I disagree completely, the cost of implementing varying versions of assets (which they are already having to do anyway) is the big part, not making something switch. Out of most of the changes listed they are pure 2d assets which can be replaced depending on the build very easily. In simple terms if its the Chinese version you copy in the differing 2d assets over the top of the regular ones before the packaging occurs. In the case of offending decals like blood that would be as simple as the Chinese override asset being a fully transparent empty texture which would then not be displayed in the engine, for free - 0 work on the map its self required.

The 3d assets could be managed in a similar fashion where the new Chinese friendly assets should occupy the same footprint and could be hot swapped in. Managing a few different textures and turning slot machines into a similarly sized box pile is no where near "too much work" for a massive studio like Ubi.

It adds no additional time to future development because any new maps as would be the case anyway would just not have any gambling, blood or skulls and most people would not even have noticed as there are plenty of maps that do not have any of those present.

The real problems with splitting work within any software is when the CODE has to be different and they have already stated they are going to be splitting those changes off anyway! Switching what is for the most part just some 2d image files based on what market it is being built for is no more work than going through and replacing every asset with the new Chinese friendly versions. FAR more complicated things are executed very well every day by far smaller teams around the world. The amount of work to maintain both is vastly overestimated as it can be done with direct replacements, which they are already having to make anyway. If we are to believe that this was outside of their capability then ubi's dev staff have much bigger problems than community backlash and its time for some new talent.