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Battlefield 4 banned by Chinese government

EA hit with another Battlefield law suit

Despite not being for sale in China, Battlefield 4 has been banned by the Chinese government. The ban extends beyond distributing copies of the game and other related downloads, news reports related to the game are banned, too.

According to translations of the announcement, the government claim the game threatens national security and is a form of cultural invasion.

The ban was issued by the Chinese Ministry of Culture following the release of the China Rising DLC. In it a rogue Chinese military leader, admiral Chang, tries to overthrow the government, along with help from the Russians. The US is brought in and fights against Russia, China, and the followers of Chang.

According to Techie News, the ‘cultural invasion’ claim was first mentioned in state newspaper China Military.

The ban won’t cause a great deal of hassle for EA as they are not selling Battlefield 4 in China. However, it does give the government more power to remove filesharing links to copies of the game.

Let’s hope that the whole national security angle to the ban isn’t because China and Russia are genuinely plotting a clandestine cabal to take down the US and the Ministry of Culture didn’t want it to be discovered via a game. It’d be really annoying to find the paranoid racist conspiracy theorists that have pushed these stories of foreign threat for so long were actually right.