September 19, 2019 Digital Extremes has provided a comment.
Following a spate of Warframe review bombing on Steam, primarily from Chinese players over concerns about the game’s country selection options and translation, developer Digital Extremes has responded, saying its Chinese playerbase is “very important” to it.
Digital Extremes has told PCGamesN, “our Chinese community is very important to us and we’re continuing to work with them to listen to their feedback, address their concerns, and ensure their needs are met.”
Earlier this week Digital Extremes also provided a statement addressing one of the topics behind the negative reviews on Steam on the Warframe forums (you can find a click a drop-down option for the English translation on the page). In the statement, DE says that “these decisions are made with great consideration and review” and that the studio wants its “Chinese Tenno to be heard and supported”, adding that it’s “committed to being more sensitive to player concerns, in addition to making improvements and adding polish to our localised content.”
Warframe seems to have suffered a bit of a review bombing campaign of late. Its Steam page shows a pretty significant rise in the number of ‘not recommended’ write-ups starting late last week, and while there are various different reasons bubbling up, the game’s country selection options in relation to China are a bit of a recurring theme.
As highlighted on various Reddit threads, multiple reviewers in the period starting September 13 have raised questions about the game’s apparent separation of China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan into distinct choices in its country selection options, with some suggesting that they shouldn’t be separate. Some users have suggested that the choice be changed to ‘country/region’ instead.
It’s not clear why these territories might have been divided up as options in this way, but the region is sensitive given current events in Hong Kong. Citizens there have been protesting against a bill proposed by the government which, if enacted, would allow authorities to detain and extradite fugitives to countries with which Hong Kong does not have extradition agreements, including mainland China.
Other factors reflected in some of the period’s negative reviews include the quality of the game’s Chinese translation and the recent departure of a volunteer translator from developer Digital Extremes, who has shared their account of events here on Reddit.
It looks like the number of negative reviews appearing on Warframe’s Steam page is lessening, judging by the amount posted yesterday in comparison to the days previous.