No matter how critical the situation, there will always be an opportunity for the current politics to make fools of themselves. The most recent example takes us to China, which is currently dealing with the impact of the COVID-19 coronavirus. In the midst of that chaos, the game Plague Inc. became the number one on the local App Store, registering an impressive demand from the public. However, the China's Cyber Administration spontaneously determined that Plague Inc. contains “illegal content” and ordered its immediate removal from the App Store.
A Recurring Pattern
From a certain point of view, it's not that strange. Every time a new epidemic emerges, Plague Inc. shows a sales spike. That's exactly what happened during the impressive Ebola outbreak between 2013 and 2016, and as expected, its popularity skyrocketed with the appearance of COVID-19. Through a brief statement (which we must highlight as an act of responsibility), the British developer Ndemic Creations reminded users that beyond its initial realism, Plague Inc. is just a game, not a scientific model. Everything seemed fine, until...
… China delivered the hammer blow. In a move that surprised a good part of the web, China's Cyber Administration ordered the removal of Plague Inc. from the local App Store. The authorities only explained their decision by saying that the app contains “illegal content” in the territory, without giving further details. The developer announced that they will try to get in contact with the Administration and work to bring the game back to the Chinese market, but being a small company based in the UK, “the odds are against them.”
So... why now? The logical thing at a “censorship level” would be to ban games and apps before they cross a certain popularity threshold, but Plague Inc. already exploded. Some users began to analyze this action, and the best hypothesis suggests that the removal order is linked to a recent update that includes “fake news” as a scenario. The fact that other similar games remain online (including those created by state-owned companies) supports this hypothesis, but that update was not supposed to be distributed in China, and its Steam date is from December 2019. Something else is happening here.
All that Ndemic Creations can do is keep negotiating and attend to its other users around the world. To finish, it's worth remembering that Plague Inc. is free with ads on the Play Store, costs a dollar on the App Store, and the Evolved version for PC (with multiplayer and scenario editor) costs 15 euros on Steam. Otherwise, you can always play the classic Pandemic II online (you'll need to activate Flash). Official announcement: click here.
