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Facing censorship of their games at home, developers in China are increasingly looking abroad. (Nikkei Montage / Yuki Kohara)
Industry in focus

No blood, no guts: China's game sector undergoes mass sanitization

Censorship of $36bn industry pushes developers into US, Japan and Southeast Asia

JADA NAGUMO and RURIKA IMAHASHI, Nikkei staff writers | China

TOKYO/HONG KONG -- The Chinese Communist Party has a vision of what it considers "appropriate" entertainment, and blasting online friends in the face with a virtual assault rifle is no longer it.

In the international version of the battle royale game Knives Out, blood splatters when characters are shot and their corpses then lie on the ground. In the Chinese version, however, players see blue pixie dust when characters take bullets, and the bodies then peacefully fade from the screen.

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