Amidst Coronavirus emergency, everyone’s criticising the Chinese government for its slow reaction to the outbreak and censorship of facts. Now, there’s a speculation on the same government regarding the removal of famous infection simulation game – Plague Inc. from Appstore and other stores within China. This could lead to an added blame to the nation for repressing voices if proved.
A virus-based game?
Plague Inc. is an infection simulation game, that lets players to create a pathogen and spread it across the world. While this seems terrifying, it’s done virtually and with strategies. The game’s intention is to make users create a powerful pathogen and plan this dissemination to win against others.
Suspicious removal
The maker boasts to educate the public about the health affecting diseases and by means of their creation and spreading. Interestingly, it has received many positive critical reviews too. But now, the app’s being pulled off from Apple’s Appstore within China. Further, Xiaomi users to have not found the app in their respective Playstore. But this was available outside China, as usual.
The Chinese government is known to ban almost anything that portrays sensitive political messages. Further, happening of this removal act amidst the Coronavirus outbreak makes it more suspicious regarding censorship.
Aside from being realistic and informative, developers have responded to its sudden increased popularity as,
“Please remember that Plague Inc. is a game, not a scientific model and that the current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people. We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities.”
The game was developed by a UK firm called Ndemic Creations in 2011, and it has surpassed Minecraft in Apple’s US Appstore paid apps popularity rankings in January this year. This happened exactly on the day when Wuhan was declared as the epicentre of virus breakout.
