From The Dumb Polish Donkey to Old Nin: Chinese nicknames for gaming companies
What do Chinese gamers call CD Projekt Red, Ubisoft and Nintendo?
Gamers in China regularly refer to companies like “The Dumb Polish Donkey,” “The Potato Factory,” and “GayWare,” among other names.
Of course once naming a company is in the hands of gamers, one company might wind up with a cute or affectionate nickname while another gets something more… toxic or crude.
So please do read on, but know there is some foul language here. (Nothing you seasoned gamers can’t handle.)
Here are seven distinct Chinese nicknames for gaming companies, both from home and abroad.
The Dumb Polish Donkey (CD Projekt Red)
The Dumb Polish Donkey is very popular among Chinese gamers in recent years. They gave CD Projekt Red this nickname to praise it for including an enormous amount of free, quality content in its last marquee game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
The Potato Factory (Ubisoft)
The running gag is that Ubisoft, the company behind huge franchises such Assassin’s Creed and various Tom Clancy titles like The Division, uses potatoes to power their servers.
Ca-bitch (Capcom)
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GayWare (BioWare)
As early as 2003, BioWare included a lesbian character in its blockbuster Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic. In 2014, Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition was the franchise's first exclusively gay character.
Old Nin (Nintendo)
The Penguin Factory (Tencent)
Except Ubisoft, Chinese companies are typically the only ones that get to be nicknamed "factories." Why? Well, it seems like some believe only socialist or communist countries get to take pride in their factories. China is a socialist country, so there you go.
Tencent is so large and churns out so many games that the name seems fitting, anyway. But this name has more to do with Tencent's mascot, a scarf-clad penguin. So Tencent gets to be The Penguin Factory.
The Pig Factory (NetEase)
NetEase does not have a pig mascot. But besides running China’s second largest gaming business after Tencent, the company also owns pig farms because its founder, Ding Lei, loves agriculture.
So NetEase is the The Pig Factory, and the name seems tragically fitting.
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