‘Devotion’ and the real horrors of censorship in China and beyond

Devotion is a great game from a promising young studio. It came out back in February, and there’s a chance you’ll never get to play it.

The narrative horror game disappeared from Steam just a week after release under a cloud of controversy. A piece of art portraying Chinese president Xi Jinping in an unflattering light had made its way into the game, riffing on a Winnie the Pooh meme that had been banned in China.

Red Candle, the studio, which is based in Taiwan, had been completely silent since posting an explanation and apology on Feb. 25, but on July 15 they finally offered the general public a sense of what might be next for Devotion. It’s not great news.

According to the letter, posted on Twitter, the co-founders “have reached a unanimous decision to not re-release Devotion in the near term, including but not limited to obtaining profit from sales, revision, IP authorization, etc.” The reason, the letter goes on to explain, is “to prevent unnecessary misconception.”

While the letter doesn’t outright state what kind of misconception Devotion‘s continued absence is meant to prevent, a couple of later paragraphs offer some context.

We made a critical and unprofessional error during the game’s production. It saddens us that the focus of the game has shifted drastically since the erroneous art asset was found. A revision patch was implemented immediately as we have absolutely no intent to stage a publicity stunt.

However, in the aftermath of the incident, some still possess different speculations about Devotion. As regretful as the incident was, we have to bear its full consequence. We hope for a second chance in the near future. A chance to prove that, both Red Candle and its partner simply wanted to create a great game and no one wished for such incident to occur. 

It’s important to remember the “critical and unprofessional error” here is a small, easily missed piece of in-game background art that has little bearing on the story. But because it draws what’s been deemed by the Chinese government as an unlawful comparison between Winnie the Pooh and President Jinping — ponder the absurdity of that statement — it brought the operations of an entire business to a halt.

That’s not all. The “partner” referred to in the letter is Devotion‘s China-based publisher, Indievent. The company had its business license revoked at the end of May (h/t PCGamesN). And as Chinese journalist Khee Hoon Chan noted on Twitter, the reason for the revocation was very specific.

Indievent apparently had the opportunity to defend itself and offer a formal explanation for what happened, but opted against doing so. It’s a chilling thought, especially when considered in the bigger picture of game development and publishing in China.

A recent article from Chan on Rock Paper Shotgun describes an environment in which it makes more sense for some Asian studios and publishers to not even bother trying to release something in China. Steam is an appealing alternative; it’s illegal there, but many have access.

Others have learned to embrace self-censorship, making it a business directive to avoid certain topics and content they know to be problematic. After all, an industry that toes the line can avoid a repeat of what happened in 2018, when the government stopped approving game licenses for nine straight months, from March through December.

As far as Devotion goes, it could be radioactive after what happened in February. One of the publishers interviewed in Chan’s story describes how picking up a game like that after all the controversy could lead to backlash against other games in the publisher’s library. 

It’s easy to look at a situation like this from a distance and assign blanket blame to “government censorship,” but you have to remember that governments are held up by people. As U.S. residents have learned quite well over the past five years, the internet and social media specifically is a potent force for spreading all types — and tones — of messages.

The Devotion controversy first kicked up because players discovered the offending poster, which spurred right-wing Chinese nationalists into action. A review-bombing of the game followed on Steam, along with a similar action taken against Red Candle’s other game, Detention.

It’s hard to predict what would have happened without that flurry of activity, but even attempting to do so erroneously suggests there was a scenario where this played out differently. In this era of extremely online games and game players, there’s no question that someone would have spotted the poster before long. There’s also no question that, given the controversy surrounding the Winnie the Pooh meme, a forceful response from those aligned with President Jinping was inevitable.

That sense of inevitability is what’s so terrifying. Devotion was all but doomed from the moment it went live on Steam with a nugget of political humor tucked into its background art. I can’t think of a more apt horror story for our modern world.