The blood and gore that’s made PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds the hottest video game of 2017 may be its undoing in the world’s largest consumer market.
The multiplayer game, where up to 100 players fight each other - like a digital version of the Hunger Games books and movies - to the last person standing, is “full of gore and violence,” and its gladiatorial survival instincts “deviate from China’s socialist core values, traditional Chinese culture and moral norms,” according to a statement by the China Audio-Video & Digital Publishing Association. “It’s not conducive to the physical and mental health of young consumers.”