China requires gamers to reveal real names and map them to frag-tastic IDs

China will force gamers to use their real names when playing online in an ongoing effort to make gaming in the country more "tasteful". Feng Shixin, an official from the Communist Party's Central Publicity Department, said late last week that online games would need to implement a new state-run authentication system when it …

[jake]

So I suppose ...

.... they want nothing but nice, innocent games like pinning the tail on Eeyore, and feeding Pooh-bear hunny?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So I suppose ...

Dammit sir, you beat me. I clicked the comment icon with the word 'Poohsticks' in my fingers, all ready to type.

[Richard Jones 1]

Re: So I suppose ...

Oh dear, I thought that the leader of the CCP was big enough anyway?

(Isn't Pooh-bear on the banned list anyway?).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So I suppose ...

In China, you can only play games with Winny the Pooh if he is this godlike, reserved figure who dispenses prizes and justice based on you demonstrating proper socialist values and Xi Jingping thought during the game.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck the CCP

And fuck the Tories and Labour for trying to emulate some of their policies.

[Kane]

Re: Fuck the CCP

"And fuck the Tories and Labour for trying to emulate some of their policies."

Which policies would these be, please?

[Kane]

Re: Fuck the CCP

Well, seeing as I received a downvote for asking a question, I will assume that unexpected gift was from the original anon.

But I still don't have an answer to my question.

Can you please state the policies from the CCP that both the Tory and Labour party are trying to emulate?

[TheMeerkat]

Re: Fuck the CCP

Woke fascists trying to promote their “cancel culture” without much opposition from the government? Not much different from CPC tradition

[Kane]

Re: Fuck the CCP

"Woke fascists trying to promote their “cancel culture” without much opposition from the government? Not much different from CPC tradition"

"without much opposition from the government" is vastly removed from a specific, actively promoted and pursued party policy (Tory or Labour).

Paris, because even she can see the false equivalency here.

[Pascal Monett]

Well that's going to be quite restrictive

"China will tolerate games if they don't encourage what authorities deem to be anti-social attitudes and behaviours "

I'm guessing that shooting people, blowing them up and bombing them are not considered to be very social attitudes.

So that's EA's entire triple-A lineup except sports forbidden in China, then. No more Counter Strike, 7 Days to Die, Diablo III or IV, Battlefield, Fortnight any other shooter either.

I'm guessing SimCity still qualifies ?

[Khaptain]

Re: Well that's going to be quite restrictive

Let's see if they keep PUBG or not..

[LDS]

"shooting people, blowing them up and bombing them are not considered"

Without the Party approval of course not. If a game allows to shoot, blow and bomb Tienamen or Hong Kong protesters probably it will be fine.

While PLA may need to know the real names of those considered "interesting" subjects....

[Andy Non]

Re: Well that's going to be quite restrictive

"I'm guessing SimCity still qualifies ?"

Sorry, you must demolish that tower block, you didn't have building permission from the local Communist party.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Well that's going to be quite restrictive

And the stadium you build in your SimCity better last a thousand years. In China, only those connected to the CCP are allowed to build substandard structures.

[Kibble 2]

Re: Well that's going to be quite restrictive

@ Pascal Monett

Unless Sim City comes out with a serial killer module it'll still be allowed over there until the censors catch it.

I suppose RPG's like Dungeons & Dragons will be next.

[Khaptain]

Don't worry, it's coming here soon too

With all the SJW/Woke/BLM movements, protests, bullying etc it really won't be long before our new Overlords will be advocating exactly the same thing..

The major Social Media platforms are already conforming to what can and cannot be said, so it's just a question of time.... And as long as the Big Corps continue to make money they will happily go along with it.....

No one is standing up against anything recently to what's to stop it happening sooner rather than later ?

[sabroni]

Re: Don't worry, it's coming here soon too

Is it? Really?

Or are the bigots just fucked off that they don't have free rein anymore....

I certainly have access to all kinds of right wing nonsense via the internet, is yours not working?

[Boris the Cockroach]

Re: Don't worry, it's coming here soon too

Quote

I certainly have access to all kinds of right wing nonsense via the internet, is yours not working?

You should try the left wing nonsense as well........ almost as batshit crazy as the right wingers..

Caught a rant about racists on one, that if you changed the word "racist" for the word "jew", it would almost read like a goebballs speach from the 1930's...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Don't worry, it's coming here soon too

Sabroni, when I have to be very careful what I say or do in case I offend someone else but it is apparently perfectly acceptable to tell me I am a racist, sexist waste of oxygen and demand I apologise for every famous English person who has ever lived simply because I am a white male so I must be guilty, it's coming here.

How is destroying 'white history' NOT racist? So-called "Positive" discrimination is still discrimination, regardless of how much you try to pretend it is not.

