Warframe, the popular online game, has recently come under a review bombing campaign from Chinese players after a volunteer localizer was terminated for leaking development information to the Chinese community and mistreating relations with development staff. This sparked a backlash that escalated upon the discovery Taiwan and Hong Kong were labeled as countries instead of provinces or regions within Warframe.
USGamer reports on how the entire saga started back on September 13th when volunteer localizer going by the name Ji was terminated from the volunteer program for multiple repeated violations. Digital Extremes released the following statement on the matter.
“We do not remove people from our volunteer programs lightly, and such removals are made after great consideration. Our volunteers are provided with a list of program guidelines and a (recently-added) volunteer agreement that allow us to share unreleased information with them-sometimes a violation of these guidelines occurs, which prompts us to remind Tenno of them.”
US gamer would go on to report that Digital Extremes explained multiple violations are grounds for removal from the Volunteer Program. All around it sounds like given the connections these people have with the community Digital Extremes doesn’t like to lay them off unless they absolutely have to. Ji’s termination sparked anger inside the Chinese community that escalated after a user discovered Taiwan and Hong Kong were labeled as countries instead of provinces of China.
It appears the Chinese gaming community is a bit ignorant of their history. The Republic of China as a nation has not existed for thousands of years nor can they claim historic claims to Hong Kong or Taiwan. The Chinese people have historically been a set of multiple nations occasionally conquered and ruled by a dynastic power.
Though if the Chinese review bombers are going to make this historic claim then I’m sure they’re going to want to restore the Chinese Royal Family to their rightful seat of power instead of the Communist Regime they live under. Something tells me this will not be happening if they value their lives or social credit scores.
In the end it is worth noting that while the review bombing campaign has been going on, not a single main stream journalist site has picked up on this story. Despite their vocal opposition to review bombings by toxic gamers™ they have remained remarkably silent in the wake of yet another Chinese conducted review bombing campaign. Take away from that what you will.
(Thanks for the news tip Yaruguma Sou)
