Chinese version of ‘Fortnite’ reaches the end of the road

Beijing, Nov 2 (EFE).- Fortress Night, the Chinese version of the popular video game Fortnite, will close this month, the owners have said in a statement.

The video game was available in China for two years on the test.

Epic Games, which owns Fortnite, announced on its official Weibo account that it has stopped accepting registration of new users as of Nov.1 and that it will disconnect its servers on Nov.15.

Fortress Night, which started operations in China with local tech giant Tencent, did not explain what caused the decision to stop.

Fortnite has more than 300 million global users, Statista portal estimates.

The developers had to design a different version of the video game for the Chinese market as regulations require foreign producers to strictly comply with local laws and cultural sensitivities and establish independent servers to store the data of Chinese players.

The Chinese authorities in August limited the time players spend on the game for minors to three hours a week.

A Chinese official media outlet described video game addiction as a “spiritual opium” and “electronic drug.”

The government and state press criticism of the video game sector dates back to the beginning of the century when Chinese authorities banned the import of video game consoles due to its “negative influence” on young people. EFE

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