Chinese gamers defend the Steam version of Total War: Three Kingdoms in front of its local publisher — NetEase. Fearing censorship, players write hundreds of negative reviews on the Total War franchise.
Fans’ anxiety is caused by two things.
Firstly, NetEase can “soften” Three Kingdoms by removing blood, dead bodies and other prohibited elements from it. This often happens with games licensed by China. The blood in them cannot even be repainted in other colors.
Secondly, after the release of the official versions of Total War: Three Kingdoms, as gamers fear, the opportunity to buy the game via Steam will disappear in China. This was the case with Rocket League from Psyonix. After all, foreign versions of games, unlike Chinese ones, do not bring profit to local publishers. In addition, Steam does not have a license to work on the local market, and one day the store may be blocked, writes Abacus News.
The second question has already been followed by a comment from the Creative Assembly developer. The British studio promised that Chinese players will still be able to purchase Three Kingdoms on Steam and download it freely. But now it turns out that NetEase will lose part of the revenue. This means that her partnership with the game’s publisher, Sega, is no longer so effective.
Not all players believed Creative Assembly, so the Total War review bombing continues. Just today, Three Kingdoms has received about 40 negative reviews in Chinese. Their authors write that they feel betrayed, and promise not to buy anything from Sega anymore. Some Chinese apologize for the “review-bombing that disgraces their country.” But there are significantly fewer of them than there are dissatisfied ones.
Total War: Three Kindgoms is a game from a series of historical strategies. The title was released in May of this year and became the fastest-selling in the franchise. For the Chinese audience, this part is especially important because it is dedicated to the era of the Three Kingdoms in China of the II century.
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