PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds could be banned in China

Breakout hit PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds could face losing access to its biggest market.

Bloomberg reports that the China Audio-Video and Digital Publishing Association has declared that PUBG is “too bloody and violent” for sale in the country, “deviates from the values of socialism” and is “deemed harmful to young consumers”.

The Association reportedly consulted with the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television prior to making the announcement. SAPPRFT has previously banned things such as TV series ‘BoJack Horseman’.

To date the game has not been officially released in the country, but that has not stopped millions obtaining it privately. Indeed, Steam Spy reports that China accounts for by far the largest slice of the player base:

Just your weekly reminder on how Asia is driving PUBG to the new heights, even as US players are dropping out pic.twitter.com/MNcc0meVBB

— Steam Spy (@Steam_Spy) October 30, 2017

“This basically spells the death sentence for PUBG in China,” Pacific Epoch anaylst Benjamin Wu said. “PUBG’s main problem is that the underlying ideology clashes with what’s preached in China.

“I suspect it won’t affect Tencent too much because no one can touch survival games anymore. It doesn’t have to worry that a competitor will supersede it.”

Chinese developers have also been warned away from developing their own battle royale titles. PUBG developer Bluehole was already in talks with Chinese game giant Tencent about a publishing deal for the territory.

It was reported this morning that PUBG hit will be arriving on Xbox One on December 12th.

As it did on PC, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will launch as an Early Access title via the Xbox Game Preview program. The Xbox version will arrive with vaulting enabled – a feature that is due to hit the PUBG PC test servers this week. It will not, however, include the game’s second desert map, which is now confirmed to be hitting PC alongside the full release. It’s not yet known when the map will arrive on Xbox.

Speaking of the PC title, it has been confirmed that PUBG will leave Early Access on PC in late December.