After the government of Jordan banned PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds last week, a Jordanian official said he expects a Fortnite ban as well along with five other games. He did not reveal what the other games were, but he emphasized that the ban on these other games is still in planning and that no others have been blocked yet.
Speaking with Jordanian news outlet Roya News, Eng. Mohammad AlWathiq Shaqrah, director of beneficiaries affairs at Jordan’s Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, said that Fortnite is one of the games expected to be banned. The TRC previously stated that it decided on the PUBG ban after it received “many complaints from a large number of citizens” about the game’s negative impact on society. The TRC also claimed to cite a World Health Organization study that classified PUBG as “a violent game that leads to addiction and social isolation” and that children who play such games are more likely to be violent than their peers.
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As GamesIndustry.biz points out, it is unclear if a study classifying PUBG as “a violent game that leads to addiction and social isolation” exists. A 2014 WHO report (via GamesIndustry.biz) does suggest that, “Violent content of videos and online games may have adverse effects on the behaviour of children, adolescents and adults,” though it does not appear to directly connect violent games in particular with addiction or “social isolation.”
The TRC did correctly state that WHO classified video game addiction as a recognized illness in 2018. According to WHO, “gaming disorder” is characterized by a lack of control over the desire to play video games and a prioritization of video games over other daily activities, despite negative consequences.
The TRC also cited the fact that PUBG has previously been banned in four countries — India, Nepal, China, and Iraq — though the Nepalese ban was reversed, according to Indian news outlet News18.
