Video Game

One-Way Linkage

by

2023 年 10 月, 《Blue Archive》 launched the 「A Certain Scientific Railgun T」 event. This was a collaboration event between 《Blue Archive》 × 《A Certain Scientific Railgun T》, which updated the characters Mikoto Misaka, Misaki Shokuhou, and Ruiko Saten from 《A Certain Scientific Railgun》.

Such collaborations require contact and agreement with the copyright holder, because IP is protected by law, and illegal use may require compensation of huge sums of money. For example, in the 《Pokémon: Replicated》 infringement case, the Pokémon Company requested compensation as high as 107 million RMB.

So what kind of collaboration does not require a contract and does not incur legal liability? The answer is not to use legally protected content. For example, in the well-known customized keyboard industry, GMK, a keycap manufacturer famous for its excellent ~~expensive~~ designs, created keycaps with the color scheme of Evangelion Unit-01, and also featured logos such as NERV and the Spear of Longinus.

However, the product is named 「Purple Green Series」 (Purple Green Series), and does not feature words such as EVA. This counts as a collaboration without authorization. GMK is small, so no one paid much attention to this issue, but it would be very ugly for larger works to do the same thing.

Apex has done this, more than once. For example, the July 2022 side story event launched skins of anime and manga characters such as Luffy, Naruto, Unit-00, Gundam, Ken Kaneki, and Rei Hino, and even Ultraman appeared. Later, there was a one-way collaboration with 《Predator》.

Of course, none of these Apex skins were authorized. But merely being similar in color and shape should not easily constitute IP infringement in law. But people are not satisfied, after all, these skins are paid for, and the profits from the skins do not go to the copyright holder, so you can only get skins of your favorite characters, which feels like using high imitation products…

P.S.: 《300 Heroes》 probably abandoned law and morality, so it doesn’t count as a one-way linkage, but blatant infringement.

World of Warcraft : Reforging Gorehowl Event

by

On January 24, 2023, due to the dispute between the agent NetEase and Blizzard, Blizzard games on the NetEase server were shut down. NetEase showed many extreme emotions towards Blizzard, including a live broadcast of the demolition of the Gorehowl (weapon) statue of 《World of Warcraft》 in the office park.

On April 10, 2024, NetEase and Blizzard released “Striving to Heal and Recover in Excess – A Letter to Blizzard National Server Game Players”. It indicated to players that the two parties had reconciled and were preparing to restore servers, data and other technical work, and would introduce specific arrangements at an appropriate time. Finally, players were asked to reforge Gorehowl (statue) together. As long as they participated in the message activity on the official website, they would have the opportunity to be engraved into the new statue and receive a Blizzard peripheral gift package.

On April 10, 2024, NetEase stated that the Gorehowl reforging message activity will end on June 6, 2024. At the same time as the end, more news about the return of the NetEase server will be brought.

On May 31, 2024, NetEase stated that during June 3rd ~ 5th, 2024, the official website will be maintained and the Battle.net function will be further connected, so the message activity will not be possible during this period.

However, NetEase’s other games, such as 《Identity V》 and 《NetEase Westward Journey 3D》, did not intend to release maintenance announcements today. If the end time was chosen to be the end of May, it might not be so embarrassing. There is no need for the final time of the message activity to jump from June 2nd to June 6th. This is confusing and has to be explained.

ggame

An Examination of the Ban on Battlefield 4

by
Battlefield 4

On December 5, 2013, the “China National Defense Daily” published an article entitled “Using Justice and Truth to Drive Away ‘Game Demons’ — Focusing on the ‘Major Military Events’ Around Us, Series Report No. 17”. The article stated that “Battlefield 4” smeared China and was a new form of cultural aggression. It also implied that the game should be banned, and finally promoted the domestic FPS game “Glorious Mission”.

On December 26, 2013, or at an unknown time before, “Sina Stand-alone TV Games” released a Weibo post: “Following the ban on Battlefield 3 last year, we have just received a notice from the Ministry of Culture requiring all relevant information about Battlefield 4 to be deleted”.

