The Jordanian government has announced that the country’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) has officially banned PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. According to a report from Jordanian news outlet Roya News, the TRC made the decision to ban the popular battle-royale title after it “received many complaints from a large number of citizens and some concerned authorities about the negative impact of [the] game” and “reviewed the study of the World Health Organization (WHO) which classified PUBG as a violent game that leads to addiction and social isolation.”
As GamesIndustry.biz points out, the existence of any such study is dubious. The TRC may be referring to the WHO’s recent decision to classify Gaming Addiction as a mental illness, though the newly adopted classification does not mention PUBG (or any other game) specifically. Moreover, a TRC official claimed that the ban followed “an in-depth study that confirmed the negative impacts of [the] game on the players of all generations,” though it’s unclear whether this refers to the aforementioned mischaracterized study or the TRC’s own. There are apparently further plans to ban six other games, among which is another battle royale favorite, Fortnite.
The wave of bans comes in the wake of numerous similar bannings throughout the Middle East and South Asia: Iraq has banned Fortnite and PUBG, Nepal has banned PUBG (though the ban was later overturned), League of Legends has been blocked in Iran and Syria, and some regions of India have gone so far as to arrest players for violating their PUBG ban.
