September 24th is an exciting day for many Chinese Star Citizen enthusiasts. They gathered in Bar Citizen, a Star Citizen fan meetup event in Chongqing, after a few delays due to rising covid cases.
However, when photos of the event were posted on the internet, they quickly circulated in the form of memes.
The Bar Citizen Chongqing was held in the Royal Hall of the Hilton Hotel. According to the video and photo of the event, most players sat neatly in rows of chairs while a player representative was acting as a host and standing in front of them. It is a common formula that usually appears in formal Government or Commercial conferences in China.
In comparison pictures, the Bar Citizen Chongqing is on the left while the right one is a shareholder conference in China.
As part of the event, the enthusiasts in Chongqing connected to the Cloud Imperium Games developer team (CIG) via Discord, which had another party in South Korea. At that moment, it showed an interesting comparison of both sides: one was a casual party where people were drinking beers and having a good time, while on the other side, everyone was sitting quietly and neatly like a UN security council meeting.
A screenshot of the event shows the event in Chongqing and the CIG team in Korea.
The event organizers had prepared an exciting opening video as well. The video shows how much players love the game and how some have found communities or meaning beyond the game itself. The video is awesome and inspiring. However, the tone of the video is similar to government-project advertisements on TV.
A screenshot of the video shows some of the lines in the video are traditionally inspiring.
One of the video creators shared their thoughts on Bilbili.com. Players wanted to show the organizational power of China’s gamer community and show a China-style “great pattern” in the video.
A photo shows a huge UEES Retribution dreadnought model in the event.
Many on the internet felt it quite funny how serious these players took themselves,
some criticized the event for being way too formal for the gamer community and further enforcing stereotypes about Chinese gaming enthusiasts.
Some screenshots of the comments show people find the tone of the event funny.
Organizers deserve credit for putting together such an elaborate event, over 200,000 CNY (~ 28,000 USD) to make this very first Bar Citizen event happen in China, including paying for the promotional video and an impressive UEES Retribution dreadnought model to be put on display. Any mishaps for an event of over 100 participants would also be troublesome during the sensitive pandemic times in Chongqing.
Star Citizen players in China do take themselves more seriously since the game is considered more “high-brow” and premium, and many players may have spent thousands of dollars on ships. It would certainly be an interesting experience in a fan convention that feels more serious than a stressful Stockholder Conference, but only those who participated themselves know if this is the type of event they wanted.
Source: Baidu Tieba