Analysts say that China is not getting "Pokemon Go" anytime soon because the worldwide phenomenon is closely tied up with Google, something that does not sit well with the Chinese.
China is the second biggest tech market in the world. The mobile game "Pokemon Go" is taking the rest of the world by storm. But "Pokemon Go" is not available in China.
According to the Business Insider, this is all due to Niantic's game being so deeply linked to Google, a company long banned from access in the Middle Kingdom.
The "Pokemon Go" Craze
"Pokemon Go" is still being rolled out to the rest of the world but reports indicate that it is starting to lose the glamour attached to it in nations where it was first introduced.
Even so, the Taiwanese who just started playing the game are literally stampeding to "catch 'em all," per a video posted over YouTube.
Check it out.
According to the Business Insider, the main reason why mobile users in China cannot use "Pokemon Go" is because of the country's virtual protector-slash-restrictor, the "Great Firewall."
Despite this, there is reason to believe that the Chinese mobile game players actually want to play the game based on a survey conducted by BI with the help of Niko Partners.
"Within a couple of days we had 350 respondents. Of those, more than 60 percent said they know of the game. In addition, 48 percent said they have tried to play the official game via convoluted efforts. Only 11 percent of the 350 said they were able to play, and 37 percent said they were not able to despite their efforts," it stated.
Why "Pokemon Go" Cannot Be Played in China
During an email exchange with the Business Insider, Niko Partners Chinese games industry analyst Daniel Ahmad revealed the main reason why "Pokemon Go" will not be rolled out in China.
"'Pokémon Go' relies on Google Services for the game to run correctly. The game itself uses Google Maps as the game world and all the various Pokéstops/Gyms are stored in Google servers," he wrote.
Ahmad is referring to the feature in the game which brings the fictional pocket monsters from the Nintendo franchise "Pokemon" into the real world via augmented reality.
Players walk or drive around a neighborhood to look for stray Pokemon, visit Pokestops to collect supplies like Pokeballs that are used to capture them, and battle fellow players in Pokemon Gyms to win coins and test their Pokemon's fighting prowess.