ALL lives matter. If you put *anything* else there, YOU are the racist. And the bigot.

[eionmac]

Re: Don't worry, it's coming here soon too

The English national anthem includes verses to exterminate Welsh and Scots. See older versions and verse 4 to 7.

[Valeyard]

simcity

can't play a winnie the pooh game but simconcentrationcamp is fine by their official standards

Also any game installed on a phone now provides another way to map your physical GPS-connected device to your verified identity, interesting if you're a gamer in hong kong...

[amanfromMars 1]

Is there no societal problem to be addressed?

I wonder how many folk/youngsters think there be no lasting consequences for real acts of physical violence against property and/or persons as portrayed on their video devices and as I imagine are pimped and pumped online and as be the responsibility of the likes of all these sorts of market leaders ..... "So that's EA's entire triple-A lineup except sports forbidden in China, then. No more Counter Strike, 7 Days to Die, Diablo III or IV, Battlefield, Fortnight any other shooter either."

[AndyFl]

Re: Is there no societal problem to be addressed?

They will be allowed if they are sold to a Chinese company and the state gets a "large percentage" of the sale price.

Can't imagine where I got that idea from!

[Spacedinvader]

Re: Is there no societal problem to be addressed?

new kb required, you utter bastard (bloody brilliant)

[stiine]

Re: Is there no societal problem to be addressed?

It won't matter for about a generation, just like their one-child policy last century...

[Tail Up]

Re: Is there no societal problem to be addressed?

Yes, amanfromMars, there *is* a problem, and it's a rather societal than technocratic one, I suppose. I believe, ransparent and leaky social messaging environment, The Great Firewall, and expensive and wiretapped international telephony and money transfer systems can once make a sort of specialised software, like the gaming one, play the role of a relieving medicine.

The question is how legal this medicine is, which extent of l'egality and its potential of trouble-making in poo-litical sense had been probably measured by people from not technical, but social directorate, or whatever structural thin'gamma-jiggery in a foreign land it be bound.

Alright, a Soviet anecdote then.

An old jew comes to OVIR and says:

"Dau, I, already, want to emigrate"

"Where to?"

"I, already, haven't decided yet"

So the lady clerk gives an old man a globe asking him to choose to where finally drop the old bones.

The old man rotated the earthball right, left, pondering deeply about something, and says:

"Daughter, do you, already, have another globe?"

PPK Reload / Remake of Cyberiade Theme, Ed Artemyev, 1979 - https://youtu.be/UyUUAFxj4YM

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: Is there no societal problem to be addressed? @Tail Up

"But of course, yes we certainly do" ...... would be a nice reply to that leading question, Tail Up.

[Anonymous Coward]

This change has been brought on by ingame chat found in so many games now

People in China have started to use ingame chat to communicate with people in the outside world and express political thought under their avatars, so now the CCP is cracking down to make sure that they know who your average Chinese gamer is talking to on the outside and whether his stated opinions are in line with the party line in China.

[Daedalus]

Good move

Yes, in a country where 85% percent of the population has one of only 100 family names, making gamers use their real names should work.

[Inkey]

Re: Good move

Yeah thats what my first thought was ....how many simone lee's or wang chang's there are in China

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: how many [duplicate names] there are in China

They'll know this. A "real name" will presumably have to be verified with reference to documentation that specifies an individual; it is unlikely to be just "enter a made up name here".

[doublelayer]

Re: Good move

Not as many as you think. For one thing, family names are common but there are still a lot of options for given names to increase the numbers. For another thing, this just plugs in on top of the existing tracking of IP addresses, meaning you don't care how many people with a certain name are in China, but how many people with that name live in each building. If you can track people by their address when they set up their account, you can do two things with that information. First, you can track them even if they move because you know for certain who it was who set up the account. Second, people aren't very original when thinking up usernames, so you can possibly identify people by names on other things that haven't complied with this policy.

[Anonymous Coward]

For God's sake!

It's just a game that's all.

[amanfromMars 1]

Re: For when For God's sake is Trumped by WTF ‽

For God's sake! It's just a game that's all. ..... Anonymous Coward

Yes, quite so, .... but don't you know, AC, that's Life ...... although as evidenced by your comment, not at all as you know it, and that makes one both extremely vulnerable and lusciously susceptible to ITs Multiple Extensive Charms ..... if one be real lucky and outstandingly worthy? :-)

[rcxb]

It'll work

Prepare for 10 billion John Lee gamer accounts...

[razorfishsl]

This is NOT new........it has been in place for YEARS.

you will see this when you see a game like "RUST" where the players have numbers for names

Previously it was their phone number, but that don't work if they change the phone.....