Fortnite 'dies' in China as developer pulls plug

BEIJING • Players in China said yesterday that they could no longer access popular survival game Fortnite as its developer Epic Games pulled the plug on a Chinese version amid an official crackdown on gaming and the tech sector.

Epic had announced two weeks ago that it would shut down the Chinese version of the game on Nov 15, noting that "Fortnite China's Beta test has reached an end" and that servers would be closed.

Yesterday, Chinese players posted their goodbyes on social media platform Weibo. A hashtag on the game was viewed 470 million times.

"Friends who have played with me, we'll meet again if fate decrees," one Weibo user wrote.

Another player surnamed Zheng, 24, told Agence France-Presse that he would "first cry for a little" over the game he had played for more than two years while at university.

The move ends a long-running test of Fortnite created for the world's biggest gaming market, where content is policed for excessive violence.

The action-packed shooter and world-building game is one of the most popular globally, boasting more than 350 million users.

Its Chinese test version was released in 2018, but Fortnite never received the government's green light to be formally launched and monetised as approvals for new games slowed.

The Chinese government has pressed forward with a broad crackdown on the technology sector over the past year, citing concerns that tech giants were getting too big and powerful.

Meanwhile, Chinese regulators have said that children were spending too much time playing online games. The authorities have targeted the huge gaming sector with new restrictions on age and playtime, while approval of new titles has slowed.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE