Amid China’s attempts to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the country has decided to crack down on Plague Inc., the popular game and pandemic simulator.
Game developer Ndemic Creations said on Thursday that Chinese authorities had ordered the product removed from the local iOS App Store. “We have some very sad news to share with our China-based players. We've just been informed that Plague Inc. ‘includes content that is illegal in China as determined by the Cyberspace Administration of China’ and has been removed from the China App Store,” the company said in an online statement.
Why China suddenly pulled the Plague Inc. remains unknown. But we suspect the country is no fan of the game’s central premise, which lets the player create a disease to wipe out humanity. To win, you have to infect every human on the planet while bypassing government attempts to prevent the disease from entering their borders.
The concept may sound morbid in light of the new coronavirus strain, COVID-19, which has claimed more than 2,700 lives. However, UK-based Ndemic Creations designed the game to be a realistic pandemic simulator to help raise awareness about real-life health issues.
“It’s not clear to us if this removal is linked to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that China is facing,” Ndemic Creations said on Thursday. “However, Plague Inc.’s educational importance has been repeatedly recognised by organizations like the CDC and we are currently working with major global health organisations to determine how we can best support their efforts to contain and control COVID-19.”
China has a reputation for censoring any content that threatens its government, so the ban isn’t exactly a surprise. However, Ndemic Creations says it’s not giving up making the title available again to Chinese gamers. “Our immediate priority is to try and make contact with the Cyberspace Administration of China to understand their concerns and work with them to find a resolution,” the company added.
The game has been popular in China, and across the globe, since its 2012 launch. But the public worries around the ongoing coronavirus outbreak has sparked a flood of renewed interest in the game. In China, Plague Inc. quickly soared to the top of the iOS app sale rankings right as the disease was starting to make headlines.
In response, Ndemic Creations has been telling gamers to avoid using Plague Inc. as a resource to understand and predict the ongoing outbreak. "Please remember that Plague Inc. is a game, not a scientific model and that the current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people,” the company said last month. “We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities.”
Whether the PC-based version of the game, Plague Inc. Evolved, is also getting banned in China remains unclear. We’ve reached out to Ndemic Creations.
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