Xi Jinping, the paramount leader of China, has been parodied in a game to an extent, which then disappeared from Steam, and now, the dev team has had an impact on the publisher, too…

Previously, we wrote about how Xi Jinping was called Winnie the Pooh in a game called Devotion. The censors don’t like this nickname, and despite the devs saying it was just a placeholder artwork and that it wasn’t planned to be in the game, it got a lot of negative reviews on Steam before it got pulled altogether.

PCGamesN reports that the Chinese Communist Party did not leave a stone unturned after Red Candle Games‘ move. The site reports that the Shanghai city government has revoked the business license of Indievent, the Chinese publisher of Devotion. The reasoning is that Indievent broke „relevant” laws, but we all know that it’s a smokescreen and nothing more.

Winking Entertainment, a Taiwan-based publisher, was responsible for the publishing outside China, but they too have broken all ties with Red Candle Games. Ian Garner, the co-founder of Another Indie (another publisher), said that the gaming industry in Taiwan is heavily funded by China, and thus, pressure can’t be easily avoided. Indievent was quickly shot down as a Chinese publisher, and Winking also left Red Candle Games because of this connection. The devs are now working on making Devotion resurface on Steam.

Meanwhile, Detention, the team’s first game, is going to get a film adaptation, which means the team is alive and kicking, but they are now in a tough situation: unless they find a Western publisher, or make a game that is appealing to the Chinese Communist Party (you may never know…), they might not have another chance.

Source: PCGamer