Alluding to the Chinese President, Devotion Horror Game Flooded with Negative Reviews

Devotion was flooded with negative reviews.

Politics is indeed one of the most powerful triggers of anger in any situation and condition. Especially for supporters of an organization or individual who are fanatical and loyal. Unfortunately, this game is one of the triggers.

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Devotion
Do you think it’s thursday? Kuy livestream horror game!!
Posted by Gamebrott on Wednesday, February 20, 2019

If you’ve watched our livestream, then you’re certainly no stranger to psychological horror games Devotion by Red Candle Games. The game, which is set in Taiwan, which tells of a father who wants to bring his dead son back to life, accidentally offends the President of China, Xi Jinping.

In an image that appears in the game, it reads “Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh moron” as a reference to a popular meme several years ago that compared President Xi to AA Milne’s bear character. This famous meme in 2017 suddenly made the Chinese government censor it and flatly refused the presence of the Christopher Robin film to be shown in the bamboo curtain country.

The image suddenly made Chinese players flood the game with negative reviews on Steam, making it “Mostly Negative” in one night. According to the Spiel Times report, Winnie the Pooh it’s not the only problem that makes them do it, but the image itself is a Fulu amulet that is believed to be a powerful traditional Chinese curse.

One of the newspapers that might be in the game

Another reference as reported by What’s on Weibo is a newspaper found in the game. It said that “Baozi (a Chinese-style snack which is also called an insult to President Xi Jinping) was sentenced to prison” and that he had been given a “severe sentence”. While the picture that looks blurry in the newspaper article is a picture of President Xi who until now can’t be confirmed because it might be an edit. But according to Facebook user Mrscheffera (via Spiel Times), Baozi is the nickname of Red Candle co-founder Wang Wei.

Realizing this, Red Candle Games posted an apology on Steam and said that the image was a placeholder from his team during the development of the game. They also said they had removed the image in the game. This move managed to raise its rating from Mostly Negative to Mixed, unfortunately now two game publishers in China: Indievent and Winking Skywalker have been banned from Steam China.