The Guardian

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No cults, no politics, no ghouls, how China censors the video game world.

China's video game market is the world's biggest. International developers want in on it,

but its rules on what is acceptable are growing increasingly harsh. Is it worth the compromise?

By Oliver Holmes.

Read by Jordan Erika Weber and produced by Esther Apoku-Geni.

In the years after it was founded in 1999, the Swedish video game company Paradox Interactive

quietly built a reputation for developing some of the best and most hard core strategy games on the market.

Deep, endless, complex, unyielding games is how Shams Dredani, the company's chief business

development officer, describes Paradox's offerings. Most of its biggest hits, such as the middle ages

themed Crusader Kings or Sen Goku, in which you play as a 16th century Japanese noble, will loosely

based on history. But in 2016, Paradox decided to try something a little different.

Its new game, Stelaris, was a work of sprawling science fiction set 200 years in the future.

In this virtual universe, players could explore richly detailed galaxies,

command their own fusion-powered starship fleets, and fight with extra terrestrials to expand

their space empires. Gamers could choose to play as the human race, or one of many alien species.

My personal favourite dresses in a lavish golden cape and has a head like an otters,

with soft reddish-brown fur, dark eyes and a black snout. Another type of alien is a sentient

crystal that eats rocks. The game was an instant hit, selling more than 200,000 copies in its first 24

hours. Later that year, Paradox decided to take Stelaris to China. This would mean navigating the

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