As Closed Beta Begins, Fears of Diablo 3 Censorship in China

Western video games don’t always make it big in China, but there’s one developer whose name gets the attention of gamers and strikes fear into the hearts of competitors the world over: Blizzard. And even though the company’s World of Warcraft massively multiplayer online game is still destroying new games even as it approaches the eighth year of its reign, they’re currently in the beta-testing stages of their latest drug game, an action RPG called Diablo 3 (the sequel to 2000’s Diablo 2).

Internationally, lucky fans are enjoying the beta, but in China, players are starting to get nervous. The game appears to be quite bloody, and fans are worried that means it will be toned-down for Chinese servers and Chinese fans will end up playing a watered-down version, just like they did with World of Warcraft. (Or sneaking their way onto foreign servers to enjoy the uncensored version, just like they did with World of Warcraft).

The Chinese version of World of Warcraft was changed in a number of ways that met with displeasure from Chinese gamers and international critics. Most notably, the skeletons of the original game were covered with skin to make them — well, not skeletons. Blood and skeletons were also cut from the Chinese version of Blizzard’s latest hit, Starcraft 2. Given that Diablo 3 is a game that takes place in hell and in which the player’s ultimate goal is to kill the devil, many gamers in China feel it’s a foregone conclusion that China’s Diablo 3 will be censored too. Some comments from Sina Weibo:

“It’s a tragedy 3DM isn’t making a cracked version of Diablo 3. It’s not that I don’t want the official version, it’s just that I don’t want to play a censored official version….” [source]

“I’ll definitely play on Taiwanese servers, unless the Mainland version comes out with an anti-censorship patch! What a fucking tragic country this is, you have to go abroad just to play a game…” [source]

Diablo 3 will definitely be ruthlessly censored for the domestic market. [source]

#Diablo3# We’re not asking for much, just to play the goddamn original version, as long as it’s not censored it’s fine… [source]

Now, before we go any further, I want to make something very clear: Much, perhaps all, of this censorship is not specifically mandated by the Chinese government. I’m going to say that again, in bold: this censorship is not mandated by the Chinese government.