Tencent and chinese influence

Can we expect any changes in Conan Exiles after chinese owened Tencent taken over of 29% stakes in Funcom? Do you expect to make any “rotten copmromises” as many companies did before you? Especialy on the gore/nudyty front.

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It’s already been brought up plenty of times. Funcom remains an independent company.

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Yeah… Tencent own just 5% of blizzard/activision, and we can all see that its more than enough to shake things up for all players. But thank You for the links, ill look on these discussions.

Edit
Red all of this desperate promises, i really hope they are honest. We have to belive in Funcom resolve and will to fight for their artistic vision i guess.

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Thats not the reason. The reason is GREED. You want to make money in China as a company, you better follow their rules. If not → byebye.

Thats it… Not Tencent is doing that. China is doing it.

Current case the Heartstone player, which Blizzard kicked out. If not, byebye from China.

Because the other way, was that ONE official NBA guy (Daryl Morey) said something about Hongkong protests…
Now china TV will not cooperate with either NBA or this club…

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Those 5% are a catalist for that greed. A gateway.

But so far so good. Conan seem to be in the best condition since launch, and theres still some cool updates planed, so i can put some faith in Funcom, sure. Hope the temptation wont change their good attitude.

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This may be a controversial question. I would like to know though. I should re-read the ToS but I feel I can get better answer here.

If I make a politically charged character name in-game on asian servers, will there be a reprimand? Would there be a ban?

I have not done this but honestly speaking, it was a fleeting thought that I have* considered doing.

I understand some offensive symbols aren’t allowed… but where is the line drawn. A swastika is unacceptable but what about something like Taiwan Numba 1?

I feel like this would offend a specific political body. What would happen in this hypothetical situation? How would this affect me?

thinking I should flag myself for this question :no_mouth:

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For China a big no no… Look at Southpark and their apology…

China gets massively angry if you compare their current leader with Winnie Poo…

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So much so, that Winnie the Pooh is completely cut from the Chinese versions of the Kingdom Hearts games, do they think their leader has that fragile of an ego that he can’t handle being compared to a cartoon bear?

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I srsly dont get it… First time I read this, was when an Indie-developer lost his job/life, when he made a cryptic joke about it. It wasnt even at first detectable what the picture in the game was about… :smiley:

The Hebdo-Charlie attack was because of a funny Mohammed picture…

Some people/groups/whatever are very fragile.

Pretty much the reason i’m asking this stuff. I know this is a big no no with china. How far does it reach though? As a westerner of mixed heritage. I wonder. Freedom of expression and all that.

I haven’t even scratched the surface of what i would love* to do. Example, Simply reproducing specific historical moments would drive china insane. I know a few that are controversial and offensive.

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The beginning of the end for Funcom, the Chinese own a big chunk of acti-blizz also soon there’ll be no nudity or skeletons or gore effects…

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Stop dramatizing and stay measured. Tencent own Riot Games and Supercell, they own 40% of Epic Games, 5% of Ubisoft, they financed Discord etc… If we listen to you it’s the beginning of the end for the whole game industry. As far as I know companies that have Tencent as a shareholder have kept their independence and their games are not watered down.

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You could look at this as an opportunity for other small indie companies to occupy the market hole that a “policed” company will leave behind. This is going to sound strange, but I have always wondered how many rp players would be left if ■■■ mods were a no-no for the game.

Ah, forgot the censor filter, well you get the three letter word I bet. This game is 18+ afterall.

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I just read that news yesturday. 29% is a majority shareholder from the article i read. Which means they can have creative direction if they wanted.

Look what activion did to every great game. They didnt tell the developers how to make the game but they sure pushed microtransactions and a crap ton of dlcs.

Expected DLCs more offen now. You dont buy shares of a company to make the company better you do it becuase your investing to make more money…

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Indeed. It baffles me how many investors seem to think these two goals are mutually exclusive. Maximizing short-term profits by squeezing the company dry, then discarding it and going on to invest in another company, can definitely bring in quick buck, but ultimately it amounts to killing the goose that laid golden eggs.

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It won’t have any affect on player activity in game, since that isn’t monitored. As we all know ‘Funcom does not provide MMO-style support or admin support to their servers.’ So use whatever name you want, I play on a Chinese server and I’ve seen some interesting ones. In fact, some of the most entertaining moments for me have been the heated exchanges between southeast Asian countries (including China). They don’t self-censor in any way.

As far as nudity and other content, you already can’t have that on Official Servers in China. Never been a thing, so no change there. They don’t give a single flying f*ck what content is shown in other countries. Unless FC plans to release a DLC where Khitan turns Khitan People’s Republic and get’s it’s a** whooped by Aquilonia, they have no reason to care about DLC content. Some of the games here are incredibly sexualized, as long as they don’t show the last bit of skin they somehow pass. Don’t equate what is happening with Blizz as CN trying to change games everywhere. Unless Jens or Ignasis is planning a trip to HK to protest anytime soon, your naked slaves are safe.

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Protip: Don’t skim-read this sentence. You’ll get some weird pictures in your head.

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How Tencent might influence or not Funcom policies and stances is one thing i worry little about. Tencent showed to be buisyness-smart. They must be knowing what makes the economic value of Funcom. And they will aim at preserving it.

What i worry about is how the Chinese governement “plays” western’s economic interest (and greed) to push western to do their bidings - such as we saw with the Blizzard stuff (basically, creating a situation where Blizzard would censor players by fear of loosing access to Chinese market).
And how companies tied to the Chinese governement -such as Tencent- are getting into positions where they could provide economic intel to China’s governement to implement these kind of strategies.

We must not fool ourselves here, if not economically and/or territorailly (South China’s Sea sea-grab), China is engaged in an ideological conflict (not to be confused with ‘war’) with “the west” - whether the west is seacking this conflict or not.
And currently, China’s beatting the west by using western economic players against the larger “west”. A master move i’d admire if i were not standing on the side that gets beaten with its own limbs.

That’s why i see Tencent “infiltrating” entertainement companies as a bad thing. They get in a position where they could feed economic inteligence to China’s governement.

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interesting artilce on this subject

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With respect, this is surprisingly short-sighted. I can tell you a number of anecdotes where I’ve encountered Asian players who were forced to moderate their behavior. In Conan Exiles.

The problem isn’t with the game, it’s the distribution. Conan Exiles is hugely popular in China. I have begun streaming via a service called Huya, which has increased its viewership by 4x every time I do it. No naked Barnes, though, that’s against the rules. Once you hand over one tenet of operation (nudity is nice), as a broadcaster it’s very easy to start modifying your behavior elsewhere.