Recently the Chinese government lifted it's ban on foreign based video game consoles, allowing the vast untapped marketplace of China to be available to video game makers around the world. Like all things in China, this move did not come without restrictions. These restrictions weren't formalized when the bad was lifted, but these new rules governing video games are slowly being rolled out, and, if a report by Rocket News 24 is to be believed, these restrictions may come at a high price for basic interactions in video games.
If the report is accurate, which it may not be due to a lack of direct sourcing, the Chinese government has banned video games that are to be sold in it's country from depicting the following things:
While these rules may need some clarification, particularly when it comes to sports games where shorts are prevalent, one of these rules may need to be done away with altogether. This is due to one of these rules banning one of the most common greeting within Western Culture.
The handshake. If, as the report states, “Bodily touching between men and women in games is completely prohibited,”, then the handshake between men and women is expressly banned, even though in most instances a handshake is just a handshake. While working around this rule might be funny to see, it's an unreasonable standard for foreign video game manufactures to have to live up to, and may end up being a hindrance in the production of quality video games for the Chinese market. Also, this doesn't speak well for the Chinese method of governance. If the Chinese government wrote a rule so vague that it bans something that is common and not salacious, what other common and normal things do their rules ban?
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