Gamers in Taiwan cut off from Chinese game over controversial Covid-19 term
JX3 is a martial arts MMORPG, but gamers in China and Taiwan are fighting in chatrooms over the term “Wuhan virus”
A popular martial arts game turned into a battleground of words over the weekend, resulting in the Chinese developer cutting off players in Taiwan in a dispute over free speech.
Problems between Chinese developer Seasun Games and Taiwanese partner Wanin started when gamers in Taiwan talked about the “Wuhan virus” in a chatroom for the game JX Online 3. The term is considered insensitive to Covid-19 victims in the city that was at the epicenter of the outbreak.
JX3 is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) akin to World Of Warcraft. It has 3.3 million daily active users in East Asia, according to Seasun. Of those, Wanin was handling 1.5 million accounts. But that ended on Sunday when Seasun broke off its cooperation with Wanin.
Although the commemoration didn’t take place in Taiwan, JX3 was still still shut down for three hours, with the game citing site maintenance. This apparently didn’t sit well with some Taiwanese players who used the game’s chatroom to discuss Covid-19.