By AFPRelaxnews | Nov 16, 2021
Chinese users confirmed on Monday that they could no longer access the popular game amid a crackdown by authorities on titles featuring excessive violence
Chinese users confirmed on November 15, 2021 that they could no longer access the popular survival game Fortnite amid a crackdown by authorities on titles featuring excessive violence.
Image: Chris Delmas / AFP
Epic Games pulled the plug on its Chinese version of Fortnite on Monday, with its three-year effort to penetrate the world's biggest gaming market derailed by Communist Party crackdowns against online addiction and the broader tech sector.
Epic had announced two weeks ago that it would shut down the Chinese version of the game on November 15, noting that "Fortnite China's Beta test has reached an end" and that servers would be closed.
Chinese players said they could no longer access the game on Monday, posting goodbyes on social media platform Weibo. A discussion board on the game had been viewed 470 million times.
_RSS_"It's a pity," a user who gave only her surname Ding told AFP.
"I don't understand why it ended so quickly."
Another player surnamed Zheng, 24, told AFP he would "first cry for a little" over the game he had played for more than two years while at university.
The move ends a long-running test of Fortnite created for China, where content is policed for excessive violence.
The action-packed shooter and world-building game is one of the most popular in the world, boasting more than 350 million users.
Its Chinese test version was released in 2018, but "Fortnite" never received the government's green light to be formally launched and monetised as approvals for new games slowed.
The Chinese government has pressed a broad crackdown on the wider technology sector over the past year, citing concerns that tech giants were getting too big and powerful.
Saying children were spending too much time playing online games, regulators also targeted the huge gaming sector with new age and playing-time restrictions, while approval of new titles has slowed.