It's not clear how successful Fortnite was in China, but now the game is over. No one will be able to register and download the game after November 15, and the servers will be shut down.
"Fortress Night exam has ended. We will be shutting down the server soon", said Fortnite on its official blog.
Unfortunately, the company did not provide a precise reason for the game's closure. The version of Fortnite available in China is very different from the rest of the world. Matches are shorter, allowing multiple players to claim a Victory Royale as long as they stay alive.
Other mechanics were changed to make the game more casual, such as a separate health bar that suffered from a storm.
Some speculation has come rampant on social media that the shutdown has something to do with China's crackdown on online gaming. The Fortnite audience is much younger, and China really didn't want young people to play online games until the government used facial recognition to stop teens from accessing the game.
While it's unclear how many Fortnite players there are in China, the game never officially launched in the country.
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According to analyst Daniel Ahmad, Fortnite in China was in beta for more than two years and the government did not grant Tencent a license. As such, Tencent cannot monetize Fortnite with in-app transactions.
Ahmad also pointed out that battle royale games are strictly regulated in China. The original version of PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG) has no monetization function in this country.
Not desperate, then Tencent launched a more patriotic and blood-free replacement in 2019 called Game for Peace, which was given the green light by the Bamboo Curtain State regulator. This was quoted from Engadget, Tuesday, November 2.
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