually outsourced and created by Chinese developers. Nevertheless, China’s videogame market is flourishing, particularly in the PC sector, where a massive player base eats up foreign-produced games like Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, as well as locally-created fare. Most of these local titles, such as Tian Xia, usually feature historical fantasy settings with a heavy dash of kung fu, highly reminiscent of Chinese wuxia martial arts novels and movies.

There is, however, one other type of game that is produced in China: The “red” game, perhaps more bluntly known as the “communist propaganda” game. These titles, directly financed by the government, are designed primarily as patriotic materials to educate players about Chinese history and the communist party. Often taking place in 20th century settings ranging from the second Sino-Japanese War to World War II, these “red” games feature players taking the role of a soldier in the Chinese army, fighting against an enemy (usually the Japanese) in an effort to defend their country from outside forces. In the vast majority of these titles, the Chinese army is never depicted as losing or suffering at the hands of the enemy. Whether historically accurate or not, China always comes out as the winner in a “red” game.

Photo Credit: http://kotaku.com/5919131/shining-sword-2-more-like-rusty-stick-1/gallery/1

This tendency for “red” games to show the Chinese army winning no matter what sometimes gets in the way of actual gameplay. A striking example of this is Shining Sword 2, one of the more well-known “red” games to recently emerge, partly because Tao Hongkai, a renowned Chinese critic, may or may not have been paid by the government to endorse the title in spite of his usual anti-videogame rhetoric. All controversy aside, Shining Sword 2 is set in a Sino-Japanese war setting where players can choose to be soldiers, snipers, and medics of the People’s Liberation Army. While this arguably could be an interesting setup for a videogame, Shining Sword 2’s desire to display the People’s Liberation Army as ultimate victors leads to sloppy game mechanics, with players doing highly unbalanced amounts of damage against in-game Japanese enemies and having little challenge or incentive to continue playing. In general, online Chinese reaction to the game is mixed, with players on the 17173 forums, a Chinese gaming site, collectively giving the game a score of only two out of five stars. While a few players on the forums defend the “red” nature of Shining Sword 2, stating that there’s a need to tackle controversial historical topics in games, most are too busy complaining about how the game’s servers are annoyingly not letting them log in.

Photo Credit: http://hongse.game176.com/

This points towards an interesting truth about “red” games in China: Most of them just aren’t very popular. Much of this is due to the low quality of the games, because a poor game will still be a poor game no matter whether it’s communist or not. This can be seen in the aforementioned Shining Sword 2, but also in recent games produced by Online Technology, a Shanghai game company. One of Online Technology’s games, Red Campaign, is an iPhone side-scroller that has players switching between multiple Chinese army characters in an effort to mow down rows of comically insidious-looking Japanese soldiers, a concept that sounds much more interesting than it actually plays. With the game quickly getting repetitive within the first five minutes, as well as insisting on splitting up its levels with long paragraphs describing communist party history, it’s no wonder why “red” games that sacrifice solid gameplay for overly heavy propaganda simply aren’t appealing to the masses in the way they were meant to.

With China’s economy growing every day and more Chinese videogame developers branching out into the international market, one wonders if the Chinese “red” game will continue to exist or will simply disappear under the forces of much more popular wuxia-themed fantasy games. Ultimately, it’s not the communist propaganda that will kill the popularity of “red” games, since many of the most popular Western videogame franchises, such as Call of Duty, are first-person-shooters heavily revolving around good guy squads of Americans or British mowing down terrorist enemies in plots that are arguably just as propagandistic as Shining Sword 2’s, albeit slightly more subtle. (The enemies in one of the newly announced Call of Duty games, in fact, are ironically none other than the Chinese themselves.)

What will decrease the popularity of “red” games, however, is dull gameplay, and if the Chinese government wants to influence the hearts and minds of local videogame fans, the mechanics of a game have to come first--propaganda second. Recently, the government seems to have realized this truth, developing Mission of Honor, a new first-person shooter designed to train the Chinese military. The game, while obviously propagandistic, is less obvious about its “red” nature than Shining Sword 2. Whether or not this more subdued approach will win over Chinese audiences, or possibly have a chance at breaking out into the international market, still remains to be seen. In the end, only one thing can be said for certain--as the Chinese gaming market matures, consumers can be sure to see games evolving to keep up with the times. “Red” games are just another genre that will morph and transform as China itself changes from a third world country into a first world superpower.

Tags: editorial, china, media, red, communism, videogames, shining sword 2, mission of honor, world of warcraft, tian xia, online technology red campaign, propaganda

2 comments | 0 plugs

Jeremy Blum: Yeah, the market will definitely change over time as more local Chinese developers start getting big. I think that the settings that these red games deal in, such as the Sino Japanese war, would be great backdrops for a game to explore...I just think that the games need to find a way to be less overt with their propaganda if they want to attract a wider audience to them.

Jul 10, 2012

Peter Shen: Interesting I think over time, market forces will dictate game development rather than government directive, as is already starting to happen now. This will be a good thing as games will be more interesting.

Jul 09, 2012