On Sunday, the company Epic Games said that in mid-November the version of the hugely popular video game Fortnite made for the Chinese market will stop working: from November 1 it is no longer possible to register or download the video game, and from November 15 the company will completely disable the servers that host the game in China. Fortnite had never been officially approved by Chinese government bodies (from which all video games marketed in the country must pass), and was introduced in 2018 thanks to a temporary agreement between Epic Games and the Chinese company Tencent. Unlike the version known in the rest of the world, it had a different name (Fortress Night) and also contained some changes in its operation: due to the restrictions imposed by China on video games, in fact, several elements were censored (such as representations of skeletons) .
Epic Games has not given explanations on the reasons for its decision, which certainly also affected commercial reasons: the lack of official approval by the government prevented “microtransactions”, that is, purchases within the game: the renewal of the collaboration between Epic Games and Tencent would therefore not have been able to generate revenues.
Recently, the Chinese government has also released new guidelines on the use of video games, which are a further obstacle in the sector: for those under the age of 18 it is now forbidden to play video games for more than three hours a week (and in any case only from 8 to 9 in the evening on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and on public holidays). For some time China, which is the second largest video game market in the world after the United States, has been trying to contain the addiction of young people to video games, which it considers a worrying problem.
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