Why is Pokemon Go banned in China? Here is the official response.
Last month, rumors on social networks said the record-breaking app — Pokemon Go — would come to China in 2017. Pokemon Go breaks several records like downloads, in-app-purchase, and DAU, in anyway this is the must-have app for Chinese users. But bad news comes this week, China SARFT (The State Administration of Radio Film and Television) responds to this rumors saying temporally not accept Governmental Approval Application of Pokemon Go like games.
Officials said, “in respect to National security and public safety, the department in charge are currently coordinating with the relative national department to assess game security. Once they have a conclusion, they will report to the public. So at this period, SARFT do not accept Approval Application of Pokemon Go like games, and we suggest Chinese mobile game companies should cautiously concern about developing, importing and operating this kind of games.”
That means, from national security level, Pokemon Go is banned in China.
Insider of SARFT told to Media, saying ”the approval of one type of game is not decided by one single department, it also involves other security-related departments.”
Is the red packet banned too?
Red packet, the lucky money Chinese wants during the coming Spring Festival, is integrated into Alipay and QQ, two mostly used apps in China. In 2016, Alipay and QQ both introduced the AR Red Packet games to entertain their users.
You will find these two apps are using Pokemon Go’s trick. Open the app, and locate yourself on a map, show you some hints where you will find something good, and you go for it. But officials said to Media, Red Packet is just a simple function of an app, it is used for offline activities, which is not in the range of Approval.
Insider told Southern Weekly, “Those LBS games are quite sensitive to the government. One is for the public safety, and another is for the national security.” Currently, only 12 companies in China has the qualification of map plotting, and the Yahoo! map that Pokemon Go used is not on the list.
The another LBS game, the Ingress, developed by Google, also has faced this problem around the world. As the Ingress launched around the world, people used this app to enter the prohibited military zone to fight with other players. I think this is what Chinese government worried about.
Industry professional said, “LBS game is actually allowed in China, but LBS+AR which is suspected of map plotting is banned. ”
