Players in China said their goodbyes on Fortnite as the servers shut down amidst lack of government approval of the game.
The popular battle royale game, Fortnite, has formally closed the Chinese version and its servers for the game on November 15, 2021. The decision was tough as the developers, Epic Games, tried to compromise by having a separate Fortnite Beta test, specifically for China and its gamers. This was not a surprise as Epic Games did announce the shutdown two weeks ago, but the reality is bittersweet for the players in China.
Chinese players posted on the social media platform, Weibo, their goodbyes. The hashtag of the game has been trending as of late with over 470 million views. One Weibo user said, “Friends who have played with me, we’ll meet again if fate decrees.” Then, one player with the surname, Zheng, said he would “first cry for a little” about the shutdown of the game he had played for over two years while he was attending university. Another person commented, “It’s a pity. I don’t know why it ended so quickly.” That is a great question. Why did it end so quickly?
This situation stems from the Chinese government trying to limit children playing online video games for too long and is also doing their own censoring for its people. This has caused a disruption in the technology and gaming sector for the past year as all tech and games must be approved by government regulators. Epic Games had been trying to follow the guidelines set as much as possible since the release of Fortnite in China back in 2018, but the pushback from the Chinese government quashed most of the compromises.
It is not clear if the world’s biggest gaming market will open its doors to Fortnite in the foreseeable future, but it seems like players in China will have to find a new online game to jump onto.
