The Nintendo Switch game, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, has been removed from sale on websites in China, after it was used by Hong Kong activists to spread pro-democracy messages.
The popular island-life simulation game disappeared from China’s eBay-equivalent, Taobao, last week.
The game allows users to decorate their game environment with a pattern creation tool, which some players have used to create politically sensitive images and slogans which they screenshot and share on social media. Some posts related to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and attacked chief executive Carrie Lam, and Chinese president Xi Jinping.
High profile activists, Joshua Wong, last week shared a screenshot on Twitter of his own in-game island with a banner reading “Free Hong Kong, revolution now”.
“For lots of people around the world who play this game, they have to put their ideal life into the game,” said Wong.
“And for Hong Kongers, we have to put our protest movement and our protest sites inside the game.”
It’s unclear whether sales were removed under specific direction from the Chinese government, and there has been no official announcement from authorities. Tech news site, Ping West, said a message was sent to sellers on the Alibaba-owned Taobao late on Thursday, ordering a ban on sales of all Animal Crossing products.
While the game was not officially available in China, many people bought parallel imported consoles from grey market commerce sites like Taobao.
After the game disappeared from Chinese sellers, Wong said users began blaming him.
This is what we do in #AnimalCrossing... maybe it’s why these people are so anxious to go back to the game!! pic.twitter.com/vVeaGq54lv
— Joshua Wong 黃之鋒 😷 (@joshuawongcf) April 10, 2020
Daniel Ahmad, a gaming analyst and writer, said the removal of Animal Crossing from sales sites was “complicated”, but was essentially the enforcement of a 2017 policy.
“Taobao ‘banned’ the sale of imported video game discs and cartridges back in 2017, but this is something that hasn’t really been enforced all that much, only on select games,” he said on Twitter.
“The games where this policy has been enforced in the past usually fall under two criteria. One: The game has content or user generated content that is deemed to be too offensive or violent etc. Two: The game has become very popular and caught the attention of regulators.”
