Harvard University will be preserving the controversial Taiwanese horror game Devotion as part of its library’s East Asian collection.
Developer Red Candle made the announcement on Facebook, confirming that Devotion will indeed be preserved despite being removed from Steam over its inclusion of art mocking China’s president Xi Jinping.
“For the past one year, we are sorry for making our community worried”, the studio wrote in a post. “Although the current status might not be ideal, we are still here and that nothing has changed – we are and will always develop games with the same passion.”
“It’s a tough year for many of us,” they continue, “but we will keep going, and hopefully in the future we could share more works with you all.”
Earlier this year, Devotion found itself swamped with negative reviews from Chinese players after in-game content mocking the Chinese president was spotted – a reference to the Xi Jinping Winner the Pooh meme. The game also included an Easter egg which purportedly acted as a talisman cursing everyone in mainland China.
The game’s developer has since issued an apology, saying placeholder art from the prototype was left in the game by accident.
Devotion is joined at Harvard’s Yanjing library by another game from the studio, Detention – which is still available on Steam.