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Amid a long list of Twitch streams for Black Myth: Wukong, a new action role-playing game released this week, one stood out: “Covid-19 Isolation Taiwan (Is a Real Country) Feminism Propaganda.” The stream, run by a creator called Moonmoon, did not include anything out of the ordinary for a video game playthrough—just that one cheeky nod to a few topics the Chinese studio Game Science, which developed the game, would rather ignore.
On platforms like Twitch and YouTube, streamers are flipping a metaphorical middle finger to a handful of restrictions given to some creators that were invited to review the game, which takes place in Ming-era China and is based on Chinese mythology. Just days after its launch, it’s already a massively successful game that’s drawn in more than 2.2 million concurrent players. According to market research firm Niko Partners, Black Myth: Wukong’s success “signals that Chinese studios are ready to compete directly with established Western and Japanese developers in the premium AAA space.”
Shortly before Black Myth: Wukong’s launch, some streamers were given early codes to create content with the game—along with a few caveats. According to screenshots posted online, streamers who received these instructions were told not to “include politics, violence, nudity, feminist propaganda, fetishization, and other content that instigates negative discourse” in their content, nor “use trigger words such as ‘quarantine’ or ‘isolation’ or ‘Covid-19'.” Furthermore, streamers were asked not to discuss anything about China’s game industry policies, opinions, or news.
These guidelines were not cited as a condition to everyone who was invited to play the game early; Outlets like Polygon and Kotaku were given standard review embargoes without strict rules on what content they could not talk about, aside from spoilers. According to a report from Aftermath, while some streamers do often receive requests to avoid topics like politics, those asks are typically tied to sponsorships or paid contracts. Yet those restrictions—which appear to have come from the game’s publisher, Hero Games—are now backfiring, as even players who were not given any notes thumb their noses at guidelines they find ridiculous.
Rui Zhong, a writer and researcher, streamed herself playing the game while discussing Journey to the West, the novel Black Myth is adapted from, as well as feminism in China and the country’s one-child policy. (Zhong has previously written about Chinese censorship for WIRED.)
“What bothered me was that a lot of the streams pushing back against the game's guidelines were very low-effort and played into stereotypical, surface-level impressions of Chinese politics and society,” Zhong tells WIRED. Misogyny in development, game spaces, and elsewhere are “not a uniquely Chinese problem. It's not the only place where feminists are framed as man haters, as the devs have said.”
An IGN report published last year uncovered a history of sexist and inappropriate comments made by Game Science’s employees and stakeholders. Cofounder Yang Qi has spoken about “how games made for women and men are completely different, due to their biological differences,” IGN reported; other examples include a technical artist discussing the possibility of masturbating to the game’s female snake spirit. Zhong, who was quoted in the IGN piece, told the publication that feminist organization in China was “very uphill,” with “crackdowns after labor organizing efforts, there's been crackdowns over discussing marital problems, there's been definitely crackdowns after people have accused prominent Chinese men of harassment, assault, or sexual misconduct, and the deck has been generally very stacked against them.”
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To be clear, Chinese games “are not barred from feminism and have a lot of discretion over which smaller-scale social issues to talk about,” Zhong tells WIRED. “That Game Science put those guidelines out were in part the preferences of the company and not the government.”
Another streamer, linktothepabst, whose playthrough was titled “Black Myth: Wukong Waiting Room for All Feminists, Pro Vaccine, Pro Trans Rights, Woke,” tells WIRED that the guidelines were “bogus.” The streamer used those keywords because, they say, “I’m not going to let a studio/copublisher feel emboldened to send out a guideline like that. No spoilers? Sure. Don’t talk about mechanics? OK! But completely ignoring the culture you created? C’mon.”
Game Science did not respond to a request for comment. The company has also refused to comment to other outlets on reports of the sexist behavior of its employees. Efforts made on the company’s behalf to curb any talk of feminism, politics, or any of the other off-limits topics, however, is having the opposite effect.
“I feel that it only served to bring more attention on Game Science’s culture of sexism,” linktothepabst says. “All they had to do was let the game speak for itself, but it came off, to me, like an own goal, effectively stoking the flames between the people who were using this game as weapon against ‘wokeness in games’ and those who can level-headedly either enjoy the game and criticize GS or just ignore the game altogether.”
It’s the Streisand effect in full force: Try to hide something, and it becomes all the more visible. “Nobody was going to bring up Chinese politics unprompted,” Zhong says, “but the topic was there as soon as they released those guidelines.”
