• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Call Of Duty Trailer Replaced Worldwide Over Tiananmen Square Footage

Evangelion Unit-01

Master Chief
The debut trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War has been blocked in China, and subsequently edited everywhere else, after featuring around one second’s worth of footage from the Communist government’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989.

When the game was first announced last week, a trailer running for 2:02 was released to the world and hosted on the official Call of Duty and Xbox YouTube pages, along with major trailer sites like IGN and Gamespot.

On August 21, however, the videos on Call of Duty and Xbox’s YouTube pages were replaced with a much shorter, 1:00 version. This isn’t an additional trailer, it’s a replacement, which we know because...the original 2:02 video we embedded in our own story is no longer working, having been marked as “private”.

Nobody really noticed the switch when it took place, but Hong Kong news site Apple Daily and the South China Morning Post point out that it was definitely noticed in China, where the original trailer was swiftly blocked (it has since been replaced with the edited version) and a lot of people recognised the Tiananmen Square footage and began commenting online.
Source: Kotaku
More at the link.

---

Essentially the two minute trailer was pulled and replaced with a one minute version because it contained one second of footage from the 1989 Tiananmen Square Incident.

Original Trailer:


New "Censored" Trailer:


It is a shame that Activision is caving to the Chinese Communist Party. The original "Know Your History" Trailer was excellent. Ironic it was "censored" given the subject matter.
 

MrS

Banned
-Release a trailer with the words "Know your history"
-Remove all/part of said trailer because it contains parts of China's history that offends them.

China is wild man and American companies who kowtow to them should be shamed. China will probably get away with inflicting coronavirus on us with no repercussions too.
 
Last edited:

Evangelion Unit-01

Master Chief
it is time to accept the reality that everyone is caving to the CCP - the tech companies, the media companies, everyone. They run the show now.
Yes, you're right-something needs to be done about the CCP. The rest of the world sits and watches-complacent and happy with the status quo. Not me-I am 100% against that. World leaders need to protect their own countries and not the interests of the CCP.
 

Holammer

Member
Treyarch just did more to the 'games are political' discussion than anything else with just a second of footage in a freakin' trailer.
Hope the "No Russian" mission equivalent in this Black Ops involves evading trigger happy PLA soldiers around Tiananmen Square as people are getting run over with tanks.
 

Javthusiast

Banned
Fuck the chinese government.

Fuck cowardly Activision.

giphy.gif
 
Last edited:

DunDunDunpachi

Patient MembeR
I do not understand the cognitive dissonance inside these companies.

Accept money and influence from a country that is going through historic population shrink while pissing off the loyal customers in your home territories.

Activision-Blizzard has been in bed with them for awhile, so this is not a surprise.
 

ToadMan

Member
Part of me wonders if they (not just acti - there’ve been other incidents) do this on purpose.

I’d already forgetten about the reveal of this and now it’s back in the news and stirring up a patriotic backlash on anti China sentiment.

Seems like good marketing don’t you think?
 

Hargate

Member
"𝙺𝙽𝙾𝚆 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙷𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚈 𝙾𝚁 𝙱𝙴 𝙳𝙾𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝚁𝙴𝙿𝙴𝙰𝚃 𝙸𝚃. 𝚅𝚎𝚛𝚍𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚔. 𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝟸𝟼. " - Video Description

Do you not see the irony here Activision?
 

Mossybrew

Member
Is not the Chinaman entitled to the COD of his BLOPS? Then you must not tarnish the honor of his Benevolent Overlords.
 
Last edited:

K1Expwy

Member
I first thought the banned clip was the Berlin Wall being destroyed (though that would technically take place at the end of the Cold War)

When I was a kid, it was trashy music videos that were censored and replaced. Jump forward to today, the target is historical footage that isn't approved by a foreign country, a country that isn't exactly on friendly terms with anyone. And unlike those controversial pop stars from yesteryear, there's hardly any rebels willing to "die on a hill" and lose it all to defend their content
 

GiJoint

Member
Absolutely cringe. But hardly surprising.

We the west have walked into this. China was walked over for years and years, they adopt strategy and the rest of the world likes that cheap manufacturing so we get them to make all our shit.

Now they’re strong and flexing.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom