"Spiritual opium" is how the Chinese brand video games. After a tightening of the noose around the industry and rules at the start of the school year that limit screen time for teens to three hours a week, Fortnite has announced that it is folding. Three years on and one billion dollars spent, the popular survival game never got regulatory approval, despite the financial backing of Chinese tech giant Tencent. So what is the matter with Fortnite?
More broadly, what is the matter with gaming? Just how addictive is it? And how violent? We ask what happens during all that time spent in the virtual world and what it does to the human brain. In the case of China, are restrictions a response to well-intentioned concern or helicopter parenting in a nation obsessed with good school results? Or is it part of a broader wariness by Chinese authorities – who are conservative by nature – of youth culture in a world that escapes their control?
>> Fortnite inaccessible in China as video game developer pulls plug amid government crackdown
Produced by Charles Wente, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.
