Why a Call of Duty game is back in the line of fire for China’s censors
Internet cafes ordered to stop customers playing anything deemed ‘hostile’ to China, with US shooter singled out for special criticism
An American video game that allows players to bomb Tiananmen Square has become the focal point of the latest Chinese crackdown on “harmful” material, according to a news website report.
Although Call of Duty Black Ops II was first released in 2012, officials in the eastern province of Jiangxi singled it out in a recent crackdown that ordered internet cafes to stop their customers playing banned games.
A short sequence in the game’s alternative reality, in which a character recalls a fictional Second World War bombing raid in the heart of the Chinese capital, appears to have particularly angered the censors.
A long list of games were banned for being “harmful and deviating from socialist core values, traditional Chinese culture and moral norms”, provincial news portal jxnews.com.cn reported on Wednesday.
Another game that fell foul of the censors was a locally produced one, Red Alert 2: Glory of the Republic, which allows players to fight against the People’s Liberation Army.