Someone replied to this Weibo post: “Ministry of Culture: Battlefield 4 is an illegal game that contains content that endangers national security and is a form of cultural aggression.” However, the identity of the replier is unknown, and the term “cultural aggression” originated from the “China National Defense Daily”. (Cover image)

Starting on December 26, 2013, 3DM or Driver Home reported: “The Ministry of Culture issued a notice stating that Battlefield 4 is an illegal game that contains content that endangers national security and is a form of cultural aggression.” “All information related to Battlefield 4, including downloads, strategies, patches, news, etc., must be deleted within 24 hours.” Subsequently, websites such as Caijing.com, CNR.cn, Nandu.com, Sina.com, Tencent.com, China.com, and Solidot reprinted the news.

Regarding the news from 3DM or Driver Home, the first half seems to be the content of comments from Sina Weibo, so the authenticity is very low. The second half, deleting relevant content within 24 hours, may be the notice received by the website.

Therefore, the ban on “Battlefield 4” by the Ministry of Culture was not made public. The specific situation is probably contacting websites privately to request a ban, which belongs to Shadow Governance.

Source of information, can go to ggame to view.

The Agency for Dealing with Urban Legends

by

Works containing urban legends are considered High Fantasy stories and are largely fictional. However, just like in stories about superpowers, where there might be an organization managing those with superpowers, the appearance of an agency dealing with urban legends in urban legend stories can make the story more realistic.

《流行之神 警视厅怪异事件档案》 ( Hayarigami: Blinded Newsgirl ) should be Nippon Ichi Software’s most well-known game. It depicts a department that deals with urban legend events such as chain emails, kitsune (Ouija board, spirit writing), and the Slit-Mouthed Woman: the Metropolitan Police Department Police File Compilation Room.

The Compilation Room’s ostensible job is to organize files, but in reality, it is an agency that deals with various paranormal events. This is especially true after the awe of classical gods and spirits has diminished, and various urban legends and ghost stories have become the mainstream objects of “awe.” Therefore, the Compilation Room mainly deals with urban legends.

Urban legends that have actually existed and myths from historical records can all be resolved by specialized agencies. This is how the realism of Hayarigami is naturally born, and it is also why Hayarigami has become Nippon Ichi Software’s most well-known game.

However, naturally occurring urban legends are still too few, so Creepypasta, which is written and shared with a clear purpose, began to fill the urban legend market. This led to the birth of the SCP Foundation and the Federal Bureau of Control, but Creepypasta lacks realism, which affects the agencies responsible for handling the problems.

Left 4 Dead 2: German Edition

by

In the past, the German version of 《Half-Life》 (Half-Life) was heavily censored. This included removing blood and dismemberment, changing death animations to sitting down and shaking their heads, and modifying many enemies into robots. It wasn’t until 2017, after resubmission, that Germany had uncensored DLC.

The German version of 《Left 4 Dead 2》 also suffered a lot of censorship. First of all, on the cover, the missing finger was repaired. Then there were a lot of changes in the game:

  • Zombies do not have wounds such as severed limbs, and normal attacks and explosions will quickly make the zombies transparent and disappear.
  • When attacking zombies, the splattered blood will not remain on the walls and floors.
  • When zombies are on fire, there will be no visual flame effects.

But there seems to be some compensation, players playing the German version of 《Left 4 Dead 2》 can notice additional weapons from 《Counter-Strike: Source》.

11 years after the game’s release, in 2021 Valve resubmitted it, allowing the German version of 《Left 4 Dead 2》 to have Left 4 Dead 2 – Uncensored – the uncensored DLC.

Now Germany no longer has such strict censorship of games as before, and even National Socialist (Nazi) symbols can be used, but there are still gaps compared to other censorship rules in Europe and the United States, such as in 《Dead Island 2》, after zombies become corpses, they cannot be further “interacted with” (“skinned” the corpses), and cannot play online with non-German players.

Source, available at ggame.