There is no question over the last 10 years the quality and production level of Chinese developed games has seem to sky rocket. Many of these games even being free to play. But honestly I haven’t played a single one. For the same reasons I refused to download TikTok.

China is a well known surveillance state. I worry downloading and playing these games especially on a PC or mobile phone would just be a huge privacy risk.

Am I being to paranoid ? Are there some regulations I’m not aware of that might protect me anyway ?

I feel like I’m missing out on some really high quality visually striking games because of it

  • sobchak@programming.dev
    0·
    9 days ago

    IDK. I don’t trust Chinese (closed-source) software either. I believe TikTok does gather a ton of data (though it’s not Chinese now). On the other hand, I will likely never go to China, so there’s not much the CCP could do to me (maybe blackmail me if I was a politician or something); while the opposite is true for the US.

  • magnue@lemmy.world
    0·
    9 days ago

    I remember when tiktok was being advertised as something to fill the vine vacuum and it looked cringe as hell and just obvious spyware and I thought there’s no way anyone would install that.

    Here we are.

    Also it’s hilarious that Microsoft were finally on a winner with vine and they just scrapped it.

  • redparadise@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    9 days ago

    Um no, any propreitary game with an internet connection and privileged access to your computer can and will spy on you, your goal should be sandboxing, limiting permissions and information access and using a zero trust policy.

    What country a proprietary application is from doesn’t matter, any private company can and will spy on you for profits, be it Chinese or American, even better if the courts are corrupt and run on cash.

    The US can just as easily launch a centralized surveillance campaign, and likely does through the NSA, do not trust any proprietary application just because it’s from a “civilized” or “developed” country, they are but the same as long as they are chasing profits.

  • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 days ago

    Yes you are crazy. China doesn’t give a shit about you, if they really want your data they can just buy it from your government or one of the many corporations that are all verifiably spying on you and selling your data.

  • Aria@lemmygrad.ml
    0·
    9 days ago

    Steam used to upload your whole resolver cache to Valve (So they could sidestep things not showing up in history when you use private-browsing). And they’re mandated to share everything they have on you with the NSA. So if you’re coming at this from a “I’ll trust Steam but not Wukong” angle, then yes, you are unreasonable. If you’re coming at this from a “All these private Chinese companies have insane privacy policies and send me hundreds of cookies, I’m not trusting anyone they work with!” angle then that’s completely reasonable. Closed source software is never safe, and capitalism doesn’t reward treating your customers well.

  • RisingSwell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    0·
    9 days ago

    China isn’t going to spy on you any more than American games. Not saying they won’t, but like, you have a phone? That’s more of a privacy issue by itself than almost any game you could play.

  • redrum@lemmy.ml
    0·
    9 days ago

    Am I being to paranoid ?

    No, you are not enough paranoid if you don’t have the same or worse concerns about games developed in western countries. e.g. five eyes alliance.

    • arcterus@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      0·
      9 days ago

      I think this is true for all games that access the internet. However, it seems an especially large number of Chinese games that make it to the West require an internet connection to function. Sometimes it makes sense (multiplayer mechanics, gacha, etc.), sometimes it doesn’t at all (some relatively popular single-player RPGs with no online play require a connection just to make a save file, for example).

      This is just to say I understand people being concerned if all they see are these Chinese online-required games everywhere when they can also find some random completely offline game made in America, Europe, Japan, etc. just as easily (or even a game with an optional online mode that can be disabled without the game breaking).

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
        0·
        9 days ago

        Western games do this tol, though, even where it doesn’t make sense to. It isn’t a China specific thing, and China has less of an ability to do anything malicious with that data than your local governments and corpos.

    • Lenin's Dumbbell @lemmygrad.ml
      0·
      9 days ago

      I have a feeling this person has never considered doubting Western countries. Whether they know it or not, it’s the result of Western exceptionalism. The average Westerner believes their countries and institutions exist for good, and their enemies are inherently evil

  • unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth
    0·
    9 days ago

    Honestly, this is probably not the best instance to ask this question on. It is well known for downplaying or outright denying anything negative the Chinese government does. If I were you I would ask elsewhere if you want more nuanced answers.

  • chelly__1@lemmychan.org
    0·
    9 days ago

    Yes. They’re state-sponsored propaganda, but unless you can identify legitimate security risks, you’re just operating on “feelings.”