April 25, 2021, the first infringement case in China of illegally distributing games in selling Steam accounts was solved.

In Jinhua City, Zhejiang Province, several young people were arrested. These young people simultaneously operated several stores in multiple well-known e-commerce platforms to sell infringing game replicas, sold for as low as 0.98 yuan. At the same time, the price on Steam ranged from several tens to hundreds of dollars.

Cracking and pirating are very common in Chinese gaming communities. Even though the law prohibits game infringement, but the demand for cracked games is still strong.

Game Piracy in China

Game cracking is usually a way for hackers in Western countries to show off their skills. Unless they are doing it for commercial purposes, infringing on intellectual property rights, or providing pirated software, hacking is not prosecuted or denounced but rather seen as a brave act that dares to challenge the big companies. 

Classic examples include Razor1911, which cracked GTA4, Crysis, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim; and RELOADED, which cracked Assassin's Creed, and Ubisoft even used RELOADED's crack files to fix Rainbow Six: Vegas 2.

On the other hand, due to the lack of purchasing power in the Chinese gaming market in the early days, overseas manufacturers barely had the habit of producing simplified Chinese versions for Chinese players. Therefore, most cracking work in China was carried out by game enthusiasts who transported foreign resources. In addition, they were also responsible for the Chinese localization of the games.

The earliest Internet spirit in China was "sharing": whether it was music, movies, comics, novels, or games, all cultural consumer goods were posted to the cyberspace by folk sharers, and out of common love, these sharers would also participate in the process of localization and even secondary creation.

However, this kind of free porters also indirectly breeds game piracy businesses. Back in the early days, the total cost of pirated game CDs was only about 1.5 yuan, and the selling price of 5 yuan was enough to bring huge profit margins. The game software itself was all from shared resources on the Internet.

"Sharing" turns into " Pirating"

On November 6, 2014, the Beijing Intellectual Property Court was established, which suddenly swept the game cracking industry.

Meanwhile, after a long period of unremitting efforts by Chinese game cracking teams, the demand and purchasing power of Chinese gamers have been seen by foreign vendors.

In 2014, Chinese players collectively petitioned Nintendo to launch an official Chinese version, and Nintendo responded positively for the first time and promised to put it on the agenda. In addition, Sony also began to take the initiative to promote its PS4 into the Chinese market, and the game distribution platform Steam also launched its China zone to provide Chinese players with convenient and authentic game purchase services.

The once unreachable licensed games suddenly came to Chinese players like a tidal wave. The attitude of gamers was changing — kids who could only afford to buy pirated games or free downloadable cracks grew up and realized the necessity of paying for games. As their income increased, many of them also had the purchasing power to pay for their hobbies.

When the call for supporting the original has become the mainstream of the Internet environment, those who release resources with great fanfare have naturally become the target of siege.

Awareness of Intellectual Property Rights

Nowadays, platforms must pay royalties for purchasing songs, games, and videos, and users need to pay the cost naturally. However, many Chinese Internet users have become accustomed to solving their spiritual needs by searching online resources, so the demand for cracked games remains strong.

There is a peculiar phenomenon in the Chinese gaming industry. It is not that pirate gamers never spend money for games; in fact, they may pay a lot of money in free mobile and online games but are not willing to pay for a single game at once.

The key behind this phenomenon is that the habit of paying for intellectual property and services has not been fully developed in China. There is still a long way to go to establish the awareness of intellectual property rights for citizens.

cr: https://store.steampowered.com/