Of Copyrights and china

So china is world renowned for stealing ideas.  Their entire economy is based upon rehashed ideas, stolen from their Western counterparts.  For the most part, this works perfectly.  Zero research and development costs, expertise garnered through hard work and backwards engineering - coupled with the absolute poverty and low wages of the working class.  This is the capitalists dream.

To be honest I don't really care how china makes its fortune, it will do things no worse than what England did in the past or america is doing now; that was the case until now, however.

One of the things that ensures the chinese economy continues to burn, is the black hole effect.  China invests in external companies, while drawing the profits back into china.  Once money wanders over the chinese border, it will never be seen again.  In this way, china is growing nice and fat, along the same model as america.

Again, before today I could have cared less.

Now, however, with china being the largest PC using country in the world (that is to say there are more PC's in china than anywhere else in the world) and a large portion of those PC's used for playing games, I was irked to see this video.  It is a crass copy of Team Fortress 2, a game that's been out for ages in the West.

The point being, this game is banned in china.  The chinese then make a half-assed copy, add some mandarin, and it's good to go.  The revenues generated by this game stay within china, and don't make it across the sea to the american developer of the original title.

Why does this irk me so?  I don't care about profits, revenues or legalities - I do care about human rights however.  Why should chinese gamers have to play a sub-par, toned down, washed out copy of a classic game.  I have previously managed to get my hands on some chinese clones (one of age of empires, one of counterstrike) and they were abusive pieces of software.  They were the gaming equivalent of jumping testicle first onto railings.  That an entire generation of chinese kids think that playing games amounts to this, is a travesty.

In fact, I'm thinking of starting a charity (called travesty international) to promote awareness of this issue.  China, please drag games into the 21st century - start by basing your mechanics on games that aren't ten years old.

P.S  Kudos to Microsoft Game Studios for making a trailer for a war game, without using blood.  Skip to 45 seconds.

P.P.S  For a comparison to the chinese game linked above, check out the real deal here.  Notice how the player model is identical?  Even the helmet over the eyes.