Plague Inc., the real-time strategy sim about pandemics, has been abruptly removed from the Chinese App Store – and it’s still unclear as to why.
In a blog post, developer Ndemic Creations said it had been informed that Plague Inc. “includes content that is illegal in China as determined by the Cyberspace Administration of China”, although no further explanation was given to say exactly what was considered illegal.
“This situation is completely out of our control,” Ndemic Creations wrote. “It’s not clear to us if this removal is linked to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that China is facing. However, Plague Inc.’s educational importance has been repeatedly recognised by organisations like the CDC and we are currently working with major global health organisations to determine how we can best support their efforts to contain and control COVID-19.”
In the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, Plague Inc. recently experienced a huge spike in popularity in China, topping paid iOS game charts and prompting online discussion on social media site Weibo.
At first, the situation might seem quite cut-and-dry: an attempt by the Chinese government to stamp out discussion about anything related to the coronavirus that could be damaging for the Communist Party image. There are certainly signs this is happening more broadly in China as part of a propaganda push (via the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal [paywall]).