China Bans Pokemon Go

China says goodbye to Pokémon GO: the game will be prohibited in the most populated country in the world

The title, developed by Niantic, wasn’t having a very good time in the Asian country, but now the struggle will end (literally) thanks to the decision of the Chinese authorities.

The smartphone game’s global influence has been decaying over the last months, but the Pokémon GO’s legacy remains intact and will be used as an inspiration for developers interested in this kind of apps.

The game was one of the most popular mobile products of the last year, to the point that it was able to reach every corner of the planet without too much trouble, and after several months, when everybody thought that the game had no more to tell, China proceeded to declare the game a “threat against geographic security”.

Although this is no surprise to anybody – China has a severe distrust of videogames – this time the negative reaction on the government’s part was born because the security forces were very worried about having an incredible quantity of civilians wandering around the streets searching fictional creatures, which may suppose notable risks of security and logistics.

The authorities were uneasy that these kind of apps send and receive geographic data constantly, and that’s why the Chinese Association of Audiovisual and Digital Publications declared:

Although the game has given a positive example for the growth of the industry, some incidents showed that it posed a threat to the security of geographic, transport and personal information.

It is important to emphasize that this kind of prohibition doesn’t only affect the popular video game famous for its iconic creatures, but also to all the apps that use similar technology (i.g Augmented Reality). This decision may prevent Chinese people to enjoy apps that use the phone’s camera to include unreal elements to the world around us in the future, and sadly they may have to say goodbye to them.

Although the eastern country had shown a little bit more flexibility with video games in the last few years, this experience serves as an excellent reminder that some companies still face serious difficulties in this market – complications that they don’t have in American, European or even Oceanian countries.