Do you remember devotion? About a year ago, this somewhat unusual horror game made amazing waves. The game by the Taiwanese developer Red Candle was taken completely from Steam shortly after its release due to conflicts with the Chinese government and has since disappeared.
Now the developers have announced that their game has a secure future. You still cannot buy it, but it has been added to the Havard University Library. The developers express their gratitude to the Havard University on Facebook:
"It is an incredible honor, not only for Red Candle, but for all of our supporters and players around the world. […] We are sorry that we have worried our community all last year is not ideal, we are still there and nothing has changed – we continue to develop games with the same passion. Today and in the future. "
The Harvard Yenching Library is located in Cambridge on the university campus and is one of the largest American collections of East Asian cultural assets. In addition to Devotion, another game by Red Candle was added to the inventory.
Why was devotion banned at all?
Last year we already wrote about the history of Devotion more often. For the sake of completeness, there is the short form again:
- What is devotion? Devotion is a horror game that takes place almost exclusively in a Taiwanese apartment in the 80s that is gradually turning into a nightmare.
- Where did the shit storm come from? The game was initially received very positively after its release, but was then bombarded with bad user reviews from China.
- Why were the Chinese so angry? The developers had a drawing in the game world in which Chinese President Xi Jinping was described as a "fool" and compared to Winnie Pooh.
- What happened next? Shortly thereafter, Devotion completely disappeared from Steam and did not return. The Chinese publisher of Devotion also lost its business license a few months later.
China is becoming an increasingly important market for video games. However, this also creates problems, especially with regard to our western concept of freedom of expression. At the end of 2019, for example, the Hearthstone streamer Blitzchung caused controversy because it demanded freedom for Hong Kong and was punished by Blizzard for it.
In addition, Tencent is the world's largest game company in China, which has also expanded to Western companies in recent years. The company now holds shares in many large Western companies such as Ubisoft, Epic and Blizzard. You can find out exactly what this secret superpower is all about in our Plus Report on Tencent.
