China Blocks 'Player Unknown's Battlegrounds' For Lacking Core Socialist Values
"Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" is now banned from China after its content watchdog deemed it was lacking the country's "socialist core values." The massively popular shooter has sold over 13 million copies since its release earlier this year with huge chunk of that coming from China.
The video-game office of the official China Audio-Video Copyright Association published a notice stating that the game contains too much blood and gore, and thus will be unlikely to get a license to officially launch in China. The office also cited consultations with the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television the country's main content regulator.
According to the copyright association, "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" and many similar games have much in common with ancient Rome's gladiator battles. They claim that the violently competitive spirit behind them is "against the country's core socialist values" and the Chinese nation's traditional cultural behaviors and moral principles. This in turn makes them bad for Chinese teenagers' physical and mental health hence the reason for the ban.
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Chinese censorship laws have been one of the major obstacles developers and publishers have to contend with in order to tap the massive gaming market in the country. While some games are able to adapt such as "Dota 2" creating a so-called "low-violence" version of their game, most are often swatted down by the draconian censorship laws.
"Player Unknown's Battlegrounds" currently has no local publisher in China despite being home to 5 million of its players. According to Bluehole co-founder Chang Byung-gyu, Chinese tech giant Tencent had contacted it in relation to a partnership, and offered to buy a stake in the Korean developer. So far however, neither Bluehole nor Tencent have issued a statement regarding a deal.
Tencent already has plans to launch a platform to compete with Steam in China given that the Valve-owned digital distribution platform is currently operating in a legal grey area. Many games on Steam are currently unavailable elsewhere in China and should the government decide to block the platform itself, these games will have nowhere else to go in order to access the massive Chinese market.
