China doesn’t dig gaming. At all. It’s values supporting censorship don’t play well with a gaming industry that consistently crosses the line, including with porn games. In fact, the situation between China’s communist party and racy content led to Chinese gamers using a Steam game to access adult content. Moreover, China is testing out a mind readying helmet to detect online porn.
China’s getting cray-cray, bro (as the cool folks might say).
The madness is careening into a viral game called “Sheep a Sheep.” Despite tough restrictions on gaming, “Sheep a Sheep” is growing in popularity via WeChat.
So why is “Sheep a Sheep” blowing up in the face of communist censorship?
“WeChat and ByteDance don’t currently require a game license to publish their HTML5 games on their platforms,” said Rich Bishop, CEO of AppInChina.
Basically, China’s government approves games, but “Sheep a Sheep” is skirting the system. People are playing the game inside ByteDance’s Douyin and WeChat, two apps that aren’t under gaming approval technology.
It isn’t expected that the obvious foul up will last all too long, at least according to Bishop.
“But this is likely to change over the next few months as enforcement of existing regulations intensifies,” he said.
When games use HTML5, they can often be played in browsers and apps. Because of this, the games are much harder to regulate as they operate on a variety of devices and platforms.
Both WeChat and ByteDance have remained silent over the gaming dramas. Likely, their attorneys have told them to say nothing.
Sheep a Sheep is also ad supported, which is another way it skirts the rules. Its not reliant on membership billing. But that doesn’t mean the Chinese government can’t go after affiliate type programs that help support Sheep a Sheep.
Sheep a Sheep was launched using social media platforms in China in fall of 2021. It’s been a huge success ever sense, largely due to the unrestricted nature. The game has never been properly approved. But likely the Chinese government will restrict the game at first opportunity. In other words, the CCP won’t be “sheepish” in its response. Sorry, I had to.
China’s also attempting to lower the amount of time kids play games. For Chinese kids under 18, they can only play a maximum of three hours a week.
The Sheep a Sheep dramas is further proof that censorship is often a difficult path even for a government as large and bold as China’s.