What just happened? Publisher Tencent has shut down the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds in China after waiting more than a year for regulators to approve a bid to monetize the title. China, as you may know, has strict laws as it relates to violence, gambling and sex in video games.
In its place, Tencent has launched an “anti terrorism-themed” game called Game for Peace. The new title, which gained monetization approval in April, is reportedly very similar to PUBG.
IHS Markit games analyst Cui Chenyu told Reuters that the two games are almost exactly the same. “The game play, the background, the graphic design and the characters, they’re almost the same,” she said.
For example, when you kill an opponent in Game for Peace, they don’t bleed out or die. Instead, they get up and wave goodbye.
Some users are reporting on Weibo that the progress they made in PUBG carried over to Game for Peace. Yet oddly enough, Tencent told Reuters that PUBG and Game for Peace are “very different genres of games.”
A spokesperson for Krafton, the parent company of PUBG developer Bluehole, told Reuters it was looking into the status of PUBG in China but declined to comment beyond that.
Lead image courtesy Fabrizio Bensch, Reuters
https://www.techspot.com/news/79998-tencent-pulls-pubg-china-replaces-patriotic-clone-game.html
