Second Galaxy is one of those games where you just don’t know where to begin. Developed originally as an EVE clone for mobile devices by Chinese developer Zilong Game Limited who is owned by Beijing Ziyu Technology Co., with both companies being headquartered in Beijing, it received a release on Steam on September 11th, 2019. Since its release the game has been steeped in essentially every controversy imaginable short of a sex scandal.
Getting the mundane out of the way support is as nonexistent as its keyboard support. Being a rough port everything is done through mouse clicks with virtually no keyboard support. For a space simulator that leaves a lot of tedium in having to click for everything from ship speed to collection to inventory management with no ability to rapidly open screens with a press of a key. To make matters worse reviews indicate there is almost no tutorial to help learn how to play the game.
On top of the game’s poor transition to the PC it is outright pay to win. Routinely if you want to compete you will have to purchase in game packs in order to stay competitive. Knowing this, many people who previously played it on mobile opted to then buy the game again on PC having learned virtually nothing the first time around.
This would come to haunt them as three major incidents would occur during the time the game was up. The first was the discovery that the game spies on you at all times. Everything you say is monitored by the game which then will banned you for saying words the game deems inappropriate. An issue that wouldn’t be so much a problem if there was an actual list of words to not say and it was only restricting their use in public discourse.
Next the game had a sudden influx of Chinese and Russian players who immediately overran the map, isolating players of neither affiliation to only a few “corners of the map.” Where they soon found themselves under constant invasion from the Chinese players in ships that required months of time spent in game.
Needless to say players quickly accused them of cheating and the developer didn’t care. Despite hundreds of players utilizing the cheat only about 30 were banned for it; permitting the remainder of the cheaters to rampage through the galaxy unchecked.
Then came the censorship of the Hong Kong players. Though I will not argue that they were entirely innocent as one review paints them, they were very much unjustly banned.
PSA: English is not my native language. If you don’t understand. Please feel free to ask and I will try my best to explain for you.
We are coming from HongKonger (HKer), one of the guild of the Alliance that mostly formed by Hong Kong players.
The below list are the Guilds that Alliance was originally included:
HongKonger (HKer)
HK Glory (HKG)
HKFREEARMY (HKFA)
Free HK (FHK)
FEHK (HKE)
HK Legend (HKS)
HK Freedom (F4F)There’re total over 1000 players were the members of the Alliance.
Around GMT+8 9:30pm, all of the members noticed that their own guild-masters was being hacked.
Some of the GM were attempted to login their account but the below picture popped up:
https://i.imgur.com/sTEV6VC.jpg
In English, that’s mean “You account has been [Mandated]. Unable to login.”
Is that funny that someone would “Mandated” your account but not the owner?Around GMT+8 10:15pm, those “Mandated” guild-masters started kicking ALL members of their own guilds.
And of course, their account were still unable to login again after this.
https://i.imgur.com/Qo8PVlM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/eYemIKR.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ckfvqix.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/M3lNWBJ.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/P6RmOVK.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/aqK8jHm.jpg
We even noticed some other Hong Kong guilds were sharing the same FATE even they are not in our Alliance.
These guilds were also included the words either “Hong Kong” or “HK” in their guild name.
Not long after, Announment has been made by official account from the famous forum in China which called “Tieba” in their subforum.
Here is the rough translation of that.
https://i.imgur.com/MEohQo9.jpg
Hello Commander,
If the council noticed anyone that might “damage” the authority of the Nation(China). Please report and we would handle it.
The council would not allow anything that go against with the laws of China.
So, you might ask, what does the Alliance did that making the company go against HK players in this way?
NOTHING
We were not insulting China or Chinese players while in the game.
We were not making any noise about the protests of Hong Kong.
We were not arguing with other Chinese players in poor manners.
And no way for all the members of the Alliance violence the rules in this scale.
We were simply just wanna play a game that look like a EVE ripoff, as a Hong Kong people.
Unfortunately, it is not allowed.
We had refunded all the money we spent on this game.
We hope you think twice before spending anymore Time or Money by telling the fate of our Alliance.
Thank you for your attention.
When I say they weren’t completely innocent I refer to how they understood exactly what they were doing. Certainly few people could argue against the notion of a collective destiny and identity regardless of what part of the political spectrum you hail from. That isn’t so much the problem as forming an alliance with Hong Kong names on full display when you are well aware the Chinese government does not want the issue to receive any attention.
This is a wonderful example of passive resistance, but to pretend it is something else is disingenuous. As for why these guilds were persecuted it is important to remember where the developer is based. The Chinese Government had demonstrated a full willingness to shut down development studios that don’t comply with the party line.
Having a massive alliance showing pro Hong Kong sentiment on full display in the game is a good way to make the regulators crack down on your company in China. For this same reason you have companies like the NBA sell out American values and Blizzard promise to protect the pride of China.
Naturally the reviewer isn’t lying, but he is omitting how the Chinese Government views the propagation of the Hong Kong identity as separate from the Chinese as an offense. How Chinese nationalists will become rabid and attack those who dare suggest Hong Kong has its own identity separate from China.
Through if you want to utter Free Hong Kong you can’t, as those words are on the censorship list for this game along with “Have,” “making” and “raids.” There is no denying speech is being censored to appease the Chinese Government.
Which beggers the point of when are we going to start holding consumers responsible for whom they purchase their games from? Certainly if a company 180s or suddenly pulls a stunt consumers lacking clairvoyance couldn’t foresee it happening, but when you do business with a free-to-play Chinese mobile port you should really have a good idea of what you’re getting into.
(Thanks for the tip Ebicentre)
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