China has been in the news a lot lately, as the video game industry, which was really starting to blow up over there, has been disrupted big time as a result of the government shifting its stance on gaming. At one point, all game licensing was put on hold as the classification body restructured. This resulted in huge stock losses for several companies and Tencent, one of the world’s biggest media companies, starting to reconsider its investment in gaming. Now, another big event has taken place, with China banning the immensely popular streaming platform, Twitch.
Twitch was not only blocked from normal access, but the app was also removed from Apple’s App store in the country. Amazon, Twitch’s owner, has only acknowledged the ban at this time and has not commented further. CNN reached out to the Chinese Cyberspace Administration as well, but has yet to hear back.
China has historically been resistant to outside media companies, especially live-streaming, but Twitch notably rose to popularity when Chinese state media didn’t air major esports events. The ramifications of this could be drastic.
Source: CNN