Growing up in China, playing pirated games on a hacked console was a common practice among Chinese gamers. Therefore, game mods were popular. It was a complicated topic, and there were many reasons for such phenomena. However, to paint a basic picture of the development of the Chinese game industry and market, I’ll simplify the number of factors down to three.
First, video games were treated as something poisonous for children. “Electronic heroin” was the most popular term to describe video games when I was little. The rhetoric, such as “video games were addictive, so they caused behavioral deviation, and damaged mental health,” was adopted and promoted by mainstream media. Second, since the video game industry was not supported by the government, the copyrights were never fully protected by the laws. The consoles had been banned for more than a decade. The whole market basically went underground. They were restrictions but no regulations. Players played either smuggled games or pirated games. Third, video games were too expensive. Not only were the smuggled consoles and games too costly for the income level of a Chinese family, but the general misconception of “games should also be free“ was cultivated by long term rampant piracy. Therefore, in general, the video game industry and market in China was malformed and chaotic. However, it did create a dynamic environment for game mods and a unique game subculture that was different from major markets, such as Europe, North America, and Japan.
One of the most popular game mods that Chinese players/amateur game developers liked to do was to hack games and translate them into Chinese. The translation may not change much on game mechanics, but as Anne-Marie Schleiner’s parasitism claims, modders have to infiltrate the game system to be able to do so (36). Chinese, as the second most spoken language globally and the most spoken language for native speakers, has been only supported to a small extent by game developers and publishers for roughly the last ten years. For example, Nintendo Switch was the first Nintendo console that offered a Chinese OS (excepting a failed attempt to release an exclusive Chinese version of a DS). Even today, major titles rarely have a Chinese version. Therefore, Chinese gamers suffered from the language barrier. Many Chinese gamers like myself, grew up playing these hacked and translated versions. There was a business chain in the Greater China region: Modders hacked game ROMs, and translated them, and sold them to manufacturers who made physical copies that ran on hacked consoles and sold them to players.
One of my all-time favorite games is Pokemon. The series has had a Chinese version since Pokemon Blue and Pokemon Red, which were game mods. The translation for these two versions was haphazard and did not display well in the game. Ironically, as the game became a huge hit, within the circle of Chinese Pokemon fans there were slang and jokes based on the poor translation and malfunctioning display of these two versions. For example, Dragonite was “Fat big”. The skill Megapunch was “Trillion Hit.” Since the game series emphasized the collecting process, it offered many interesting collecting methods, such as special online events online and link trade. However, Chinese Pokemon fans were never able to use official channels or meet other Pokemon players on a regular basis to collect all the Pokemons. Therefore the game mods in which a player could encounter all Pokemon in the wild area were really popular.
The Let’s play video I chose for this journal is a game mod for Pokemon FireRed, the 386 version released on GBA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RGftKHh4dA
The game was hacked and translated into Chinese, and players could catch all the Pokemons in the wild areas in the game. For the translation mod part, it was noticeable that the quality of the game mod had improved so much. The text fit the text holder really well. The font was similar to the original font used for the Japanese version. The quality of the translation was accurate. In fact, many official Chinese translations of the Pokemon names were adopted from these unofficial Chinese versions. For the legendary Pokemons that players could not encounter in the original game, the game mod did not simply give them directly to the players. Instead, they were arranged in the area that fit their characteristics. Entei was in the fire tower. Suicune was in the water area and required a fishing pole. Raikou was in the power plant. The last legendary Pokemon Jirachi was never able to be caught in the original version. These modifications in the game were thoughtfully implemented. They did not ruin but rather enhanced, the gameplay in the original game.
Work Cited
Schleiner, Anne-Marie. The Player’s Power to Change the Game. Amsterdam University Press, 2017.