由于中国冻结游戏审批导致国内游戏业受到打压，由此Steam在中国引领游戏业 [联合国媒体]

Steam forges ahead in China as domestic gaming industry squeezed by Beijing’s freeze on approvals

由于中国冻结游戏审批导致国内游戏业受到打压，由此Steam在中国引领游戏业



There are an estimated 30 million Chinese users playing games that are not approved for domestic sale via Steam

据估计有3000万中国用户在Steam上玩未经国内认证审批的游戏

Chinese developers, frustrated with Beijing’s suspension of new game approvals, have flocked to the platform as a workaround to sell their latest games

中国游戏开发商对中国政府暂停新游戏审批感到失望，因此纷纷涌向该平台希望借此机会销售他们的新游戏

China has some notable grey areas – from shadow banking to the sale of parallel goods. Now there’s another one.

中国有一些引人注目的灰色地带——从影子银行到仿冒商品销售。除此之外还有一个。



But it’s not only overseas developers such as Rockstar Games that are tapping Steam to reach Chinese gamers. Lately a raft of independent Chinese developers, frustrated with Beijing’s suspension since March of new game approvals, have flocked to the platform as a workaround to sell their latest titles in the country.

不过，不仅仅是Rockstar Games等海外游戏开发商在利用Steam平台吸引中国玩家。最近大批中国独立开发商也不断涌入这个平台，希望借此在中国销售他们的最新游戏。自今年3月新游戏暂停审批以来，大批中国游戏进入这一开发。

In fact, a number of Chinese-only indie games have beaten off big name titles in recent weeks to rank among Steam’s top-sellers. One of them is a martial arts simulation game called The Scroll of Taiwu, which has sold over 800,000 copies since its release on September 21, according to its developers. The martial arts game sells for 58 yuan (US$8.4), which means Steam, after taking a 30 per cent cut, has earned at least 13 million yuan (US$1.9 million) from it.

事实上，最近几周许多中国原创独立游戏击败了很多大牌游戏，跻身Steam畅销游戏榜。其中一款是名为“太吾绘卷”的武侠模拟游戏。据开发商介绍，自9月21日发布以来该游戏已售出80多万份。这款武侠游戏售价为58元人民币(合8.4美元)，也就是说再经过30%降价后，Steam至少赚了1300万人民币(合190万美元)。



Setting up a Steam account requires a simple email and a few clicks, but one crucial step is to select your country of residence, which is associated with what products you see in the store, the currency you see prices in, and your payment method. Steam users in China, for example, are allowed to pay via WeChat and Alipay, the country’s two most-popular mobile wallets.

建立一个Steam账户只需要一个简单的邮箱地址和几次鼠标点击，但关键一步在于选择你的居住地。这与你在商店中看到的游戏产品、你看到的游戏价格以及你的支付方式有关。例如，中国Steam用户可以通过微信和支付宝——两款中国最受欢迎的移动支付工具进行支付。

Steam only allows users to set the country of residence to their current location, which means they would have to use a VPN service to change the store to other regions.

Steam只允许用户将居住国设置为当前位置，这意味着中国玩家必须使用VPN更改其地理位置。

There are now over 30 million Chinese gamers with an active Steam account, more than double the number last year, according to estimates from Niko. As of September, about 26 per cent of total Steam users had their default language set as simplified Chinese, second only to English, according to Steam’s monthly survey.

Niko估计目前中国有超过3000万活跃Steam玩家，这一数字是去年的两倍多。Steam月度调查显示，截至9月份约26%Steam用户将默认语言设置为简体中文，人数仅次于英语。

Steam is currently an outlier among the hundreds, if not thousands, of foreign websites that are banned in China ranging from major news services such as The New York Timesto social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube. Added to the list recently was Amazon-owned game-streaming service Twitch, which gained sudden popularity in China before being blocked in late September.

从《纽约时报》等主要新闻服务到Facebook和YouTube等社交媒体平台，在中国被禁的外国网站中Steam目前是一个例外。亚马逊旗下游戏流媒体服务商Twitch最近也榜上有名。Twitch之前在中国突然走红，但在9月底被屏蔽。

What makes Steam’s under-the-radar growth such an anomaly is the shift in fortunes for China’s biggest games developers amid Beijing’s crackdown. Some popular games have been dismissed as “poison” by a government increasingly concerned about the impact of gaming on the nation’s youth.

在中国政府打压下，中国最大游戏开发商的命运发生了转变，这让Steam在之前不为人知的情况下实现了如此反常的增长。现在一些受欢迎的游戏被政府斥为“毒药”，政府也越来越关注游戏对年轻人造成的影响。



Steam’s biggest competitor in China is Tencent’s online games platform WeGame, which was launched last September and now offers about 270 titles for sale, compared to about 1,800 on Steam. In August though, WeGame pulled hit role-playing title Monster Hunter: World from its platform less than a week after launch, saying regulators had received “numerous” complaints about the game’s content.

Steam在中国最大的竞争对手是腾讯推出的在线游戏平台WeGame。该平台于去年9月推出，目前提供约270种游戏可供选择，而Steam则提供约1800种。然而在8月份WeGame在推出不到一周后就从其平台上撤下了热门角色扮演游戏《怪物猎人:世界》，称监管机构收到了对该游戏内容的“大量”投诉。

A spokesman for Tencent did not comment on Steam’s loophole in China, but said the WeGame platform “will strictly follow relevant policies, laws and regulations to put games on sale after they pass the approval process.”

腾讯发言人没有对Steam在中国的监管漏洞发表评论，但他表示WeGame平台“将严格遵守相关政策、法律和法规，在游戏通过审批程序后才会发售。”

There have been some changes at Steam too. Earlier this month Chinese Steam users reported that they no longer had access to adult-only games on the platform even though Steam recently stopped censoring such content in other regions. Steam’s discussion forum has also been blocked in China since the end of last year.

Steam也发生了一些变化。本月早些时候，中国Steam用户报告称尽管Steam最近已经停止在其他地区审查此类内容，但他们已经无法在该平台上访问成人游戏。去年年底以来，Steam论坛在中国也被屏蔽。



“I’ll have to see how bad the censorship is before deciding whether to accept it or not,” said Chen Shihuai, a 28-year-old Steam user in Shanghai, adding that he would not rule out switching to WeGame for better offerings.

28岁陈世怀(音)是上海的一名Steam玩家，他表示:“在决定是否接受审查之前，我必须看看审查有多糟糕。”他也表示为了更好游戏体验不排除将转到wegame平台玩游戏。