Epic Video games, the developer behind Fortnite, is shutting down the battle royale in China in mid-November (by way of CNET). A translated submit on Fortnite’s web site reveals that the “take a look at” of the sport “has come to an finish.”
The submit says customers will now not be capable to enroll or obtain Fortnite beginning Monday. On November fifteenth, Epic Video games will shut down Fortnite’s servers utterly and bar customers from logging in. The discover thanks gamers for “boarding the bus” and taking part within the sport. Epic didn’t present any extra info on why it determined to shut out the sport.
Nevertheless, it might have one thing to do with China’s new gaming restriction for teenagers — as of August, kids beneath the age of 18 can solely play video video games three hours per week. State-backed media additionally referred to on-line video games as “non secular opium,” additional highlighting China’s skepticism in direction of gaming.
That is nothing new — China banned youngsters from gaming between 10PM and 8AM in 2019 and in addition restricted kids’s display time to 90 minutes on weekdays. Chinese language know-how big Tencent even launched a facial recognition system that catches youngsters gaming previous curfew. China’s new three-hour rule signifies that the nation’s restrictions are solely getting tighter.
In 2018, Epic Video games partnered with Tencent to launch Fortnite in China, however it needed to endure some heavy modification earlier than it was made extensively accessible. A Fortnite China wiki web page reveals simply how totally different the sport is from what American gamers know. For instance, Chinese language legislation prevents the depiction of skulls, altering the looks of quite a lot of skull-related beauty objects. The wiki additionally notes that gamers got prompts to go examine in the event that they performed longer than 90 minutes on weekdays.
