Rumors are spreading suggesting that China’s recently established Online Ethics Review Committee has recommended bans on nine popular games – mainly battle royale titles – for failing to pass “social and ethical rules”.
The games include Fortnite, PUBG, H1Z1, Ring of Elysium and Paladins, all of which were ruled as prohibited or withdrawn because of “blood and gore” and “vulgar content.”
Other popular games, including Riot’s League of Legends and Activision Blizzard titles such as Overwatch, Diablo and World of Warcraft, were not prohibited, but instead are recommended to have “corrective action.”
This rumor – and for now it is certainly only a rumor – seems to have been sparked by a post on Chinese gaming forum NGA, and was then translated to English in a Reddit thread which garnered a lot of attention.
The leaked list of games, which you can find below, was translated from this table – but as one Reddit user points out, this could have been put together by the original user and then simply claimed as a legitimate leak.
There are also some arguably odd rulings, considering Overwatch character models like Widowmaker show cleavage (which is not even allowed on Chinese television) – but Overwatch is not prohibited, while Fortnite is. The Epic Games title also features no blood, so why ‘blood and gore’ is given as the reason for its ban is unclear.
| Game | Cause | Recommended Action |
|---|---|---|
| Arena of Valor (Tencent) | Overly revealing female characters, rewards given based on rank, distorted concepts of history and culture. | Corrective action |
| League of Legends (Riot) | Overly revealing female characters, rewards given based on rank, inharmonious chatroom. | Corrective action |
| Blade & Soul (NCSOFT) | Overly revealing female characters, inharmonious chatroom. | Corrective action |
| Chu Liu Xiang (NetEase) | Overly revealing female characters, inharmonious chatroom, game missions include fraud. | Corrective action |
| Overwatch (Blizzard) | Game visuals promote incorrect values, inharmonious chatroom. | Corrective action |
| Diablo (Blizzard) | Inharmonious chat, game missions include fraud. | Corrective action |
| World of Warcraft (Blizzard) | Overly revealing female characters, inharmonious chatroom. | Corrective action |
| Westward Journey (NetEase) | Overly revealing female characters,… |
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