Tencent Replaced ‘PUBG’ With Government-Approved ‘Game For Peace’ in China

By Rebecca Davis

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Chinese tech giant Tencent, the world’s largest gaming company, said Wednesday that it shuttered its test version of “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” (PUBG) in China, encouraging players to turn to a similar but government-approved game with patriotic overtones instead.

The company had waited for more than a year for regulators to approve its ability to generate revenue from in-app purchases in the blockbuster game.  But it said on its official social media account Wednesday that its “testing” of had finished and it had taken the game offline – implying that its approvals had not gone through.

The hashtag “PUBG is gone” has since gone viral with more than 300 million views and 90,000 posts. The game had first been introduced last February and quickly became the most popular in with about 70 million daily active users, though remained unable to make money off it.

In the same post announcing the pull, Tencent announced that it had launched a new anti-terrorism game referencing the Chinese air force called “Game for Peace,” which was approved for monetization by regulators last month. Analysts told Reuters that they predicted it could bring in RMB8 billion to RMB10 billion ($1.18-$1.48 billion) in annual revenues.

The game appears to be suspiciously similar to “PUBG,” with similar design, characters and game play. Some formerly avid “PUBG” players on Chinese social media said that when they booted up the new Communist Party-approved game, they found themselves at a similar level to where they left off in the now defunct program.

“I’m going to die of laughter,” said one Weibo user, translated by Reuters . “When you shoot people, they don’t bleed, and the dead get up and wave goodbye!”