This decision of the Epic Games publisher, concerning one of the most popular games in the world, intervenes on regulatory curing background in China for the digital sector.
Le Monde with AFP
The deadline has arrived: the video game Fortnite phenomenon, which brings together more than 350 million users around the world, is no longer accessible in China, have confirmed players, Monday, November 15.
The Epic Games publisher announced on October 31 that he would stop the specific version of his game in the country. “On November 15 at 11 o’clock, we will turn the waiters from the game and players [in China] will no longer be able to connect,” was written in a statement. The next day, it was impossible for the new players to register since China.
This decision has been taken while the tightening of Beijing screws in digital purposes and video games has been accelerating for a year, and especially since this summer. In August, the authorities imposed a drastic limit of three hours of video game per week at least 18 years old.
Yahoo and LinkedIn also retreat
The Chinese Giant of Digital Tencent, the second shareholder of Epic Games (also mainly held by his founder, the American Tim Sweeney), is particularly proactive in the matter, having imposed the use of the use of Facial recognition to prohibit children and teenagers playing on their smartphone or tablet in the evening.
Launched in the spring of 2018, the Chinese version of Fortnite differed by many aspects of that distributed in the rest of the world, particularly visually, to meet the requirements of the country. Similarly, the Chinese version of the game did not propose “microtransactions”, yet at the heart of the economic model of Epic Games, allowing to purchase additional content.
The Yahoo portal has also recently announced that it ceased its activities in China, because of a “more and more difficult commercial and legal environment”. For the same reasons, Microsoft’s LinkedIn Professional Social Network had also previously announced its upcoming withdrawal from China.