China removes Animal Crossing from sale after game was used for Hong Kong protest messages

After city-wide lockdowns, people in Hong Kong are using Animal Crossing to protest the Chinese government

People are keeping pressure on the Chinese government in Animal Crossing, spreading pro-democracy messages

Nintendo, Twitter/joshuawongcf

Jack Webb @JackWebb9214 April 2020

Players in Animal Crossing: New Horizons have been using the game in China to spread pro-democracy messages and now it's a lot harder to buy in the country.

Two of the largest online retailers, Pinduoduo and Taobao, reportedly stopped stocking New Horizons after some people hosted an online session to specifically protest the Chinese government and spread pro-Hong Kong messages.

New Horizons isn't actually available in China unless you get an imported copy, and much of the entire Switch library isn't available to buy in the country People have found plenty of ways around this barrier, however, by either changing the Switch's eShop country settings and downloading it, or by buying it from small game importers.

Players that have the newest version of the popular Switch game have been taking advantage of the Design app, which allows you to create an image or pattern of whatever you like. In particular, politically sensitive slogans, images and criticisms of chief executive Carrie Lam, and China's president Xi Jinping, were captured from the game and shared on social media.

By allowing people to decorate their islands with custom designs, Animal Crossing has become a new platform for the Hong Kong democracy protests.

Organised protests have taken place across the game. Joshua Wong, secretary-general of the democratic youth movement Demosisto in Hong Kong told US Gamer that Animal Crossing has become the perfect outlet to keep the pressure on the Chinese government following the coronavirus lockdown in the city.

Wong said: "Frankly speaking, without coronavirus, I don't believe HKers would go through such a tremendous effort in decorating their islands to be a protest site".

Thanks to the organised protests taking place in the game, it seems the direct result is that Animal Crossing is no longer available to buy from Chinese retailers such as Taobao or Pinduoduo.

It's unclear whether this restriction on selling the game is because of the government or if shops are just sensitive to the repercussions of selling it.