China Bans Plague Inc. Amid The Coronavirus Outbreak

Plague Inc., a popular game in which players take on a goal of engineering a superdisease and wiping out the entire world population, has been banned in China.

While this news comes as China is fighting the coronavirus outbreak, the Cyberspace Administration of China did not clarify whether the ban was in any way connected with the spread of COVID-19.

In an official statement, Plague Inc. developer Ndemic Creations states that the authority has deemed that the game "includes content that is illegal in China" and removed it from the China App Store.

It’s not clear to us if this removal is linked to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak that China is facing. However, Plague Inc.’s educational importance has been repeatedly recognised by organisations like the CDC and we are currently working with major global health organisations to determine how we can best support their efforts to contain and control COVID-19.

While the UK studio said that the company is working hard to make the game available to Chinese customers again, it is not clear whether and when the ban could be overturned.

Due to its widespread popularity, Plague Inc. has been often been referenced in memes about the coronavirus outbreak. The game spawned such memes as "escaping to Greenland" due to the island of Greenland being notoriously hard to infect in the game.